Start a Business: Design Thinking & Entrepreneurship [2025] (Udemy.com)
Now with AI! Learn market research, service design, prototyping, branding, sales, & startup fundraising with Eazl!
Created by: Davis Jones
Last updated November 2025
Our take
Based on the ratings of 2,548 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in November 2025. No course pays to be reviewed.
Davis Jones leads this eight-step launch program from Eazl, a business school, and it runs about 7 hours across 77 lectures. It walks from choosing a target market and interviewing customers to building an MVP, shaping a brand, landing first customers and raising a seed round. It is aimed at first-time founders with a rough idea in hand, and reviewers describe the teaching as clear and practical rather than academic. One Spanish-speaking reviewer says the English is easy to follow.
Praise centers on structure and pace. Reviewers like the step-by-step flow, the concrete examples and tools, and the sense that it works as a rehearsal for a real launch. The rating is 4.2 from 2,548 reviews, with 1,239 five-star and 889 four-star. The complaints are steady, though. Several people call the background music loud and the graphics behind the speaker distracting. Others say much of the material predates 2020 or reads like common knowledge from free articles. One reviewer found some videos long because live web searches are shown in full.
The last update was in November 2025 and added AI material, but the older parts still show. There are no quizzes or assignments, so progress depends on working through your own idea as you go. At 7 hours it is a short pass and a decent roadmap for a beginner. Founders who have already launched something will likely find it thin. One reviewer also reported being logged out and not receiving a certificate.
Pros
- Clear eight-step path from target market to first customers and a seed round
- Real examples, including recorded target market interviews and downloadable resources
- Practical focus on building and testing an MVP instead of dense academic theory
- Short enough at about 7 hours to finish, with a pace reviewers call easy to follow
Cons
- Some reviewers say large parts predate 2020 and feel outdated despite the recent update
- Loud background music and busy graphics behind the speaker annoy several reviewers
- No quizzes or assignments, and some videos run long with live web searches shown in full
The course provides a very practical, step-by-step framework for beginners.
Suits true beginners who bring an idea; experienced founders may find much of it familiar.
What you will learn
- Learn to find specific audiences for your ideas.
- Develop human-centered design skills that enable you to create great products and services.
- Learn how to reduce the risks associated with entrepreneurship by validating your ideas before launching.
- Build a great brand for your new business.
- Learn how to raise a seed funding round no matter where you are in the world.
Course content
11 sections · 77 lectures · 7.4 hours of video 2 articles
- 1Welcome to the 8 Step Business Launch Program 1 free preview3 lectures · 12 min
- 2Startup Step 1: Clarify Your Business Concept and Match it with Target Markets13 lectures · 41 min
- 3Startup Step 2: Perform Target Market Research for Your New Business10 lectures · 1.7 hours
- 4Startup Step 3: Use Your Target Market Research to Design a Better Business6 lectures · 32 min
- 5Startup Step 4: Estimate the Value of this Opportunity and Focus on a Tribe7 lectures · 27 min
- 6Startup Step 5: Build and Test a Prototype of Your Business Concept10 lectures · 1.3 hours
- 7Startup Step 6: Build the Brand, Set a Price, & Engineer the Customer Experience6 lectures · 29 min
- 8Startup Step 7: Get Your First and Second Groups of Customers8 lectures · 34 min
- 9Startup Step 8: Recruit a Lead Advisor and Raise a Seed Round of Funding7 lectures · 41 min
- 10Bonus Section: Extra Lean Branding and Launch-Phase Marketing Tutorials6 lectures · 40 min
- 11Selected Features and Specs of this Course + Content Upgrade Journal 1 free preview1 lecture · 6 min
Who it is for
The instructor says it suits
- This course is perfect for both first-time entrepreneurs who want a clear pathway through launch and for entrepreneurs and freelancers who are already in the game and want a full set of resources to use as you develop your lasting entrepreneurial skills.
What you need before you start
- Bring some idea of what you're going to build... because you're about to bring your idea into the world!
How it compares
Against the other 53 rated Udemy courses in Design Thinking on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.2 out of 5higher than 7% of them
- Reviews2,548#17 of 54 by number of reviews
- Length7.3 hourslonger than 90% of them
- Last updatedNovember 2025earlier than 52% of them
Course Description
-- Nat's Review: "This is the best course on entrepreneurship that I've seen."
8 Steps to Becoming a Successful Business Owner
There’s a lot of fluff and theory about startups, entrepreneurship, and business modeling. You won’t find any of that stuff here. That 8-step journey that we’ve built for you has been crafted through our founding team’s real startup journey and with research from institutions like MIT, Y Combinator, and Stanford. This experience is about lowering your risk, accelerating your journey forward, and inviting you to join a thriving community of like-minded people.
See Real World Examples as You Launch Your Business
Your launch will be supported by real world examples of the business launch tools in this course in action. You’ll have access to multiple target market interview recordings, downloadable support resources, and an inside look at data tracking Eazl’s growth from a concept to a six-figure business in its first year. You’ll also get to choose from three specialization tracks:
Services and Live Experiences
Physical Products
Web Applications and Digital Technologies
Unmatched Video Learning Experience Quality
Anyone who has the willpower to do what it takes to become the boss will love this course. Leveraging our experience as the leading provider of entrepreneurial business education to a community of over 50,000 learners worldwide, we’ve created an unparalleled video-based learning experience for you. This experience is about real stuff involved in entrepreneurship, the power of visual learning, and the thrill of building something awesome. Starting with the first phase of the course, you’ll learn how to select a launch market, collect the research you need to create an offering that people will pay for, and move down the human-centric design path. Then you’ll move to phase two where you’ll design a minimum viable product (MVP)--a very early version of your concept--that you can use to validate your idea before taking it to the public. In phase three you’ll build your first operational version of the business, craft the first iteration of your brand and business story, get your first paying customers, and set yourself up to receive growth capital using a practical method that doesn’t require you to deal with venture capitalists or lawyers. Come rock it with us!
This course features music by Audionautix, Kevin MacLoed, and Chris Zabriskie
Team Eazl would like to thank the following people who underwrote the development of this learning experience:
Platinum Circle Funders: Dundee and Ian Butcher, Bieke and Brian Burwell, and Michele Chaboudy
Gold Circle Funder: Landry Jones
Silver Circle Funders: Christos Angelidakis, Eric Jacobson, Ricardo Pan Neves, David Valentine, Joselyn Quintero, and Mike Steely
Content Upgrade Journal
• Version 1.1 (November 2021): In this upgrade, we've added new content related to finding business ideas that work well online, how to perform market research using the Internet and other tech-enabled researching methods, more prototyping tools, and more content on how to get your business' first customers. Enjoy the update!
• Version 1.2 (January 2022): In this upgrade, we've added professionally-developed English-language subtitles. This will be a great addition for our ESL learners!
• Version 2 (November 2023): In this upgrade, we've added AI prompts for entrepreneurs. You can use these prompts to generate a business plan and develop your early customer profile -- they'll help you reach your goals faster!
Instructor Details
- 4.2 Rating
2,548 Reviews
Davis Jones
Davis Jones is the Chief Learning Officer for Eazl, a business school whose courseware is used by organizations like Tesla®, Harvard, the World Bank, and Lyft® and more than 500,000 students worldwide. Mr. Jones also participated in the Harvard University Graduate School of Education Leaders of Learning.
Mr. Jones began his career in digital education following the publication of Career Hacking™, a learning experience helping people making career transitions. Today, it is the best-selling career management course in the history of the Internet and is integrated into undergraduate and graduate-level programs at the University of San Francisco, EDHEC Business School, Sonoma State University, and many other colleges and universities in the US and abroad. Following the publication of Career Hacking™, Mr. Jones negotiated commissions for Eazl to produce courseware on digital marketing, digital customer service, and multiple other business topics. Today, this courseware is used by organizations in both the private (e.g. Tesla®, PayPal®) and public (e.g. the World Bank) sectors.
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Reviews
By Madhu Bala on 9/5/2026
"The course provides a very practical, step-by-step framework for beginners. I appreciated the focus on real-world application, such as building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and using AI prompts for business planning, rather than just focusing on dense academic theory. The 7-hour runtime made the content digestible and easy to follow."
By Or Grinberg on 3/5/2025
a lot of the content is not up to date. the course need to be taken down and remove all the old content and add AI content that have changed the game. in the description is written 2024, but alot of the content is before 2020.
By Luthfi Afif Riansyah on 11/30/2022
It's such a rehearsal to the actual business that we would create in near future. I have been enjoying the tips and best practises all over the module, although some of the contents might not for all level of expertise. All I can say is get your hands to these courses, I highly recommend them! such an assistance to pursuit your dream as entrepreneur by joining the Eazl!
By Laveena John on 11/15/2020
Really informative and useful. Very appealing
By Alexander Vodopianov on 11/8/2020
great course
By Ahmad Mansi on 10/26/2020
I liked the course. It really gives an guide of what to do, step-by-step.
By Anusree Sreenivashaiah on 10/17/2020
Good and informative course
By Ziv Cohen on 10/16/2020
Amazing presentation
By Daniel Luwum on 10/7/2020
Very practical. I had lost my entrepreneurial spirit. I came to learn more on design thinking and I am now gaining more than I bargained for. Thank you.
By Simba Mwaingeni on 8/19/2020
Excellent course
By Venkatesh Guttikonda on 8/9/2020
Course content is useful for my job role
By Akshay Sapra on 8/5/2020
amazing course work.
Quality Score
No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.
Overall Score : 84 / 100











