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How to come up with killer business ideas: complete workshop (Udemy.com)

Learn how to become a business idea machine with proven strategies and actionable insights

4.6
3,329 reviews

Created by: Evan Kimbrell

Last updated December 2025

Our take

Based on the ratings of 3,329 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in December 2025. No course pays to be reviewed.

Evan Kimbrell's course is 7.1 hours and 78 lectures on how to come up with business ideas, then sort the good ones from the weak ones. Its pitch is that famous companies started with bad ideas, so idea generation is a learnable process, not a flash of genius. The syllabus covers value chain gaps, five types of innovation, problem spotting, business models such as SaaS and pay what you want, and a final evaluation step. It suits curious beginners and aspiring founders best.

Reviewers keep praising the plain explanations and the real company examples. Several call Evan personable and funny, and one mentions good notes for every lecture. Another says they arrived with partial ideas and left with better defined ones. The complaints are mild. A three star reviewer found it a lot to absorb and a little disorganised, said the jokes got tedious, and wanted the worksheets offered digitally. A four star reviewer wanted more depth. Of 3,329 ratings, 1,792 are five stars and 147 are one or two stars.

The content was last updated in December 2025, so the 2015 launch date is less of a worry. Still, this is a brainstorming course. Evaluation and testing gets about 45 minutes, so expect a method for picking ideas, not a full validation toolkit. With 77,676 students and a 4.6 rating, it is a safe starting point for anyone short on ideas. People who generate ideas easily may want something deeper.

Best forAspiring founders stuck at "what should I build?" who want a repeatable brainstorming method.
Skip it ifYou already have an idea and need market research, validation tools or launch steps.

Pros

  • Real company examples make each idea technique easy to follow
  • Evan's relaxed, funny delivery keeps the lectures moving, reviewers say
  • Notes for every lecture plus worksheets and quizzes to practice with
  • Covers both finding ideas and ranking them, including business models

Cons

  • One reviewer wanted more in-depth coverage of some aspects
  • One reviewer found it overwhelming and a bit disorganised
  • Humour grows tedious for some, and worksheets aren't offered digitally
I came in with some ideas/partial projects, walked away with better defined ideas.
Adam McMahon, a student

Listed for all levels. Newcomers get the most from it, and basic business familiarity helps but isn't required.

Featured in our guide: The Best Entrepreneurship Courses on Udemy in 2026

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What you will learn

  • Generate business ideas that are insightful and actionable
  • Understand business dynamics as they relate to idea generation
  • Analyze 4 different sections of the business value chain for potential opportunities
  • Understand the 5 different types of core innovation and how to apply them
  • How to objectively assess their skills, passions, hobbies, & interests
  • Understand the difference between business types and which one to aim for
  • Use common techniques like problem identification to come up with ideas
  • Use advanced techniques like disintermediation, local modifiers, market enablers to craft ideas
  • Understand how to apply new, disruptive business models like Saas, Sharing economy, & PWYW
  • Create business ideas that are not only specific but are complete
  • Quickly evaluate and re-prioritize ideas based off 5 dimensions
  • Understand the value of their ideas and what to focus on first
  • Bring context into their environment and not get discouraged

Course content

10 sections · 78 lectures · 7.1 hours of video 6 quizzes, 13 articles

  1. 1Introduction (18 minutes) 1 free preview3 lectures · 3 min
  2. 2Jumpstart Strategies - Start coming up with ideas right now! 1 free preview8 lectures · 25 min
  3. 3Laying the groundwork (47 minutes) 1 free preview10 lectures · 1 quiz · 1.2 hours
  4. 4Making it fit (59 minutes)15 lectures · 1 quiz · 1.4 hours
  5. 5Ways of coming up with ideas (114 minutes)16 lectures · 1 quiz · 1.5 hours
  6. 6Business models (61 minutes)11 lectures · 1 quiz · 1 hour
  7. 7Evaluate & test (45 minutes)7 lectures · 1 quiz · 45 min
  8. 8Idea advice & commentary (32 minutes)6 lectures · 1 quiz · 32 min
  9. 9Playing with the web app *LIVE*1 lecture · 4 min
  10. 10Bonus Section1 lecture

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • Anyone interested in becoming an Entrepreneur
  • Anyone who wants to become better at creating business ideas
  • Veteran entrepreneurs who want to master the skill of idea generation

What you need before you start

  • Familiarity with basic business concepts is useful, but not necessary

How it compares

Against the other 150 rated Udemy courses in Entrepreneurship on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 70% of them
  • Reviews3,329#9 of 151 by number of reviews
  • Length7.1 hourslonger than 76% of them
  • Last updatedDecember 2025more recently than 71% of them

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Course Description

What do Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, Pinterest, & Instagram have in common - besides being ultra successful businesses?

You probably won’t guess it.

Every single company started with an idea that was TERRIBLE.

Yes, that’s right. Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Andrew Mason, Kevin Systrom all started their businesses not with immediate success, but with immediate failure, ridicule, and frustration.

That’s not the story you heard, right?

You probably heard that they all channeled their unlimited brilliance into crafting the perfect idea. An idea so great, so perfect that it was just a matter of time before their idea took the world by storm.

That’s what most people think. And most people are 100% wrong.

  • Facebook started as a way to compare attractiveness between classmates.

  • Pinterest started as an app that let you get notified when your favorite designer goods went on sale.

  • Groupon started as a website for raising funds for charity.

  • Instagram started as Burbn, the 400th app to let you “check in” at your favorite businesses.

And yes, Twitter started as a website to list and find podcasts.

None of these ideas were brilliant. They weren’t clever. They certainly weren’t insightful. And they certainly weren't "ahead of their time"

But they WERE created by people who supposedly are.

Business ideas are not an art. They're not things that are limited only to those with experience & creative insight.

Anyone can come up with, develop, and improve business ideas. Business ideas that can be life changing - and I guarantee a whole lot better than the first idea of most major companies.

Stop being intimidated by the process of coming up with business ideas. Learn it, master it, and conquer it.

Learn the science behind creating great business ideas.

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Why you should enroll:

  • Over 1,000 students have signed up within the first 12 hours of the course going live!

  • Course includes over 6 hours of high quality content, including activities, worksheets, quizzes, exclusive discounts, and access to an exclusive class only web idea generating web application

  • You'll learn skills that are invaluable in any situation, like being able to assess an ideas marketability, how to spot market inefficiencies, and how to successfully employ brand new, disruptive business models

  • You'll have direct access to the instructor, who has vet over 1,000 ideas as a venture capitalists, and hundreds more as a founder and director of a digital agency

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About the instructor:

Top rated Udemy Instructor with over 30,000 five star reviews.

Teaches 11 different courses on Entrepreneurship, with over 500,000 students enrolled.

All courses by the instructor have are rated an average of 4.97 out of 5 stars.

+ Worked as a VC and was in charge of deal flow in Silicon Valley. Oversaw investments in large companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, & Tesla.

+ Startup founder for 5 years, raised 3 rounds of capital worth several millions of dollars.

+ Currently Director of a Digital Agency that specializes in taking ideas from raw concept all the way to launch.
Read More All Levels All Levels product length iconTime: 7.1h

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Instructor Details

Evan Kimbrell

                  Hi, I'm Evan Kimbrell. Thanks for checking out my course. 

**My courses have been featured in Forbes, CNN, Entrepreneur Magazine, BusinessInsider, BuzzFeed, Mashable, TheNextWeb, The Daily Beast, & Techcrunch**

        Currently, I'm the Founder and Director of Sprintkick, a full-service, referral-only digital agency based out of San Francisco. Over the past four years I've overseen the development and launch of over 100 web and mobile apps. Clients range from two-man bootstrapping startups to multibillion dollar Fortune 100s like Wal-Mart, Dick's Sporting Goods, and GNC. 

Prior to Sprintkick I worked as a VC for a new firm called Juvo Capital, based out of L.A. I spearheaded the firm's expansion into Silicon Valley and into the Consumer Web tech category.

                  In the long long ago, I was a co-founder for an educational software startup called ScholarPRO that raised a ton of money and then spectacularly blew up (in the bad way). Before it exploded like the Death Star, I went through five tech incubators (yes, five): Tech Stars, Excelerate Labs, MassChallenge, Babson Venture Program, and Sparkseed. 

                  Hope you enjoy my courses!

Read More

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Reviews

4.6

3,329 ratings on Udemy

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By Robert Draudvila on 10/1/2020

Really great concepts in here for ideation. If you work in the tech industry sections of this course may seem redundant but overall it paints a great picture of the process.

By Mohamed Nabeel Nawaz on 9/27/2020

Fantastic course!!! I had problem with filtering the idea and how to proceed with it... This course gave me more understand of points that I have to consider before step in.

By Mattias Cook on 9/24/2020

All well explained and broken down in digestible lectures. Good accompanying Notes/Summary

By Jason Mack on 9/22/2020

Whilst there was a lot of information and new things I learned. However I felt that there might have been a bit too much information to take in. The presentation of the content felt a little disorganised, which might have contributed to the feeling of being overwhelmed by it.
It was nice to have some injected humour, but it got a bit tedious after a while.
The format of the exercises (worksheets) didn't really work out for me either. If it could have been offered digitally instead, it might have been more convenient to work with.

By Jason McElhinney on 9/10/2020

Whilst there was a lot of information and new things I learned. However I felt that there might have been a bit too much information to take in. The presentation of the content felt a little disorganised, which might have contributed to the feeling of being overwhelmed by it. It was nice to have some injected humour, but it got a bit tedious after a while. The format of the exercises (worksheets) didn't really work out for me either. If it could have been offered digitally instead, it might have been more convenient to work with.

By Nil Liu on 9/3/2020

Just awesome, interesting and Im really enjoy the course

By Alenka Antolin on 9/3/2020

It's great, it's fun and has very valuable information.

By Andr Filipe Tavares Vieira Dias on 8/26/2020

Well above expectation.

By Alexandre BEAUMONT on 8/26/2020

It's GREAT!!!

By Shannon Dsouza on 7/26/2020

Helped me in finding ideas in every problem.

By Rovi Andi Juremi on 7/22/2020

Very interesting course, explaining several different strategies on how to come up with business ideas. Like many (or maybe all) other courses / books, some may be useful for you and some may not, depending on your situation and preference. But the point is to widen your knowledge and hopefully in the end of the course you would have some ideas. I come up with some myself. Thanks Evan, I enjoyed the course.

By John R Scott on 7/21/2020

Yes it was a good match

Showing 12 of 301 reviews

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Overall Score : 92 / 100

How to come up with killer business ideas: complete workshop
Visit course on Udemy Write a review
  • Video Duration: icon 7.1h
  • Price: $12.99
  • Provider: icon Udemy
  • Updated: icon December 2025
  • Level: All Levels All Levels
  • Language: icon English
  • Certificate: icon Yes
  • Lectures:78 in 10 sections
  • Practice:6 quizzes
  • Students:77,700
  • Subtitles:3 languages
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