With more downtime because of COVID-19, many enterprising individuals are turning the pandemic into a “plan-demic” and launching new businesses or entrepreneurial ventures to keep themselves afloat. 

No matter what your new business endeavors are, here’s a list of the five best online business courses to help entrepreneurs (like you!) be successful.

1. How to Build a Startup

The How to Build a Startup course from Udacity is a free online business class that will teach you the steps to take to build a successful startup. 

In about one month and nine core lessons, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of startups from a business perspective. Business models, customer segments, value propositions, and revenue models are just a few of the topics covered in this course. After taking this course, you will thoroughly understand the customer lifecycle, be able to identify key resources for your startup, and calculate the costs associated with your project.

2. Rapid Prototyping

Most businesses don’t need a fully functioning product to get funding, they just need a prototype to show a proof-of-concept. The Rapid Prototyping course — built by Google and hosted by Udacity — will teach you how to design a prototype for an app in minutes and then iterate on the design to create something beautiful, useful, and sellable. 

In just three weeks and three core lessons, you will learn about all different kinds of prototypes, from low-fidelity prototypes on paper to medium-fidelity prototypes built on software like inVision. In addition to creating the actual prototypes, this course also covers how to conduct and incorporate user research into your designs.

3. Monetization Strategy Course

Starting a business feels great. You have something to devote your time to, something to feel proud of and gain a sense of accomplishment from. But none of that really matters if you don’t turn a profit. Fortunately, the online Monetization Strategy course from Udacity will help you learn how to drive profitable growth for your business.

In just one month (at 10 hours a week), you will learn how to differentiate buyer personas, develop a targeting strategy, build KPIs, and optimize pricing plans based on the market. The course finishes with a project, titled “Priceless Penny,” where you build a monetization model for a post-revenue B2B SaaS business.

4. Become a Digital Marketer

Advertising your business online is key to finding new customers. Udacity’s Digital Marketer Nanodegree program will give you the real-world experience running live marketing campaigns that you need to get your business on the move.

At 10 hours a week, you can build up the resume of skills you need to be a full-fledged digital marketer in as little as three months. This program was designed with input from top professionals at companies like Google, Hootsuite, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and Moz. By the end, you will know how to implement a social media marketing strategy, utilize SEO, work with Google Ads, and optimize your campaigns with Google Analytics.

5. Business Analytics

Once your business is up and running, it’s important to take insights from your customers. There’s so much data to be collected and analyzed that can help you pivot your business to make it even more successful. The Business Analytics Nanodegree program will give you foundational data skills, understand business scenarios, and communicate analytical findings using SQL, Excel, and Tableau.

You will have professional-level skills in business analytics in just three months at 10 hours a week. This program will teach you how to manipulate, analyze, and visualize data in a variety of software programs and use SQL for interacting with databases.

Getting Down to Business

If you find yourself with extra time these days, why not add some new business skills to your resume? These top five online business courses are a great place to start, but if you’re interested in more, check out Udacity’s School of Business. There are Nanodegree programs and online courses that cover everything from artificial intelligence to database languages, like SQL. Enroll today!

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Jennifer Shalamanov
Jennifer Shalamanov
Jennifer is a content writer at Udacity with over 10 years of content creation and marketing communications experience in the tech, e-commerce and online learning spaces. When she’s not working to inform, engage and inspire readers, she’s probably drinking too many lattes and scouring fashion blogs.