Small Business Basics & Planning

Course Syllabus

Course Description

This course walks you step by step from a business dream to a written plan. You will examine the entrepreneurial mindset and count the cost, choose an idea that fits your gifts and your re-entry realities, research customers, compare business structures, learn the legal basics of registering and protecting a business, estimate startup costs, set simple prices, and explore funding that does not trap you in predatory debt. The course ends with a one-page Lean business plan you can carry home and keep building.

Faith Integration

Scripture honors the woman who “considereth a field, and buyeth it” (Proverbs 31:16). Planning is not a lack of faith; it is faithful stewardship. In this course we commit our plans to the Lord, count the cost honestly, treat customers and lenders with integrity, and remember that a business is one way, not the only way, to serve God and provide for a household.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

1. Describe the mindset, habits, and risks of starting a small business, and count the cost honestly.
2. Choose a business idea that fits personal gifts, skills, and re-entry realities such as low startup cost and home-based or service work.
3. Conduct simple market research to identify customers, needs, and competitors.
4. Compare common business structures (sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, corporation) in general terms and know where to get state-specific answers.
5. Identify the legal basics a new business may need, including an EIN, licenses, permits, and insurance, and where to ask about record-related licensing barriers.
6. Estimate startup and monthly costs and set a simple, fair price.
7. Compare funding options and recognize predatory lending and business scams.
8. Write a one-page Lean business plan and identify free mentoring resources to keep growing.

Course Materials

• This student workbook
• Pen or pencil and a simple calculator
• Printed worksheets (idea inventory, customer interview, startup cost, pricing, and one-page plan)
• Access to approved devices for research where permitted; printed resource packets where devices are restricted

Weekly Schedule

How You Will Be Graded

To pass this course: earn 70% or higher overall and attend at least 80% of sessions.

Classroom Covenant

• We begin and end each session in prayer. Participation in prayer is always welcome, never required.
• What is shared in class stays in class. We protect one another's stories.
• We speak with respect, listen without interrupting, and disagree with grace.
• We come prepared, do our own work, and ask for help when we need it.
• We follow all facility rules. Safety and security come first.
• We believe the best about one another and about what God can do.

Support & Accommodations

If reading, writing, vision, hearing, or any other need makes a part of this course harder, tell your instructor privately. Materials can be read aloud, enlarged, or completed orally. Missed sessions can be made up using the module pages. If you are transferred or released, your completed work stays on record and you can finish online.

Welcome

Welcome to the second course of the Christian Business & Entrepreneurship certificate. This companion walks beside you as you move from a business dream to a written plan. Each week has a reading, five devotions for the days between sessions, and at the end a Quick Guide of planning tools to keep with you after release.

How to Use This Companion

• Read the weekly reading after each class session. It takes about 10 minutes.
• Reflect on the questions. These are for you; you do not have to turn them in.
• Meet with God through the five daily devotions between sessions.
• Keep the Quick Guide at the end to carry home after release.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.— Psalm 119:105 (KJV)