Two one-semester tracks. Build a venture in the fall, take it to market in the spring — and end each one pitching to industry judges. Take one track or both.
You write the prompt
Help me size the market for a mobile taqueria serving the North Long Beach lunch crowd.
You own the judgment
AI drafts fast and gets things wrong. Learning where it does — and what to do about it — is the whole point.
Choose your track
Each track pairs a business course with an AI course, taught in coordination. Pick one. Or do both and finish the whole pathway.
Track 1 · Fall 2026
MGMT 80
Small Business Entrepreneurship
Find a problem worth solving. Size the market. Build the model.
AI 45
Fundamentals of Generative AI
Prompt it, check it, catch what it gets wrong — on your own venture.
Judged by SBDC advisors and working entrepreneurs.
Track 2 · Spring 2027
MKTG 47
Essentials of Marketing
Position it, price it, and plan how real customers hear about it.
AI 40
Foundations of AI
How these systems work, where they fail, and the ethics of using them.
Judged by marketing professionals. Open to new students too.
Do both tracks —4 courses ·12 units ·2 judged pitches
How a track works
Every checkpoint is a business deliverable you owe the course anyway — done with AI in the workflow, then checked by you.
Weeks 1–2
Size the opportunity with AI, then go find what it got wrong.
Weeks 3–4
Map who else is solving this. Find the gap none of them cover.
Weeks 5–6
Build the financial model. Own every assumption inside it.
Weeks 7–8
Turn the plan into five minutes that hold up under questions.
You get coaching, not just grading. Advisors from LBCC's Small Business Development Center sit in on these sessions and work on your actual project — not a case study.
Two minutes. Not an application, and it commits you to nothing — it puts you on the list for registration steps and a reminder before October 16. Tell us which track you want and we'll send only what's relevant.
What you leave with
01 / Units
Two CSU-transferable courses per track, counting toward Business and CIS credentials. Twelve units if you do both.
02 / Credential
Exam vouchers are covered for eligible students while grant funding lasts.
03 / Portfolio
A business plan and pitch deck you built yourself, with AI in the workflow. The kind of thing that answers "what have you actually done?"
04 / People
SBDC advisors, industry guests, external judges, and a cohort that knows your work.
The pitch events
Every track ends in front of people who do this for a living.
Week of December 7, 2026
SBDC advisors and working entrepreneurs. They've started and advised real businesses, and they ask what an owner would ask.
May 2027
Marketing professionals. A different lens: not just "is this a real business," but "can you reach the people who'd buy it?"
Judged on
Who it's for
No prerequisites. Built for working students — short late-start blocks and a one-semester commitment. Standard LBCC fees apply and existing fee waivers still count; the program itself adds no cost.
Why it's built this way
We started this as one year-long cohort. Students told us during recruitment that they wanted in but wouldn't commit to four courses across two semesters sight unseen.
So we split it. One semester is a commitment you can actually evaluate — and the second track is right there if it works for you.
A Career Technical Education initiative supported by the California Community Colleges Strong Workforce Program