Stanford

Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Hypes Draper University

Imagine paying $10,000 for a seven-week course to make you a better entrepreneur led by venture capitalists. About 40 students do it each session and they aren't guaranteed a job or even a business plan.

Tim Draper, a venture capitalist and founding partner of both Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, has created Draper University, a kind of entrepreneurial boot camp meant to help students develop their startup, business plan, or just learn about business. The school's president Andrew Tang also runs the DFJ DragonFund.

Draper said that he started the course after investing $1 million in a friend of his daughter's innovative way to run blood tests, after his daughter's friend dropped out of Stanford at 19 to do it.

"Now she's on the Forbes List," he told Press:Here. "I did say she should talk to her parents, too."

While Draper has no plans to invest million in any of his students' ventures, he does set up Draper University as a way for students to become "true entrepreneurs," he said. "(They) become true entrepreneurs and transform themselves and change the world."

The $10,000 price tag is necessary because it's necessary for student to "buy in," Tang said. "We're believers in the capital market," he said.

The seven-week course is based on seven modules of the startup, ranging from vision to evangelism, Tang said. Most students end up with a business plan or applying to startup incubators.

"It's an amazing transformation," Draper said.

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