Chevron Left
Back to Startup Valuation Methods

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Startup Valuation Methods by Duke University

4.4
stars
679 ratings

About the Course

How do different types of investors think about an investment opportunity? What kind of securities and contracts do they offer? How should a company decide what is a "good deal"? This course is designed to introduce you to the challenges and pitfalls of financing new enterprises. You will learn the basic tools for valuating companies, including using discounted cashflow analysis in Excel and understanding how to apply this model to your entrepreneurial venture. You will then learn how valuation works with different types of securities that investors use to finance startups, from bank loans to venture capital to angel investing....

Top reviews

CK

Apr 30, 2020

The best ever online course one could find. It is worth every single minute spent. Thank you so much for offering this course. And really so happy to complete this course. Much love to the professor.

NB

Mar 2, 2021

Learned lots of new valuation techniques, it was well crafted and smoothly presented by the professors. The tests were also in line with the course and very helpful in understanding the concepts.

Filter by:

126 - 150 of 201 Reviews for Startup Valuation Methods

By Hoang T N N

Nov 6, 2023

excellent

By Ankita P

Jun 21, 2023

Excellent

By HONG L C

Oct 18, 2020

very good

By Nurlan J

Jul 21, 2023

Perfect!

By Victor A D d S

Jul 8, 2020

Great!

By ananda

May 13, 2021

VC valuation methods, financing mechanisms, capital providers and security analysis is fairly unique as far as valuation content goes. The course covers a lot of ground at a high level. The lectures manage to be brief yet informative. That said, there is some room for improvement. For instance, (perhaps because of brevity) the presentation slides gloss over some of the calculations required to build to the correct final solution of a given problem. You either have to know the "missing" steps in advance, reverse engineer them (in excel) or search out for help in the discussion forum. There are also inconsistencies in the significant figures used in the calculations in the slides and the corresponding lecture video content that can cause learners doubt as to the accuracy of their calculations (e.g. Week 3 option pool slides). Here again, you have to go into the discussion forum to confirm this is the case. Lastly, relating to the graded quizzes: this course gives you one chance to pass every 24 hours. This compares to the typical three attempts per 24 hours in most other Coursera courses. Given that these tests typically contain several multistep computational problems (often solved with help of Excel in my case), learners might easily lose momentum if they fail and have to wait 24 hours to work through and/or fix their problems. Though I didn't fail any of the time restricted tests, there were some problems I got wrong and didn't bother to retest where I would have if say I only was timed out for say a few hours. Net/net super helpful course that can be more user friendly with some minor tweaks!

By Ernesto C S

Oct 26, 2021

Muy bueno, aunque a veces un tanto confuso, sobre todo en las preguntas de criterio; que se vieran más problemas numéricos resueltos y una definición mas concreta de todos los Términos Financieros. En general considero que es de mucha utilidad para los que no hemos estudiado carreras de Administración. La traducción al Español requiere de un poco de correcciones. pero en general es de mucha ayuda. Finalmente se debería tener un índice claro del alcance del curso y un resumen de Fórmulas Financieras.

By Jamie F

Nov 24, 2020

Really enjoyed the material in this course - both professors do a great job of conveying the material. The only suggestion for improvement is that the graded quizzes don't offer explanation for why answers are correct or wrong - due to not being able to see the intuition behind an answer after successfully passing a quiz, I felt my understanding of the material was not reinforced as well as it could have been. Otherwise, great course.

By Marieke A W

Jan 23, 2020

Excellent course for people with limited math skills or little experience with startup valuation methods. The professors speak clearly, so they are easy to understand. Some formulas are not explained in detail, which means some quiz exercises are difficult to make. I had to search on Google for a more in-depth explanation of some valuation methods. That's a pity. However, I'm very glad I took this course. Thank you very much!

By بهنام ف م

Feb 8, 2022

All is good. but there is one thing that i think it can make course better than now. Listen, we take exam and pass it but may we still have wrong question that we do not know why. i think if after the passing the exam, show us right answers of quiestions it makes this course best. with best regard By all means you are best and thank you very much.

By Tadashi T

Jun 7, 2020

Un gran curso, sin duda aprendes mucho sobre VC, Ángeles y cómo valorizar el curso. Las semanas 3 y 4 eso sí no tienen la calidad de la 1 y 2. No porque la materia sea mala, sino que no están tan bien explicadas las respuestas y estoy casi seguro que una de las preguntas en los tests es errónea. Sin embargo, vale totalmente la pena este curso.

By Khyzar D

Aug 4, 2021

Thank you to the instructors for their efforts. Being an FP&A professional, I have practical experience of this and I believe it is a well designed course and feel more knowledgeable now but I also observed that few technical concepts and calculation were not explained in much detail, which can be added and improved.

By Hugh L

Jun 29, 2023

Good content, particularly for the first two modules. The last two modules lacked the opportunity to develop and test spreadsheet solutions for the stereotyped problems described. This would have helped confirm understanding, as was done in the first two modules.

By KRITARTH R

Aug 9, 2020

The faculty teachers are engaging and the pedagogy used makes the course easy to understand. The content of the course is also up to mark. However, it would be even more enlightening if a deeper dive into the valuation of startups would have been provided.

By Doan T P

Jun 12, 2021

The course is very good and insightful. I have learnt a lot from the course. However, I hope that there will be solutions for all excercise in the lectures so that I can check my errors. But overall, I really enjoy the course.

By AAYUSH N

Jul 27, 2020

3.5 to 4 stars are good for this course. The content was satisfying how slides used can be more interactive. Sometimes I had to watch the videos twice to actually get what the instructors are saying. But the course was good.

By Ardilla A

Apr 17, 2020

Excellent course! The only downside is I find the second part of this course is a little bit hard and confusing to follow through, therefore I have to repeat the lecture multiple times to understand the material.

By PrashanthKumar

Mar 24, 2020

Really good course design. However, the examples on week 3 could use some more explanation and clear presentation. There should be a follow up on the questions with solution explanation to simplify the concepts.

By Richard O S

Jul 26, 2022

Very good course that brings to life some of the real legal and valuation elements of early stage investing. Could benefit from using more worked examples for som eof the VC valuation questions though.

By Rene L

Apr 18, 2020

NIce Content, well presented. Sometime I wish a bit more details on the calculation and a review on some of the examples given at the end of a week. But a good start for anyone interested in this topic.

By Lucas G

Dec 4, 2021

The instructor communicated the concepts well. However, there is a number of mistakes for the Quiz in Week3. Revisit them and ensure that the answers are provided are accurate, please.

By Paula N

Dec 5, 2020

The first part from Manuel amazin. The second one is not clear, and I had to access a lot the forum for specifics doubts that were not clear during the lessons. Need to improve a lot.

By Julia

Jan 18, 2022

Information was useful, but wish the professors walked through the examples (showed the math on the slide). The math was hard to follow along in the 2nd half of the course!

By Lucas M

Mar 20, 2021

Great course overall, all the information was presented in a comprehensible and capturing way. Nonetheless, more detailled feedback on the quiz solutions would be great.

By Ahmed A

Mar 10, 2020

Course content is very convenient for beginners.

Instructors presented and taught the syllabus effectively and smoothly that made the course very interesting and useful.