Standford University is offering 2 startup-related courses in 2012:

Technology Entrepreneurship (aka "venture-class", from January 2012)

How do you create a successful start-up? What is entrepreneurial leadership in a large firm? What are the differences between an idea and true opportunity? How does an entrepreneur form a team and gather the resources necessary to create a great enterprise? This class mixes in-depth case studies and research on the entrepreneurial process.

Lean Lanchpad (aka "launchpad-class", from February 2012)

You'll learn how to use a business model canvas to brainstorm each part of a company and customer development to get out of the classroom to see whether anyone other than you would want/use your product. Finally, you'll see how agile development can help you rapidly iterate your product to build something customers will use and buy. Each week will be a new adventure as you test each part of your business model.

I recently signed up to these courses along with some entrepreneurially-minded friends, and we felt we would benefit from weekly/fortnightly meetups to discuss course material and share ideas, all in the spirit of learning, networking, and paving the road to self-employment.

• Study groups will be small (4-6 people)
• Meetups will take place in and around central London
• Venues aren't set and can be anywhere from a local pub to a sponsored office space, as long as there is WiFi and access to a good lager
• Like-minded members can form small groups with an aim to learn together in their specific domain
• Groups will preferably apply what they learn to an ongoing project (a start-up!) with an aim to turn it into a profitable business towards the end of the course
• Meetup content will be driven by member-elected group leaders
• I will endeavour to expose the sessions via a G+ Hangout for those who can't physically attend (see G+ link in sidebar)

If you:

• live in London
• want to work for yourself
• don't know much about running a business
• are interested in Stanford U's up-coming startup classes (Please sign up on the respective class sites above!)

...then join this group! :-)