How we built the curriculum
Crayon MBA covers everything an MBA teaches, plus everything you're expected to know before one, in 24 courses and about 233 lessons. Here's how we decided what goes in.
1. We studied the best programs
We read the published first-year core curricula of six top-ranked business schools (using the Financial Times Global MBA ranking 2026 and the schools' own curriculum pages), and mapped which subjects every one of them requires, and what they expect students to know before they arrive. Every required subject became a course.
2. We started before the MBA
Business schools assume you already know some business math, accounting, statistics and economics, and test it in pre-term or waiver exams. So the first level, Before the MBA, teaches exactly that, from zero.
3. We read the books those programs use
Every lesson is grounded in well-known textbooks and business books, and every lesson lists the books it draws on so you can go deeper. We teach the ideas in our own words, with our own models, stories and cases. We never copy text, figures, cases or problems from any book or course.
4. We rebuilt it so you learn by doing
Every lesson follows the same six steps: a real situation, a model you play with, the proper name for the idea, tasks you solve, a case where you make the decisions, and one thing to use at work on Monday.
The syllabus
Every circle is a course. Colour shows how many of its lessons are open today; dashed circles are still being drawn.
Level 0 Before the MBA
2/6 openWhat schools expect you to know on day one.
Level 1 Keeping score
0/4 openLevel 2 Thinking in numbers
0/3 openLevel 3 Winning in the market
0/3 openLevel 4 Leading people
0/3 openLevel 5 The bigger picture
0/3 openThe books behind the lessons
🏪 P01 How a Business Works (21 books)
- Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Better, Simpler Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021): the value stick
- Josh Kaufman, The Personal MBA (Portfolio, 10th anniversary ed., 2020): value creation and value capture
- Karen Berman & Joe Knight, Financial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, revised ed., 2013): revenue, costs, profit and margins
- Josh Kaufman, The Personal MBA (Portfolio, 10th anniversary ed., 2020): profit margin
- Ray Garrison, Eric Noreen & Peter Brewer, Managerial Accounting (McGraw Hill): cost-volume-profit relationships and break-even
- Karen Berman & Joe Knight, Financial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, revised ed., 2013): fixed and variable costs
- Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur, Business Model Generation (Wiley, 2010)
- Oliver Gassmann, Karolin Frankenberger & Michaela Csik, The Business Model Navigator (FT Publishing, 2014): patterns such as razor and blades, subscription and freemium
- Karen Berman & Joe Knight, Financial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, revised ed., 2013): profit vs cash and working capital
- Verne Harnish, Scaling Up (Gazelles, 2014): the cash conversion cycle
- Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz, Lean Analytics (O'Reilly, 2013): customer lifetime value, acquisition cost and churn
- David Skok, "SaaS Metrics 2.0" (forEntrepreneurs.com): LTV, CAC and months to recover CAC
- Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management (Vintage, reissued 2015): how a company's functions fit together
- Josh Kaufman, The Personal MBA (Portfolio, 10th anniversary ed., 2020): the five parts of every business
- Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson, Venture Deals (Wiley, 4th ed., 2019): pre-money, post-money and dilution
- Josh Kaufman, The Personal MBA (Portfolio, 10th anniversary ed., 2020): ownership and legal structures
- Jonathan Berk & Peter DeMarzo, Corporate Finance (Pearson): debt, equity and who has first claim on a company's cash
- Karen Berman & Joe Knight, Financial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, revised ed., 2013): reading the income statement from revenue to net profit
- Josh Kaufman, The Personal MBA (Portfolio, 10th anniversary ed., 2020): the whole business as one system
- Ray Garrison, Eric Noreen & Peter Brewer, Managerial Accounting (McGraw Hill): cost-volume-profit analysis
- Karen Berman & Joe Knight, Financial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, revised ed., 2013): profit, cash and working capital
🧮 P02 Business Math & Spreadsheets (10 books)
- John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy (Hill and Wang, 1988): why smart people get numbers wrong
- Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics (W. W. Norton, 1954): misleading percentages
- Karen Berman & Joe Knight, Financial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, revised ed., 2013): gross margin
- Ray Garrison, Eric Noreen & Peter Brewer, Managerial Accounting (McGraw Hill): cost-plus pricing and markups
- Richard Brealey, Stewart Myers & Franklin Allen, Principles of Corporate Finance (McGraw Hill): compound interest and growth
- Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money (Harriman House, 2020): why compounding is so hard to feel
- Richard Brealey, Stewart Myers & Franklin Allen, Principles of Corporate Finance (McGraw Hill): compound growth
- Luca Pacioli, Summa de arithmetica (1494): the earliest known written version of the rule of 72
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Statistics (W. W. Norton, 2013): mean, median and misleading summaries
- Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics (W. W. Norton, 1954): the well-chosen average
Important
Crayon MBA is an independent learning site. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any business school, university, ranking organization or author. It is not an accredited institution and does not award degrees, certificates or academic credit: what you get is the knowledge itself.