What is Entrepreneur Office Hours?
Entrepreneur Office Hours began as a personal newsletter written by Aaron Dinin, Senior Lecturing Fellow in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship program at Duke University (Duke I&E). It started as a place to share insights from the classroom, research, and real-world entrepreneurial work while covering topics like startups, sales, marketing, fundraising, and navigating uncertainty.
Over time, Aaron began inviting colleagues to contribute, and Entrepreneur Office Hours evolved into a weekly, Duke I&E–supported publication bringing together the perspectives of Duke’s entrepreneurship faculty to serve a broader entrepreneurial audience.
As Duke I&E has grown, so has the range of expertise behind this newsletter. Entrepreneur Office Hours now draws on the collective experience of educators and practitioners who teach and work across customer discovery, strategy, operations, AI, storytelling, leadership, and venture creation. Our goal is to provide grounded, practical insight into how entrepreneurship actually works.
What This Newsletter Is (and Isn’t)
Entrepreneur Office Hours is not about hype, shortcuts, or “overnight success.” It’s about:
Creating value under uncertainty
Testing ideas instead of defending them
Learning faster than conditions change
Making better decisions with imperfect information
Each issue is designed to offer something useful, whether that’s a framework, a reframing, a hard-earned lesson, or a question worth sitting with.
Who It’s For
This newsletter is for founders, operators, students, creators, and professionals who think entrepreneurially, whether they’re building companies, leading teams, or navigating complex careers.
You don’t need to be affiliated with Duke to read Entrepreneur Office Hours. In fact, that’s why we make this. We enjoy having a way of sharing our commitment to evidence, curiosity, experimentation, and thoughtful reflection with the entrepreneurial community beyond Duke.
At its core, Entrepreneur Office Hours is what its name suggests: an ongoing conversation about entrepreneurship, led by people who spend their days teaching it, studying it, and practicing it, and we’re excited to have you thinking alongside us.
-The Duke I&E Team
