I haven’t researched this, but I’d bet that the original business schools (and MBA programs) were meant to train/develop business creators, and not just business managers. You’d expect that they’d attract the intelligent, hard-working risk-takers, since these people are forgoing short-term salary, in exchange for training and connections that will likely help them attain longer-term leadership roles and financial rewards.
But it’s my observation from my time at Wharton (and hiring MBAs from Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, etc.) that the majority of MBA prospects are actually some of the most risk-averse people you’d ever find, and the great majority (95%+) will never start a business of any kind, understand little about the difficulty and risks involved, and yet will have strong opinions about how every business should and could be run if they were in charge. Why is this? My hunch is that it’s because MBAs have become a sure thing for that $150k salary at mega corp/consulting firm/investment bank. The host of business school rankings and the like have attracted a new breed of cookie-cutter student. I guess the term ‘business manager’ is right there in the MBA title, but it tells me that there’s room in the market for a new type of school, one that I’ll call the Entrepreneur University.
Here are some suggestions for how the Entrepreneur University / Startup Ninja School would work:
- There’s no accreditation — you’re on your own, startup ninja
- You don’t get a degree when you graduate — instead, you get a business (that you’ve created) and a network of like-minded EU graduates, who will help you succeed
- You’re required to pay for your own degree — no federal loans — go scrape the money together from friends, family, investors (in your future business), or convince the school to give you a scholarship. Get used to fundraising — it’s hard, and you may as well learn about it early on.
- You can graduate whenever you want.
- There’s no set curriculum — you pick and choose the classes you need
- The faculty’s fluid — all teachers have in-practice experience (or are currently running their own business(es)
- The school gets a equity stake in your business
- No need for a career placement office
- No need for grades — fail all you want now, and likely fail later — most exams are actual work-related projects
- Plenty of guest speakers, but we try to avoid pundits — they have to be able to describe how they put their ideas into practice somewhere, and relatively recently
UPDATE – Aaron Goldfeder, of EnergySavvy (acquired by Uplight) pointed out that Wilson Sonsini historically hosted an Entrepreneurs College series each year; the syllabus looks awesome.
I don't think we'd have trouble getting speakers because we'd pay
them! This is all for-profit with equity kickers. They'd clamor to
come back – popular speakers would earn more/bonuses.
Yeah I agree Glenn – there are definitely some hands-on practical
skills. But also things like real world accounting, tactical metrics/
goalsetting, hiring, fundraising, contracts.
What would the 5 things you'd broadly want to learn as a new business
creator?
What were the most useless things you learned at traditional college?
How much of your college education was money poorly invested/spent?
Agreed that most of that $150k should go to the biz (that's an ungodly
sum anyway!) but surely many of thes folks would benefit from some
intensive hands-on training.
Plus access to the formal supportive network would be immensely
helpful for many new business creators, I think.
What could you have learned more quickly/efficiently?
I agree – probably because the the engineering majors are actually
learning the broad new-age trade skills needed. Key could be to make
sure they're getting the other business basics.
Why is it limited to social entrepreneurship? What are it's goals?
Who are it's founders/mission creators?
As a Techstars graduate, I like the approach you're outlining. Here's a few thoughts on how to make it work.
The big challenge is engaging the people you want to be mentors. They're extremely busy and rich, so they need a strong hook. In Techstars, it's the chance to meet and invest a very filtered set of companies in the tech world before they're well-known, and to network with other important people in that world who are acting as mentors. That means you need a focus on a particular industry to attract the right mentors, and you need enough high-quality startups and initial mentors in that area.
Wouldn't you rather people learn computer science — or how to make a pizza if they're starting a pizzeria — than "entrepereneurialism"? I have begun to feel that entrepreneurialism isn't a trade or an avocation that can be learned like law or medicine; it's a stream of luck or temperament that may not benefit much from a classroom setting, even one as unstructured as what you're proposing. So I favor more education around building products rather than around entrepreneurial business skills, particularly since the latter tend to be learned through first-hand experience or one-on-one mentors. Maybe an entrepreneurial apprenticeship would be more useful than a classroom?
Great post Dave. The closest thing to what you are describing is to just start a company (trial by fire). When startup-minded folks ask me if they should get an MBA, I tell them to take that $150K and seed fund their company. When you throw yourself fully in, people jump out of the woodwork to help, and in my experience you can build a higher quality, more relevant network this way than at b-school. Depending on one's learning style, you'll learn more about entreprenurial law, finance and marketing than reading and talking about it. Even if you fail, they'll be no worse off financially than at the end of a 2-year MBA, but you'll have a chance at some upside.
It's very true. All of the business grads I know are doing management work, and most of the engineers and computer science guys are doing their own or working for starters. (and the english grads in advertising / management / recuitment and history in some dead end job =])
There is a school like that in Denmark called Kaos pilot. It runs for 3 years, is focused on facilitation techniques, sustainability and social entrepreneurship and you don't get a degree. http://www.kaospilot.dk/
I think , to respond to Bill's comment earlier, that entrepreneurship is something that's rather hard to teach. As a young child, I actually went through the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) program, and while it taught me some of the basic steps involved in the process of starting your own business, it didn't make one iota of difference in the mindset required to actually go the distance.
It's interesting that you'd make the point about business school students being among some of the most risk-averse people out there. I went to a university that has one of the top business schools in the country right now, and I majored in Philosophy, precisely because I felt that the business students weren't especially inquisitive or creative; thinking outside the box was not their forte.
I am not at a dead-end job. 🙂 I'm working for a startup (founded by a lawyer) and I absolutely love it. And yes, right now, it's a very risky business because we're at the stage where it's only five of us in a room and the road ahead is still unclear. It's also the most exciting stage because the five of us are shaping the future of the company and solving real problems on an everyday basis.
There is such a thing as an "entrepreneurial spirit" and some people have it, others don't. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
Dave,
I know I'm a little late on this one, but one quick thought: If there's one trait that distinguishes entrepreneurs from people who do well in school and are on the MBA/PhD/Goldman Sachs track, it's a strong preference for applied learning vs. learning in the abstract.
A class about contracting and/or negotiation would bore an entrepreneur to tears, UNLESS they were actually in the process of negotiating for an actual contract. Then it's useful.
So maybe you had this in mind, but I agree with previous commenters — the best way is to have this kind of network available after a business is created. So the question then becomes — if the best learning/classes are all on demand, and happen when the entrepreneur needs them, how do you help the efforts of the teachers scale?