Can you go to school to learn how to be an entrepreneur? My Master’s experience
With the recent popularity of startups, various degrees and certifications directed at teaching solely entrepreneurial principles have become more popular. See for example Ryerson, Babson College, and Queen’s University.
Each program makes a variation of the claim that they will teach you to be an entrepreneur. Are these programs worth the time and (large) money investment?
The current state of start-ups
A good friend recently told me: starting a business has never been so easy, but scaling a business has never been so difficult. High competition, skepticism from family friends, and a lack of understanding of what it takes is the new predominant narrative.
Going to Silicon Valley is no longer a requirement in order to run a company. In fact, you don’t even need to have anything to sell anymore, other than your good looks and free e-books. We are in a completely different state of start-up companies than ten years ago, and all you need to start a company is a smartphone and some creativity.
It is worth mentioning what an entrepreneur should be defined as. Anybody running their own business and making enough of a profit from it to live from it should be considered an entrepreneur. Labeling yourself as an entrepreneur on your Instagram page, unfortunately, does not make you one, until your page produces significant revenue.
Going to school for entrepreneurship does not make you an entrepreneur, just like going to school for politics does not make you a politician.
But for many reasons, entrepreneurship has never been more enticing. It offers a way to live on your own terms. However, most people are unsure of the first step they need to take to embark on that path. Unless you’re starting the next Snapchat in your dorm room, or your face isn’t quite attractive enough to garner 1M Instagram followers, there are many questions out there for would-be founders that need answering, and without practical context, it can be difficult to know where to start.
Kick-start your company with a degree
I chose to go the academic route. It’s all I knew growing up. Growing up in a traditional Chinese family, academics are the route to success. Financial security, community status, and job titles are all valued in our culture, whether it is admitted or not.
My undergrad was filled with many questions and little answers. I was an academic dilettante: I was talented at manipulating numbers, I had enough wit to memorize biological functions, and I also enjoyed reading and expressing myself in writing, but I never excelled at one enough to make a career path stand out to me. I needed the right application for my abilities.
The notion of entrepreneurship didn’t scare me as much as it did my peers. My family runs a small business of their own, so I had seen the work it takes to make a company succeed.
I’d worked for small companies before, and each time, I would enjoy the work for a stint, then the monotony of working for somebody else kicked in. Every time, I wondered what it would take to become the boss.
I wanted autonomy. I wanted to feel satisfaction from my work. Waking up on a daily basis knowing somebody gets value from what you are selling is the greatest sense of satisfaction you can find.
More than anything, I wanted something that could scale. I was particularly interested in tech, but I wasn’t ready to enter the world of startups on my own, as I lacked any significant technical ability and I didn’t know anybody in my area interested in starting a company.
From my previous experiences, I knew the importance of gaining a network, so I applied to the Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MEI) program at the Smith School of Business, buying my way into the startup culture at Queen’s.
A year-long crash course
The MEI was a whirlwind. Immersed with others with ideas as grand as mine, I flourished during the course-based portion of the program. The beginning stages were especially exciting: constant ideation, iterating and working with new people every week, depending on what you were interested in at that point.
There was heavy faculty involvement during the early stages, with professors and administration doing their best to help set you up with guidance and connections in your desired field. In retrospect, Queen’s did a great job of giving a graduate level business school experience.
Coursework was a mix of traditional business knowledge combined with entrepreneurially focused assignments. Examples of courses were Venture Finance, Marketing and Selling the New Venture, Design Thinking, Business Law and HR. The assignments were elementary, outside of a few useful applied pieces. Most students in class preferred to focus their energy on the large final project, the entrepreneurial/corporate innovation project.
Things started to get serious very quickly. After the New Year, playing around with ideas was no longer fun. It was time to settle on an idea and work your way through it to see if it could be a viable business. Friendships that were made in the first semester drifted apart, as people focused on their individual or small group projects.
To this day, I have never met a group of people so fiercely dedicated to pursuing their visions. The energy was infectious, and I enjoyed every minute of talking about business opportunities, arguing about what makes a great founder, and what success is defined as. My classmates made the program worth every penny, and there was an amazing sense of community with a desire to help the other 25 delusional people trying to make a big impact on the world.
Having a class full of people from different backgrounds following the same unconventional path as I was eased the psychological burden of starting a company.
This high-intensity stage of the program was packed with adrenaline. A classmate and I were working non-stop on two high-potential projects for two months straight, taking meetings between classes and sending emails during.
I feel like this is when I needed the most guidance from someone who had been through what I was going through, but the fact of the matter is, there was very little.
After the first few months of initial guidance from faculty, there was a conscious effort to be “hands-off” and let the students make their own decisions and mistakes. Several times, my partner and I felt like there was nowhere to turn, as there was nobody in the business school who had started a company in the same field as us.
One of the greatest lessons I learned was that nobody will hold your hand in the world of business.
Now, working in the summer project semester, success or failure is truly in our own hands. I’ve learned more from the practical portion of the MEI than I did from any of the lectures, and I feel like the program was designed with that in mind.
Being a founder takes a lot of hard work and dedication. I’ve felt like jumping ship numerous times, but the satisfaction of knowing my efforts are building something bigger than myself becomes addicting.
Conclusions
In my opinion, you cannot teach entrepreneurship, but you can teach business practices. A degree can put people in a position to succeed, but all of the work behind the curtains can only be learned in applied settings.
I value my degree compared to an MBA because I learned to think outside of the corporate box. MBA’s certainly have their own merit, and there are many MBA’s offering entrepreneurial streams, but you must know what you are looking to get out of your education.
If you are focused on building a company, an MBA is likely cost-prohibitive. An MBA will never be unemployed for long, but more and more companies are looking for the type of innovative thinkers that an entrepreneurial-focused Master’s provides.
If you want a ‘safe’ area to apply relevant skills to building a business, then an entrepreneurial degree is an excellent place to start. Practically speaking, you are the safest when beneath the confines of an academic institution, as there is an obligation to ensure you have the correct tools for success.
Enrolling in a program like the one I chose can accelerate your startup significantly. One of the most valuable assets I gained from my degree was the ability to focus my complete energy on a startup, giving me the confidence to leap into entrepreneurship sooner than I would have otherwise.
If you have the inclination to start a company but are concerned about the risk, then an entrepreneurship program may be right for you.
Take-aways
The three most important things I gained from my Master’s degree were, in no particular order:
- Network of like-minded individuals
- Safety net of a prestigious academic institution
- Ability to focus complete efforts on a company with limited external forces
If you are not in need of at least two of the above assets, then you are better off attempting to start a company on your own, especially considering the steep price of admission. Everyone has their own path to success, and saving the cost of an academic program could be a great first step on your journey.
There are plenty of free resources out there for entrepreneurs if you seek them out. For starters, you can go to your local economic development office or Chamber of Commerce, who are great for regional connections and advice.
If you know that environment is critical to your success, then there is no safer place to begin a company than a campus. Ask yourself critically if the environment you’re currently in will be conducive to long-term success.
If you do choose an entrepreneurial Master’s, come in knowing what type of business you want to start, although it will most likely change. Be open to every experience, and never say no to a potential opportunity.
But no matter what the schools are telling you, there is still no magic formula for success in entrepreneurship.
