Want to develop a variety of skills — start a small business

One of the biggest regrets that I have in life is that I did not work hard in college. And once I started working, there wasn’t much time to learn stuff other than what was required at the job. I am sure you would have heard at multiple places that you learning should not stop. But for the vast majority it does. The hard working ones continue to learn more and more skills but it is often restricted to their area of core competence. A large number of students that come to me for help (I run an online CAT coaching course) work in one of the IT majors. The main reason they want to do an MBA, other than the obvious financial motivation, is because they want to increase the breadth of their knowledge. That is an opportunity that their jobs don’t provide. While an MBA is one of the ways to do that but not everyone can get an admission into one of the premier B-schools. And if you are not able to get into one of the top B-schools, I don’t think MBA is a good option at all.

So, what other option do you have?

I would suggest that you try your hand at a small business. Please understand I am not talking about trying to build a huge company — not everyone is capable or hard-working or even lucky enough to do that. I am talking about building a small business. If you have a job and you have been working for even 2–3 years, you would have picked up a certain set of skills. If your company is willing to pay you for those skills, there will be people who will be willing to pay for utilizing those skills. If not, there will be people who will be willing to pay you to teach them the skills that you have learnt. Either way, it will definitely make you better at the skills that you currently have. But the most important part is — it will teach you a bunch of other stuff. You will learn about setting things up, sales, marketing, negotiation tactics, and a bunch of other stuff that you can’t even think of right now.

Also, it will be a great career move as well. If you are able to build a small business which generates the same / more amount of money than your job — it would probably become the most important point on your resume. Even if you are not able to build a moderately successful small business, the skills that you would have picked up — will make you a right candidate for a much better managerial position.

So the next time you see a disappointing CAT result, give a serious thought to starting up.