Your Startup Is a Myth
Make it a good one.
I have conversations with lots of engineering students who want to become technology entrepreneurs. And conversations with lots of venture capital and angel investors that would love for these students to be successful.
You’d think that I’d be positioned to make for some beautiful, lucrative matches, right?
Except I’m not.
Engineering school does little to prepare my students for entrepreneurial ventures because engineering school is all about solving problems and a Startup begins by formulating problems.
I wrote about the reasons why in What Problem Are You Trying to Solve?
Just because engineers are outstanding problem-solvers doesn’t mean they have any skills in problem formulation. In engineering school, we drill our students in problem-solving, but as far as they know these problems come from professors, from worksheets, from politicians, bureaucrats, or middle managers… . And the answers to all the odd numbered problems can be found at the back of the book.
Engineers typically have no idea where problems come from, and it’s my fault. As an engineering instructor, I’ve failed to give my students opportunities to practice problem formulation, because I (like my colleagues) have been so caught up in drilling them on…
