Why I believe an Entrepreneur Should get an Education

What skill set does college teach? Honestly there are very few useful classes maybe financial and managerial accounting, so you know what you're looking at when you're handed a balance sheet. Developing skills =/= book learning.

imallcash:

Growing up I’ve always known one thing, I want to be my own boss one day. I want to be the decision maker, because frankly, I believe in myself more than most of the bosses I have met and/or been employed by (take that with a grain of salt as I’m still “young” and have yet to report to the C-Suite). Why would anyone who has no desire to work for someone else go to school?

1. You need a skill – Or you need a boatload of cash, but then you still need a skill (the skill to identify whom to invest your cash in). Unless you’re Bill Gates, and have personal access to private technology that will eventually become mass market, you need to develop that skill. The very fact that you’re not reading this at 14 years old from your Ferrari tells me you need, have, or are going to go out and acquire a skill.

2. You need to meet people – And you need to prove to those people that you are a hard worker. I read so many “is getting a ______ worth it?.” And these are the people who want the security of a boss telling them to do for the rest of their lives. What does an MBA, CFA, CA, CPA, PhD, etc. tell me about a person? It tells me they had the courage and determination to take a shot. They could have easily gotten reasonable jobs once graduating University, but decided they wanted something more and were willing to put in the time, take the opportunity cost, work for no pay, and take a shot. During these years of “sacrifice” you will meet people, who like you, have sacrificed. You will meet people with the same goals as you, but who think different, they complement your strengths and you theirs. These are the type of people to go into business with.

3. You need to fail – there are no business icons that have yet to fail. However, there are plenty of “entrepreneurs” who haven’t failed. You will find these “entrepreneurs” in Starbucks on their parent-funded laptops ordering $6 drinks on their parents credit cards. It’s easy to always succeed when the bar is set so low you couldn’t even trip on it. I can speak to the majority of CFA Candidates that feel like shit right now because they failed their exams. But you took a shot; You studied, you sacrificed, and you failed. And you will fail at something else again. However, every time you fail you will build the fire inside you to work harder bigger and bigger. It’s not the successes that make a person, it’s how many times they were able to shake off a loss and eventually win.

Entrepeneurship in today's market doesn't require any skills. Rather, the founder just needs to have a vision and then find other co-founders to bring the expertise, whether it be subject matter, technical skills, and sales. It's very weird meeting founders of startups in certain industries where the founder had no experience prior to founding his company in it, but these guys do it and are successful (well a few of them)...

I agree, under-grad gave me the contacts to raise start-up money but if anyone thinks taking Survey of Entrepreneurship 101 is going to give them the blueprint to the next big start-up, they are severly mistaken. I'd say the best thing to do is go out there and FAIL, it will teach you more than anything else. Just don't fail out of school monkeys...

I have been a part of the 20 under 20 family for sometime right now and all I can tell u is that get get schooling mixed up with your education... because if you want to be an entrepreneur ..... the best education is being one.... simple. I worked at a VC this summer and I can tell investors dont give a shit about where you went to college (or if you even did).

I would honestly rather invest in a 15 year old who has created 3 startups 2 failed and 1 pretty successful rather than someone who has a wharton degree and has worked at GE for 5 years........ connections are not the primary issue... as a VC we can bring that.. its about ambition, heart, can they make big-time decisions in quick amounts of time?

As VC's say its all about TEAM but dont mistake that for credibility...its more so can this team bring out the vision (do they have a compotent Hacker, Hustler, Hipster (designer)... not if was an i-banker for 10 years before..

Rather, the founder just needs to have a vision and then find other co-founders to bring the expertise, whether it be subject matter, technical skills, and sales.