I just returned from IIM-A after talking to students on ” Is a Startup right for them” and “Investors & Business Plans”. Beerud , CTO of Webaroo and earlier founder of e-Lance was also there and spoke on ” Start up: What it takes”.
IIM – A is thinking of having a business plan competition with a difference where few shortlisted firms would present to a panel of seed stage investors and try and close a seed round. Sounds like a good idea. Let them know what you think. The organizers of the “Entre” club read venturewoods.
Reflecting as I returned ( lot of time to reflect as my flight was delayed) I felt that the time may be right for IIM – A and other management institutes to do a one year entrepreneurship course which gives a certification like an MBA. A large component would be getting your business of the ground. Comments ?
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NirmaLabs is running a similar programme. They provide angel funding and support, but also mandatory classroom lectures. Infact, I briefly looked at their programme a couple of months ago when I was starting out on my venture. But the opportunity cost of attending a classroom seemed just too much – infact I called up their office and asked if it would be ok if i did not attend classrooms – the receptionist thought i was too audacious to ask such a question …i havent heard from her since.
My very personal opinion is that a classroom is the biggest waste of time. It is an artificial construct, which was made for puposes of imparting education in a factory manner – its basis lies more on the economics of imparting education rather than its efficacy – The problem is that entrepreneurs need different informaiton at different points of time, and they need to use different methods to acquire the same – read books/blogs for some, talk to people for the rest.
Also different people process information at different rates, some can get more information from a book at half the time spend listening to a lecture…others might want to dig an info byte much deeper before moving on. An assembly line is good only for cars, because they are all the same. For people, organizations and entrepreneurs everyone needs to find their own way and at their own speed.
Entrepreneurs need support, monetary and otherwise – and need to hit the ground running .. a classroom is definitely not the way to go.
In summary, my very personal, biased, subjective and unqualified opinion – NirmaLabs has got it all wrong, and YC has hit the nail directly on its head.
Link to IIMB course – http://www.nsrcel.org/asp/MPEFB/home.htm
Now this thread has run deep enough, let’s wonder what could be the content and who could be the faculty for such a program…! This could be difficult to design since the students are erudite professionals whose expectations are going to be unrealistically high what with the kind of payout expected of them. There are going to be obvious comparisons too. The grandstanding that precedes it would trigger a violent rearguard if it doesn’t match up.
SP Jain Institute launched a four months program called “start your business program” just in line with what is being discussed. I went and spoke to the students in a two hour long session that focussed on entrepreneurial way of thinking. While the students there are a mix bag, what remains of concern is their readyness to face up with opportunities like networking, quick pitches,alliances to get their projects going. I still think SP Jain’s name as good B’School got the students rather than pressing need for the enterpreneurial learnings.
I have mentioned once earlier as well, B’Schools are for students where as need for enterpreneurial education exists in the section of professionals who are almost businessmen, in a hurry, half ready, risk friendly and too smart to pay some huge fee.
Harvard’s owner manager program costs over 10 Lakh per year and runs for 3 years. For sure it is for stage II Owners/ Managers and offers great networking through admission to HBS alumni. Such a program would make no sense to start up enterpreneur. I am not sure if top B’ schools would like to teach enterpreneurship as separate focus if it doesn’t get them good money.
I today find Baristas to be more of enterpreneurial hotbeds than some B’School canteen. May be small mentoring units in few cities wherein each unit comprises of full faculty (4 can be enough) can do a better job. Barista can continue as classroom & canteen in one. Distributed learning is the key, enterpreneurs won’t have time for full time classrooms.
I am incubating a few initiatives in HR space and would be open to one such 4 member team to facilitate start up action in Mumbai.
It is interesting that you guys think that entrepreneurship is about risk taking – diving in and doing something. It is much more about mimimizing risk. Hitting the ground running will most often result in 3-4 yrs of hard work that results in zilch.
And as for being an intern in a startup – there are very few startups that do take interns and when they do the interns usually learn nothing as no one has any time to mentor them.
No education will give you the wepons for success, but done right it will give you a framework to work with. In fact that is what all you angels are doing.
If there was a good program, and a first time entrepreneur went through it, he would increase his odds for success significantly. Rather pay for a year of schooling than suffer the hard knocks of a failed startup.