Can entrepreneurship be taught? Yes. And no.
Entrepreneurship is a mixture between a profession and a set of characteristics. Thus, answering this question can be as hard as the profession itself. It's complicated but feasible.
Overview
You are at a state where you feel a burning urge to do something new. To break new boundaries. You have plenty of new ideas just waiting to form into reality and change the world. You are the next Steve Jobs.
But wait. How do I do it? Where do I start?
Can I learn how to be an entrepreneur?
Well, the answer is complicated since entrepreneurship is divided into two parts:
personal and professional abilities.
All can be taught, but that burning desire and internal motivation that will help you last your treacherous journey.
What to study to become an entrepreneur?
This question depends on your experience and knowledge. Every person can find their niche in the business world. Suppose you are to become a CTO (Chief Technology Officer), and you are aware that the majority of the business and marketing decisions will be taken by other team members. In that case, you can focus on the technological aspects of your startup.
However, every team member must have a basic idea and notion of how a business should run.
So how and where can I find this information?
M.B.A - Masters in Business Administration
Every person in business should have the basic know-how of how the business world runs. Most M.B.A's include micro and macroeconomic courses, financial report analysis, statistics, Excel spreadsheet utilization (power pivot, etc.), public speaking, business language courses, crisis management, and so much more.
These will give you a formal and basic head start into the business world and aid you while writing your Resume when looking for potential investors or job applications.
Product Management Courses
A successful entrepreneur needs to know:
1. How to spot and identify a problem
2. Preform significant and informative market research
3. Come up with a possible innovative solution that will help differentiate his product from his competitors
4. Enlist the assistance of other factors in the company such as developers, designers, marketing, etc.
5. Market the solution to the clients
6. Perform retrospective analysis to make adjustments to his solution
All these are what a product manager does. Other than the fact that a product manager does this in the confinement of a company.
Thus, studying the basics of product management will give you all the practical-boots-on-the-ground, defacto tools you will need to become a successful hands-on entrepreneur.
Tools such as:
- schedule and productibility software (Monday, Trello, etc.)
- Design (Adobe Photoshop, Figma, etc.)
- Prioritization management (Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, etc.)
- And so much more.
Online Content
The amount of excellent and informative content online is immense—more than you can imagine.
This content can be available in various forms of media to suit everyone and every situation.
Blogs. Mine is great, for that matter :)
You can find great writers in various blogs. Content can vary between different aspects. At the end of the day, it all comes up with who you can relate to in terms of content and writing style.
Yet again, I must emphasize - Do Not Listen To Only One Source Of Information. No One Knows The Whole Truth, and what suits one person may not serve you.
Podcasts. Perfect on the go.
This type of content is very informative, engaging, and most importantly, you can consume it during those long commutes to work (car, bike, scooter, etc.) when you can't take your eyes off the road.
Some of the most recommended ones are:
- The Tim Ferriss Show
- How I Built This With Guy Raz
- Startup Stories - Mixergy
- StartUp
- Entrepreneurs On Fire
Check out this great post by Forbes on the subject.
Online Courses
One cannot say online content without mentioning online courses. The business world has long been in the online realm. The recent epidemic expedited this transformation, with most of today's employee training happening on the internet.
You can find whichever content you desire, ranging from business, design, programming, public speaking, and so much more.
Some of the most predominant platforms are:
- Udemy
- Coursera
- edX
- Harvard University - Free online courses
Youtube
This platform has a lot of gems. However, this content is not peer-reviewed, as academics like to call it. Therefore, the information on this mind-blowing open-source, free platform has to be taken with caution. Every other day you hear the calling out of another "fake guru" with millions of followers on social media. At the end of the day, if you consume a lot of content, you'll understand how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Books. Still Very Relevant.
I have an entire blog post on what books you should read, both for the pragmatic and holistic aspects of being an entrepreneur. But in short, the virtues of the written word have been talked about numerous times before. Make sure you read the right books and follow the right writers. The majority of them got their credentials from major book and news outlets before, such as The New York Times, Amazon, etc.
So, What Can't Be Taught?
Being a successful entrepreneur takes more than just knowing how the business works, designing the perfect pitch deck presentation, reaching our target market, etc.
Being an entrepreneur is about thinking outside the box, about interacting with people and understanding the real meaning behind their words and their motives, about knowing how to take countless "no's", understand what you did wrong and try again. These features cannot be taught in a classroom but through endless hands-on attempts.
Conclusion
If you want to truly become a successful entrepreneur, you'll need to consume a massive amount of information and know-how in fields you were unfamiliar with. These hardships will help you understand how truly devoted you are to your dreams. If you find it difficult and give up halfway, this lonely journey to the top might not be the route for you.
You can acquire the basics and literal knowledge. Still, creativity, determination, people skills, and social intelligence (EQ) are things you'll have to learn on your own through countless interactions, attempts, failures, and honest deductive reasoning.
*Background photo by Ales Nesetril on Unsplash
