Achievements Outweigh Education and Experience
Q: When it comes to succeeding in business, which do you think is more important: education or experience?
-- Regina M.
A: Regina, have you seen the television show, Fear Factor? If you haven't seen it you've probably heard about it. Fear Factor is the show where they put contestants through all sorts of pseudo-death defying feats like bungee jumping off a bridge over a pool of crocodiles and driving a car through a wall of fire (you know, the stuff we did for fun in high school).
The contestant who overcomes their personal fear factor wins the cash and prizes (usually at the cost of their dignity, but I digress).
The highlight of Fear Factor is the eating competition. That's when contestants are invited to partake of all sorts of culinary fare. Yummy stuff like monkey brains, all manner of live bugs and spiders, moose intestines, old fruitcake (the horror!), and my personal favorite, live giant worms. At this point the competition becomes not so much who can overcome their fear actor, but who has the lowest gag reflex.
Your question makes me feel a little like those contestants, Regina, because no matter how I answer I am opening a can of giant worms that I will undoubtedly be forced to eat later.
My highly educated peers will argue that education is much more important than experience, while my highly experienced peers will argue that experience is more important. Either way, it's worms ala carte for me.
Oh well, I've eaten more than my share of crow over the years.
How much worse can worms be?
It's important to understand that the success of an entrepreneur is not measured by how much education he or she has or how many years of experience are under his or her belt. An entrepreneur's success is measured by achievements, not words on a resume.
By definition, an entrepreneur is a risk-taking businessperson: someone who sets up and finances new commercial enterprises to make a profit. Entrepreneurs start businesses. The smart ones then hire MBAs to run them.
Let's start with education. Is a Bachelor's degree or better required to succeed in business? Of course not. An MBA from Harvard might give you a leg up in a job interview, but it certainly doesn't guarantee that you will succeed in business. Nor does it automatically mean that you will be a better business person than someone who didn't finish high school. Knowledge is a good thing - if you know what to do with it.
Perhaps it is the academic environment itself that turns mere mortal nerds into budding entrepreneurs. The late '90s proved that college students with no experience beyond organizing a frat keg party could start businesses that would exceed all expectations.
Many would argue that the key to success for most of these ventures was that the founders (or the VC financing them) were smart enough to know that while they had an abundance of education, they needed experienced managers to really run the show.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin were college students when they started the company that would become Google. They were smart enough to bring in Eric Schmidt to be chairman and CEO when the business took off. Schmidt was the former CEO of Novell and CTO of Sun Microsystems. A PhD, Schmidt is a man of education and experience.
Jerry Yang and David Filo were candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford when they started YAHOO (Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle) in 1994. They brought in Tim Koogle from Motorola to run things shortly thereafter and now the company is led by Terry Semel, who previously spent 24 years running Warner Bros.
Now on to experience. Is experience a prerequisite of business success? Again, not at all. Many experienced entrepreneurs gained their experience in failed businesses, so experience does not instantly translate to success.
So, when it comes to succeeding in business, which is more important: education or experience? While neither is as helpful as a rich relative, here's the answer that will hopefully help me avoid those worms: Both education and experience can play a large part in business success.
The more important question is can you succeed in business without one or the other, or even without both? And the answer to that one is: yes. Can I get ketchup with those worms?
Many successful businesses were started by first time entrepreneurs who never went to college. Natural talent, ambition, drive, determination, and good old dumb luck have fueled many success entrepreneurs, myself included. I don't have a degree (I drove past a college once. It looked hard, so I kept going). Would a degree have helped make my business trek easier? Perhaps.
Then again, I know people with advanced degrees who are flipping burgers at McDonalds. It's good experience, I suppose.
A combination of education and experience (and a variety of other things) is the best recipe for success. As the old saying goes, "There is no better education than that which comes from experience."
In the end, it really doesn't matter how much education, experience, talent, luck or money you have. It's what you do with it that matters.
Here's to your success.
Tim is the founder of DropshipWholesale.net, an online organization dedicated to the success of online and eBay entrepreneurs.
http://www.prosperityandprofits.com
http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.30dayblueprint.com
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Hurricane Katrina, Death, and a Different Type of Entrepreneurship
I've seen terrible images today on the television and internet-bodies of the elderly and infants floating in attics, buildings collapsing, seals washing up in the middle of highways. All I can say is that our thoughts go out to those in New Orleans, Gulfport and surrounding areas in this sad time. We will keep the people who have been hurt or passed away and those who were close to them in our prayers today and in the weeks to come.
Be An Entrepreneurial Artist: Paint A Picture, then Commit It to Canvas
James had an original concept and he needed an investor. He had a compelling business idea that was a sure winner with the right financial backing. James painted a great picture of the vision he had for his business, but there was just one problem: James wanted to be a businessman, when he needed to be an artist.
Financial Issues in Business Startup
A primary inhibitor of business start-up is that few people have the financial cushion to give up a job for the uncertain income of a start-up venture. In a recent survey, about 30% of new business founders identified inadequate funding as their biggest hurdle, and a similar amount said lenders were too conservative. About 15% reported being unable to find investors, and a similar amount claimed a lack of collateral.
The Power Of Personal Environments
I've got to admit, I'm a big fan of comfort. I like it when things in my world are stable and reliable. For example, my home is my sanctuary. I live here, and I work here. I like it to reflect peace, order and beauty, so when a messy remodeling project was underway - like the recent replacement of a water-damaged bathroom ceiling - it affected me. I was stressed and cranky. My husband might not have been quite so generous and called me downright crazed.
Starting Your Business By The Book
I've gotten several questions recently about the legalities of starting a business. So, this week I thought I would address a few of the more common legal issues most new businesses face. But first, let's get the mandatory legal disclaimer out of the way: the advice dispensed by this columnist is probably no better or worse than the advice dispensed by other columnists. Do not take the following advice as gospel or bet the future of your business on any advice given herein by said columnist.
Protect Your ASSets in Business
Many people are starting an online business without a thought about the danger this may pose to their personal assets. The type of protection you need depends upon the nature of your business and the amount of your personal assets.
The 7 Major Reasons Businesses Fail and How to Overcome Them
This year, over 800,000 of the approximately 2,000,000 start
up businesses will fail!
Compensating for Your Entrepreneurial Style-or Lack of Style
I recently took an entrepreneurial quiz which evaluated my answers and informed me I would do best as a hired hand! So why am I a successful home business owner? Because I've learned to fill the holes in my entrepreneurial style, and compensate for my deficiencies.
Entrepreneurship as Your Passion
Entrepreneurship has been my passion for as long as I can commit to memory to learning how to type, and that started in 5th grade! Strangely enough, I wasn't raised around lots of business owners growing up in New Jersey nor surrounded by many business-minded individuals.
Double Your Income Automatically
It is a common known fact that it is far cheaper to keep an existing customer then it is to acquire a new customer. With this fact in mind you need to do everything possible to keep your existing customers happy and find complimentary products to offer your existing customers.
Opportunity Does Not Knock
Q: I'm graduating this year with a degree in business and would like to start my own business rather than get a corporate job. I have a few business ideas, but none of them really gets me excited. Should I just put my business plans on hold and get a job until the right opportunity comes along?
-- Carlton M.
A Dorm Room With A View
As a senior in high school, he paid cash for a BMW with money made by selling newspapers. In 1983, as a college freshman, he sold custom-made PCs and parts out of his dorm room?hiding them behind his roommate's shower curtain whenever Mom and Dad visited. A year later, with just $1,000 in start-up capital, he dropped out of school to focus fully on his expanding business. It took him just eight years to become the youngest CEO ever of a Fortune 500 company.
Customers - Why Should They Buy From You?
There are a whole range of reasons why customers buy a
product or service. They usually buy to solve either real or
perceived problems. They want to move away from pain and
towards pleasure. They want to feel better after having made
the decision to buy a product or service than they did
before.
The Ideal Length of Your Business Plan
How long should a business plan be? A business plan needs to be whatever length is required to excite the investor, prove that management truly understands the market, and detail the execution strategy. From surveys of investor needs, Growthink has found that 15 to 25 pages of text is the optimum length in which to accomplish this. Any more and the time-constrained investor will be forced to skim certain sections of the plan, even if they are generally interested, which could lead them to miss essential elements. Any less and the investor will think that the business has not been fully thought through, or will simply not have enough information to make an investment decision.
7 Lean Marketing Laws For The Inspired Entrepreneur
The following laws will provide guidance on how to act,think and work in a lean way. You can apply these laws toall areas of your life, work and business to get biggerresults from the time you invest.
Use Your Youth To Your Advantage
You should wait until you're older and have more business and real-world experience before starting a business. You should just focus on school for now. Nobody will take you seriously at this age.
Playing Hookey Can Help! A Surprising Secret To Small Business Success!
Would you like to increase your chances of business success by 350%? The good news is that you can!
Salon Marketing Using Wireless Broadband Internet Access
Our client in Chicago did, located right outside downtown too...a right competitive area. Everbody's looking for some kind of edge and we found it for them. Want to hear...the rest of the story.
Getting Rich Isnt a Bad Idea
You've seen plenty of articles claiming to offer you the secret
to getting rich. Some ideas, however, are thin veneers
covering some scheme that often involves multi-level
marketing or a service with questionable intents.
The Myth of Undercapitalization - Six Ways Entrepreneurs Achieve Success in Spite of Start-Up Money
This year more than 17 million people will become entrepreneurs, according to the National Association of Self Employed (NASE). By the end of the year, 8 million of them will return to the corporate world because their entrepreneurial effort did not succeed. Many will say the businesses failed because of insufficient capitalization. Actually under-capitalization is not the cause of failure, but a symptom of a far more serious problem.
|