I'm an MBA and I just don't see the value of business schools preparing students for startups. The MBA skillset is only valuable at a certain maturity level.

I'm an MBA and I just don't see the value of business schools preparing students for startups. The MBA skillset is only valuable at a certain maturity level. Before you hit that level focus on engineering/product/sales, not finance and strategy. I don't think MBA programs teach engineering management well and they aren't particularly good at teaching sales. I kind of agree with the old idea that you deduct $1M off the valuation for each MBA a startup has on board. In all honesty, there's just not going to be a lot for an MBA to do at a startup. Now to be clear I'm using the word "startup" in a strict sense meaning a company that's come into existence recently. An 8 year old multi-billion dollar behemoth is not a startup in my book. Think of an MBA as a two year immersion program in the language of the C-suite. If you're just starting out you really don't need to learn that language. Instead focus on product/market fit, good engineering, and sales. Sure, MBA programs claim to teach all those skills - but I just don't think they're good at it. An MBA program is good at teaching you strategy, finance & accounting, and maybe some types of business analytics (if you take those electives). And it's definitely good at teaching you corporate politics (perhaps it's biggest benefit), but you don't need to know corporate politics -just startup politics, which are a different beast altogether.