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Ok, having gone to business school I'm somewhat qualified to speak on this. First, I think most biz schools aren't staffed with highly successful businesspeople

Ok, having gone to business school I'm somewhat qualified to speak on this. First, I think most biz schools aren't staffed with highly successful businesspeople. If you are a crazy successful person in business you probably don't become a professor afterward. Business schools are setup more like trade schools to teach marketing, finance, management, and accounting. Those have little to nothing to do with how to create a product, how to get your first customers and so on and so forth. Most business schools presuppose and existing, successful business of some sort. Take away the existing business and most of what they teach is not terribly useful. Also, the best teacher of entrepreneurship is not school at all. It is experience. Starting a company, incorporating, getting customers, building a product, hiring workers all seems impossibly hard and confusing at first until you get some practice. Starting a business isn't hard, but it's a much different experience than being an office manager or accountant at a fortune 500. I learned more starting my first company about how a business should be run than I ever did sitting in classes. There is no class that can teach you how to start a business unless it actually forces you to start a business. Running a business should be taught like an art school or a culinary school - by doing. Try learning how to cook by just reading recipes or watching cooking shows, but never actually cooking a dish by yourself. Sounds absurd right? Ok, try learning how to start and operate a successful business without ever actually starting or running a business. That is what business schools do and that is why they fail.

danteembermage 15y ago
Is it hopeless? What if we presuppose that business schools are going to try, what's the best they could do? I know I'm hijacking the thread here but I'm in the middle of struggling with this exact thing (teaching an entrepreneurship class to MBA students) so any constructive advice would be really helpful. What about an Entrepreneurship class having an assigned lab for example?
- bjelkeman-again 15y ago
  How long is the class? I would suggest that the mechanics of setting up a company is mostly a list of things to follow: incorporation, taxes, shares, contracts etc. some with branches that needs to be followed. But it is something you only do a limited amount of times (I have done half a dozen). The key thing, I think, is to teach how to create great teams. It is your core team which defines your future. Maybe you want to look at going through an abbreviated version of Steve Blank’s “Four steps to Ephiphany” as well.
rdl 15y ago
From what I've seen, Stanford (and maybe Harvard) are kind of in a different league here -- people actually do go teach there after a successful business career (and not even at retirement; some do it in their late 30s/40s/50s). They also do a bit more than act as trade schools to teach skills. There's the huge networking value (only worthwhile at GSB, HSB, (+maybe MIT Sloan or UPenn Wharton for very specific disciplines too)), and they do teach some useful information beyond technical skills. They are still probably not the best opportunity cost weighted use of time for most people (unless you want to work in the highest levels of large companies or government), but they might have some net positive value; lesser MBA programs have negative value. Getting an employer-funded MBA while living through a 2y lockup period after M&A does seem like a great choice though :)
- soci 15y ago
  Agreed, top business schools should and do have successful business professionals as professors. Of course there are entrepreneurship classes, but are taught by real entrepreneurs.
spodek 15y ago
I went to business school, took entrepreneurship classes, and the business I started is profitable and has been operating for over a decade. I feel somewhat qualified to speak on this. When my friends and I decided to start a business based on my idea, I was finishing my PhD in physics and had no idea how to run a business -- no knowledge of accounting, management, marketing... I didn't know the difference between debt and equity. I took classes at the business school of my university. It gave me the quick and dirty knowledge I needed to get it started. Among the classes I took in entrepreneurship at business school, I wrote my first business plan, learned breakeven analysis, spoke to entrepreneurs, got mentors, got connections to investors, employees, patent lawyers, eventual board members, did my first market research, which involved speaking to successful entrepreneurs in my field, I could go on... The resources available to a student at a university are incalculable valuable to someone who knows how to use them. If all you do is sit in class and accept what they tell you, you won't get much out of business school. You probably won't be great at starting a business either. Business school entrepreneurship programs deserve criticism and could do better than they do, but few of the comments on this thread hit them. All fields' best teacher is experience, not just entrepreneurship. School gives a foundation -- no more no less. Everyone in every field learns more in the real world than sitting in classes, or nearly so. That doesn't mean school can't help. To say no class can teach you how to start a business misses what they can do. They can teach you the overall process, connect you to networks that can provide resources like capital, labor, business services, marketing, experienced and connected mentors, prestige, and so on. They can give you perspective on wider business issues beyond start-ups. They can help you understand what happens after the start-up phase. The programs may not be for everyone, but that means they aren't a match for all, not that they have inherent problems. After my business was up and running I went back to finish my MBA -- a decision based on experience and knowledge.

danteembermage 15y ago

Is it hopeless? What if we presuppose that business schools are going to try, what's the best they could do? I know I'm hijacking the thread here but I'm in the middle of struggling with this exact thing (teaching an entrepreneurship class to MBA students) so any constructive advice would be really helpful. What about an Entrepreneurship class having an assigned lab for example?

bjelkeman-again 15y ago
How long is the class? I would suggest that the mechanics of setting up a company is mostly a list of things to follow: incorporation, taxes, shares, contracts etc. some with branches that needs to be followed. But it is something you only do a limited amount of times (I have done half a dozen). The key thing, I think, is to teach how to create great teams. It is your core team which defines your future. Maybe you want to look at going through an abbreviated version of Steve Blank’s “Four steps to Ephiphany” as well.

rdl 15y ago

From what I've seen, Stanford (and maybe Harvard) are kind of in a different league here -- people actually do go teach there after a successful business career (and not even at retirement; some do it in their late 30s/40s/50s). They also do a bit more than act as trade schools to teach skills. There's the huge networking value (only worthwhile at GSB, HSB, (+maybe MIT Sloan or UPenn Wharton for very specific disciplines too)), and they do teach some useful information beyond technical skills. They are still probably not the best opportunity cost weighted use of time for most people (unless you want to work in the highest levels of large companies or government), but they might have some net positive value; lesser MBA programs have negative value. Getting an employer-funded MBA while living through a 2y lockup period after M&A does seem like a great choice though :)

soci 15y ago
Agreed, top business schools should and do have successful business professionals as professors. Of course there are entrepreneurship classes, but are taught by real entrepreneurs.

spodek 15y ago

I went to business school, took entrepreneurship classes, and the business I started is profitable and has been operating for over a decade. I feel somewhat qualified to speak on this. When my friends and I decided to start a business based on my idea, I was finishing my PhD in physics and had no idea how to run a business -- no knowledge of accounting, management, marketing... I didn't know the difference between debt and equity. I took classes at the business school of my university. It gave me the quick and dirty knowledge I needed to get it started. Among the classes I took in entrepreneurship at business school, I wrote my first business plan, learned breakeven analysis, spoke to entrepreneurs, got mentors, got connections to investors, employees, patent lawyers, eventual board members, did my first market research, which involved speaking to successful entrepreneurs in my field, I could go on... The resources available to a student at a university are incalculable valuable to someone who knows how to use them. If all you do is sit in class and accept what they tell you, you won't get much out of business school. You probably won't be great at starting a business either. Business school entrepreneurship programs deserve criticism and could do better than they do, but few of the comments on this thread hit them. All fields' best teacher is experience, not just entrepreneurship. School gives a foundation -- no more no less. Everyone in every field learns more in the real world than sitting in classes, or nearly so. That doesn't mean school can't help. To say no class can teach you how to start a business misses what they can do. They can teach you the overall process, connect you to networks that can provide resources like capital, labor, business services, marketing, experienced and connected mentors, prestige, and so on. They can give you perspective on wider business issues beyond start-ups. They can help you understand what happens after the start-up phase. The programs may not be for everyone, but that means they aren't a match for all, not that they have inherent problems. After my business was up and running I went back to finish my MBA -- a decision based on experience and knowledge.