Bedroom entrepreneurs are better off at B-School  

Posted by Dino in , ,

Starting up at in the bedroom could be chaotic ©

Bedroom entrepreneurs may be better off doing their thing at business school. A good B-School can provide all kinds of amenities to help your venture that your bedroom can't. Here are five of them.

(1) As a student, you can make all kinds of requests to companies that might otherwise get rejected. When Akamai started out of MIT, they called up Internet Service Providers and companies such as Yahoo. Because they were MIT, people were willing to talk to them. Because they were students, these companies didn't think these kids were trying to sell them anything. Tom Leighton's talk has the full story on Akamai; the company formation stuff gets interesting from 26mins.

(2) With an MBA from a top B-School, you get the credibility to do all kinds of stuff that might be more difficult to do otherwise. For your startup to get the attention of investors, such as VCs, some people moan that you need an MBA from some elite school with 20 board members who know Jack Welch personally, with an extremely complicated idea that has never been built. Alternatively, you might want to buy a company. Yes, really.

(3) You get something to show for those 2 years in the bedroom. I have several friends working on building businesses. The most successful among them have got a customer or two and can make a living. Others are still prospecting for their first customer, two years after they started (yep, not good). Those guys might have been a little bit better off doing an MBA in the meantime.

(4) You can structure your effort. Starting a business can be an unstructured effort that can seem to go nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Discipline can be difficult, with self-imposed deadlines swooshing by as time drags on. Some business schools provide a structured process for starting a business, providing stage gates and support for building a business. This brings some certainty and enforced momentum to the process. Wharton's VIP is one such process. Northwestern (Kellogg's parent institution) has the interdisciplinary Nuvention program.

(5) You'll meet all sorts of people who could help. Activities such as finding initial customers and getting funding could be made a little bit easier through a referral from an appropriate school professor, a class-mate who has worked at a company you are targeting or any number of other people. Some of these "people who can help" are prolific; just take the example of Stanford computer-science professor David R. Cheriton.

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6 comments

Fin  

D.G.

I think that basic business skills are essential. But, if you have the passion and bravery to start a business from the bedroom, this will be enough to get you started.
Will you succeed or fail? Impossible to tell, but you will have gained contacts and knowledge specific to your business that will prove invaluable.

The collateral gained from your failures will be priceless, you will be wiser, the money you've spent will have been on your business, not others.

I think you sound very Americanized, D.G. You have bought the naive MBA hype, good and proper. There are so many useful resources and successful entrepreneurs willing to assist you in giving time, advice, investment, and connections.

You don't actually have to be at MIT, Stanford etc to get these, and in fact in utilizing these MBA connections you are merely joining the end of an astronomical line of students, all wanting to connect with Sergei Brin. You will wait a long time, a very long time.

As to your colleagues at B-School, many are looking to join the next Google, many others to launch their own venture, and the rest to steal their way to wealth.

In my experience, having an MBA can be useful, but nowhere near as useful as having a great idea, passion and drive. If you need an MBA and B-School network to gain connections and sell your idea, you either simply can't sell, don't believe in your idea enough, or worse, are incredibly risk averse.

There is another that I've already mentioned, that you have bought into the nonsense about MBA value for entrepreneurs. Show me the stats D.G. that MBA's are more successful than self-starters. I know what I know, and it the assumption is merely that.

You come across as being incredibly intuitive and process oriented. A good thinker. As you have managed to secure your place in a well known, well marketed B-School, you also come across as a good doer. You have money. You have the idea, albeit you say you need a student body in order to test that idea.

Aside from the student body, I'm not sure you needed the school at all. I've been in the business of business, Internationally and including the US for 22 years. I'm still successful at what I do. MBA's are generally unemployable for me as they either ask for too much responsibility too soon, or they show little aptitude for leadership and common sense rationale. Your case, in particular, really confuses me.

Let's see what 2011 brings....

3 June 2009 at 15:55
Fin  

D.G.

I think that basic business skills are essential. But, if you have the passion and bravery to start a business from the bedroom, this will be enough to get you started.
Will you succeed or fail? Impossible to tell, but you will have gained contacts and knowledge specific to your business that will prove invaluable.

The collateral gained from your failures will be priceless, you will be wiser, the money you've spent will have been on your business, not others.

I think you sound very Americanized, D.G. You have bought the naive MBA hype, good and proper. There are so many useful resources and successful entrepreneurs willing to assist you in giving time, advice, investment, and connections.

You don't actually have to be at MIT, Stanford etc to get these, and in fact in utilizing these MBA connections you are merely joining the end of an astronomical line of students, all wanting to connect with Sergei Brin. You will wait a long time, a very long time.

As to your colleagues at B-School, many are looking to join the next Google, many others to launch their own venture, and the rest to steal their way to wealth.

In my experience, having an MBA can be useful, but nowhere near as useful as having a great idea, passion and drive. If you need an MBA and B-School network to gain connections and sell your idea, you either simply can't sell, don't believe in your idea enough, or worse, are incredibly risk averse.

There is another that I've already mentioned, that you have bought into the nonsense about MBA value for entrepreneurs. Show me the stats D.G. that MBA's are more successful than self-starters. I know what I know, and it the assumption is merely that.

You come across as being incredibly intuitive and process oriented. A good thinker. As you have managed to secure your place in a well known, well marketed B-School, you also come across as a good doer. You have money. You have the idea, albeit you say you need a student body in order to test that idea.

Aside from the student body, I'm not sure you needed the school at all. I've been in the business of business, Internationally and including the US for 22 years. I'm still successful at what I do. MBA's are generally unemployable for me as they either ask for too much responsibility too soon, or they show little aptitude for leadership and common sense rationale. Your case, in particular, really confuses me.

Let's see what 2011 brings....

3 June 2009 at 15:55
D. G.  

Interesting collection of thoughts, Fin.

Unfortunately, I know a few bedroom entrepreneurs. They don't have jobs. Instead, they are sat in their bedrooms developing their business. And by "developing their business", I'm sure what they really mean is reading TechCrunch. I'm not sure they've developed many useful contacts. Someone elsewhere commented that bedroom entrepreneurs are probably better off in a candy store. It made me laugh, but it might be true. At least there, they'd need to do some selling.

An MBA is what you get out of it. Too many people treat it as a way of getting their ticket punched on their way to banking or consulting. I won't be doing that – I'll certainly have a go at galvanizing the benefits of business school for starting a business. I'm sure it will be difficult.

I'm not sure about the stats for self-starters vs MBAs as entrepreneurs – but I'd have thought being a self-starter is a criteria for getting in. In any case, really the only thing that counts is the data point of me.

I too am looking forward to 2011.

5 June 2009 at 11:46
D. G.  

Interesting collection of thoughts, Fin.

Unfortunately, I know a few bedroom entrepreneurs. They don't have jobs. Instead, they are sat in their bedrooms developing their business. And by "developing their business", I'm sure what they really mean is reading TechCrunch. I'm not sure they've developed many useful contacts. Someone elsewhere commented that bedroom entrepreneurs are probably better off in a candy store. It made me laugh, but it might be true. At least there, they'd need to do some selling.

An MBA is what you get out of it. Too many people treat it as a way of getting their ticket punched on their way to banking or consulting. I won't be doing that – I'll certainly have a go at galvanizing the benefits of business school for starting a business. I'm sure it will be difficult.

I'm not sure about the stats for self-starters vs MBAs as entrepreneurs – but I'd have thought being a self-starter is a criteria for getting in. In any case, really the only thing that counts is the data point of me.

I too am looking forward to 2011.

5 June 2009 at 11:46
Fin  

"really the only thing that counts is the data point of me." Great point D.G.

As to the "started in the bedroom - stayed in the bedroom" people you've known, it must be a generational thing, as I know plenty who made their efforts lead to results - You are talking about "Generation Why" perhaps?

Maybe they really wanted to be bedroom DJ's but had no decks, or vinyl....

Good luck with the needles.

5 June 2009 at 18:35
Fin  

"really the only thing that counts is the data point of me." Great point D.G.

As to the "started in the bedroom - stayed in the bedroom" people you've known, it must be a generational thing, as I know plenty who made their efforts lead to results - You are talking about "Generation Why" perhaps?

Maybe they really wanted to be bedroom DJ's but had no decks, or vinyl....

Good luck with the needles.

5 June 2009 at 18:35

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