You don’t need an MBA to build a business

I’m a big fan of Robert Craven. He tells it like it really is. Like Luke Johnson, when it comes to advice on entrepreneurial success, his perspective is, in my experience, nailed on. Here is another example, this time focusing on the factors that determine whether a start-up will succeed. Along the way Robert has a dig at business education in general and MBA courses in particular. Well worth a read - and a nice, simple summary for students too.

I love one line in particular;

“Smart-assed, newly qualified, MBA graduates think that their piece of paper qualifies them to be a freelance consultant or to run their own business. Absolute nonsense.”

So true.

It reminded me of a comment I saw on Twitter earlier this week from an ex-business teacher who had set out on her own. One of the biggest shocks, she wrote, was discovering that that theory she had taught in her business studies lessons had proved almost entirely useless when it came to actually setting up and running her first business.

Its no different on MBA courses. I remember my MBA for the fantastic fellow students I met rather than the course content - which was almost wholly irrelevant and taught by dinosaur lecturers with hardly any entrepreneurial DNA.