I have a T-shirt which says, "Trust me, I have an M.B.A". And if I could add anything to that, it would be that it is from a good institute. Now why would I do that? Because in many ways you feel proud to be associated with a good school, to be one among many high performing individuals and also the confidence that comes along thinking you've studied the very best of management education. Education that mostly involved reading Harvard case studies of world renowned companies, their difficult times, their turn around stories, their successes and failures, analyzing and cracking financial numbers and things like that. If you are able to analyse a case well, it gives you a confidence that you are better prepared for similar difficult challenges in your life ahead.
But there are two important fallacies with that approach
1. Situations rarely repeat themselves in exactly the same manner and in the same circumstances or context. There are a hundred other factors that go without getting captured or analyzed in typical case studies. So you will never be fully sure if the situation is exactly similar. Even if it is, there are chances you might have forgotten about the case you read in your MBA class. This is not to say that cases have no relevance in your learning, they broaden your scope of thinking and improve learning, but real life understanding of situation is not as easy.
2. The second most fundamental flaw in cases, and this only applies to an entrepreneur or start-up guy, is that almost all cases teach you to handle complex situations in large, multi-national companies. Situations that become complex because of the scale of the business and operations, amount of resources and money involvement. And as well as you know, this is rarely the case in a start-up. It is more likely to help you if you are working in a management consulting firm. Perhaps that is one reason why these firms insist on picking people with good grades (at least in India).
So if an MBA mind is prepared to handle complex situations, why is that you can't apply these to a start-up? Because at the end of the day, business is all about solving simple problems in life. Think of it, why would anyone pay you for a product or service if you were not solving their basic pain point? (Nobody pays you to over complicate things in their life). Even large companies solve simple problems, its just that their scale makes their operations complex and when big money and resources are involved, you want to be triply sure of analyzing all angles to make sure you aren't making a mistake. A start-up, on the contrary, requires a rather different approach. It requires you to act quickly, make mistakes, learn from them and then move forward. If you are stuck analyzing things, you're probably not acting soon enough.
By all means, I don't think we should be aiming to build a crappy product, its just that you should not be aiming for perfection and complete feature product or service in first go. You should try to capture some early adopters with a crappy product, then iterate to build upon it.
So for all the MBA education has given you, you are probably not fully prepared to be in a start-up. The challenge therefore sometimes becomes more about unlearning than learning new things.
But there are two important fallacies with that approach
1. Situations rarely repeat themselves in exactly the same manner and in the same circumstances or context. There are a hundred other factors that go without getting captured or analyzed in typical case studies. So you will never be fully sure if the situation is exactly similar. Even if it is, there are chances you might have forgotten about the case you read in your MBA class. This is not to say that cases have no relevance in your learning, they broaden your scope of thinking and improve learning, but real life understanding of situation is not as easy.
2. The second most fundamental flaw in cases, and this only applies to an entrepreneur or start-up guy, is that almost all cases teach you to handle complex situations in large, multi-national companies. Situations that become complex because of the scale of the business and operations, amount of resources and money involvement. And as well as you know, this is rarely the case in a start-up. It is more likely to help you if you are working in a management consulting firm. Perhaps that is one reason why these firms insist on picking people with good grades (at least in India).
So if an MBA mind is prepared to handle complex situations, why is that you can't apply these to a start-up? Because at the end of the day, business is all about solving simple problems in life. Think of it, why would anyone pay you for a product or service if you were not solving their basic pain point? (Nobody pays you to over complicate things in their life). Even large companies solve simple problems, its just that their scale makes their operations complex and when big money and resources are involved, you want to be triply sure of analyzing all angles to make sure you aren't making a mistake. A start-up, on the contrary, requires a rather different approach. It requires you to act quickly, make mistakes, learn from them and then move forward. If you are stuck analyzing things, you're probably not acting soon enough.
If you aren't ashamed of your first product, you shipped too late
Reid Hoffman
Don't worry, be crappy
Guy Kawasaki
By all means, I don't think we should be aiming to build a crappy product, its just that you should not be aiming for perfection and complete feature product or service in first go. You should try to capture some early adopters with a crappy product, then iterate to build upon it.
So for all the MBA education has given you, you are probably not fully prepared to be in a start-up. The challenge therefore sometimes becomes more about unlearning than learning new things.
The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
Alvin Toffler
In a time of drastic change, it is the unlearners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists
Eric Hoffer
Well this is not to say, your education doesn't help and that you shouldn't be thinking anything at all. It does prepare you to handle a lot of challenges in an early stage company - negotiation skills, marketing concepts, operations management, some elements of strategy and importantly organizational behavior, which is often a little underrated. But sometimes, it's good to let go, not let that MBA mind of yours think too much and just act because you may be surprised at what may be there to offer.
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