Entrepreneurship education helps people develop the skills and attributes required to realize opportunity. It’s not the same thing as the school of hard knocks—or at least, it doesn’t have to be. Coming up with a business model, testing and evaluating a product, and preparing for launch are all experiences that can teach hard lessons, fast. But when they choose to vet their business concept through a program like a venture studio or startup accelerator, entrepreneurs can access these lessons with the safety net of experience and perspective, provided by experienced professionals who have walked the tightrope before.
Goals of Entrepreneurship Education
An entrepreneurship education should prepare business leaders to iterate and innovate. We believe continuous innovation is best achieved through Lean processes. These are processes that motivate businesses to continually identify and improve the value of their product to its customers. Let’s look at the types of things entrepreneurs should be learning so they can continue growing success:
- Employee Empowerment: Entrepreneurs might come up with the ideas and vision for the business, but they can’t achieve it all alone. One important element of the Lean process is that everyone is working together to achieve goals. Entrepreneurs must learn to identify the strengths each employee brings to the tabe, and delegate accordingly so everyone gets a chance to advance the business to rockstar status.
- Critical Analysis: Problem identification is also important in a Lean work environment. Whether it’s changes in your customer’s needs or movements in the economy, critical analysis will help you predict some of what you don’t know you don’t know, and continuously innovate solutions that help you learn and keep bridging the gap.
- Enhanced Individual Competence: You should be learning information that enables you to take calculated risks, practice self-discipline, and even celebrate and rest when you need to. Remember—it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
- Diversity of Perspective: Lastly, an entrepreneurial education must be focused on helping you expand your perspective, not reinforce it. This isn’t just to ensure your business is inclusive, but also to help you as a leader recognize opportunities for diversifying your products or services as your company scales. Without a diverse perspective, you will not be able to realize opportunity…because you will not recognize it as valid when it presents itself.
What are the Advantages of Studying Entrepreneurship?
“Okay,” you might be thinking. “But isn’t entrepreneurship something you just… learn by doing? Why would I ever need to study entrepreneurship when I can just do it?”
Hey, we agree! But at the same time, you would never try to walk a tightrope without a safety net. That is the benefit of working with a venture studio. Refining skills like empathy, teamwork, and problem-solving with expert support and insight equips you to better-respond to real-life situations you might totally bungle if you didn’t have that learning under your belt.
Types of Entrepreneurial Education
In 2006, researcher Paul Hannon identified five distinct types of entrepreneurship educator:
- Guru: These mentors focus closely on the lessons of tradition and expect students to learn repeatable processes that have worked in the past.
- Guide: These mentors focus on the practical real-world applications of teaching, and as such may tailor their lessons depending on each students’ unique circumstances.
- Controller: These mentors focus on controlling the outcomes of education to ensure students achieve as much practical success as possible.
- Helper: These mentors focus on a student’s personal development through experiences, aiming to help them emerge from the program as better-rounded individuals.
- Coordinator: These mentors focus on helping students connect their efforts to the outside community impact, and help students grow their network.
Why choose one when you can have all five? Innovators who choose a venture studio to grow and launch their business get access to well-rounded professionals who know all these approaches are important at different times.
Choose an Entrepreneurship Course Curriculum Developed by Entrepreneurs, for Entrepreneurs
NEXT Studios is a coalition of experienced entrepreneurs and community partners. We help guide each visionary take ideas to products and products to companies. Working with us, you are learning entrepreneurship through education, mentorship, and action.
Venture studios like ours are focused on helping entrepreneurs create and refine ideas by applying the process of innovation. We also want to connect you with startup accelerators, capital investors, and the talent that can help you thrive.
The purpose of entrepreneurship education is for innovators to learn by doing, and learn the skills to keep going. If you’re eager to launch your business through tried and tested processes, we’d love to hear from you. We invite you to get to know us, learn more, and take the next step with NEXT Studios.