Everyone's an entrepreneur these days. It doesn't even matter if you've never run your own business or that the last truly entrepreneurial thing that you did was throw out the garbage without having anyone tell you to do it.
Some people, though, really do deserve the title. Take, for example, Anita Roddick.
Roddick is the founder of the Body Shop - a cosmetics company dedicated to the retail and production of ethical beauty products. From one store in 1976 to nearly 2,000 in 2004, the global chain now serves about 77 million customers worldwide. Slice it any way you like - Roddick's Body Shop is a perfect example of entrepreneurial success.
Recently, though, Roddick wrote a scathing editorial in the Financial Times criticizing business schools for their inability to teach entrepreneurship. If you want to be an entrepreneur, Roddick argued, don't go to business school. Instead, follow her advice and go to her alma mater: "the business school of life."
As Roddick pointed out, "Business schools are controlled by, and obsessed with, the status quo. They encourage you deeper into the world as it is."
An entrepreneur, by contrast, must think outside the system. An entrepreneur cannot be obsessed with the status quo. Ergo, skip business school.
These are sound premises. But the skip-business-school conclusion makes no sense.
"It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If you want to run and manage your own business, you need to understand the tools you need to do that. And going to a business school - especially a good one - gives you that," said Claudio Avendano, a Wharton senior who founded his own high-end men's-suit business and who will soon be opening his first store in Center City.
Not surprisingly, it was a class on entrepreneurship - Management 230 - that helped Avendano put together a business plan for his venture.
To be fair, though, one of the first questions that students asked the Management 230 professor was: Is there even a point to taking this class? Can you really teach me how to be an entrepreneur?
The answer that the professor gave was a flat-out "no." But, he cautioned, taking a class on entrepreneurship will certainly help you become a better entrepreneur if you ever do become one.
Just ask Justin Anderson. The Wharton junior, named one of the top-100 young entrepreneurs by Young Entrepreneur magazine, has started four successful companies so far. Even so, you may find him sitting next to you in class because even he finds value in a business education.
"I don't think that business schools can teach entrepreneurship. But they can teach you how to be a good entrepreneur: how to avoid common mistakes and what questions to ask," Anderson said.
No professor will teach you how to come up with the next Google or the next Body Shop. But they may tell you that, when it comes time to give your investors a slice of the pie, you can offer them non-voting stock so that they get the profits they want without giving up the control you desire to have over your venture. For many entrepreneurs, this is one of the things they wish they had known before they signed a good chunk of their companies away to venture capitalists.
You don't get that kind of knowledge in Roddick's school of life, even though you may find it in the lecture slides of one of your business classes.
Similarly, knowing all the various finance and accounting metrics that Wall Street analysts will use to rip your company to shreds will certainly come in handy - as will the relationships and other business ideas that you may come across during business school. For example, Avendano was able to talk to the CEO of Ralph Lauren through his business-school experience.
"There's a significant skill set you can develop at business school to become a successful entrepreneur. It's also a risk-free opportunity to start a new business," said serial entrepreneur and second-year MBA David Mars.
And that's precisely why business school is a value proposition to so many entrepreneurs: It teaches them how the system works and allows them to experiment within its boundaries - even if it risks making them a part of it. And, unless you're either a beast or a god, you must work within the system to make your business work.
If that's so, then an MBA might not be such a bad idea for an entrepreneur. After all, even if - like Roddick - you hate the system, it's good to know your enemy if you want to beat it.
Cezary Podkul is a College and Wharton fifth-year senior from Franklin Park, Ill. His e-mail address is podkul@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Salad Strikes Back appears on Tuesdays.
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