A popular meme that has recently been doing the rounds on social media platforms asks users if they would burn their academic degrees for $50 million.
Unsurprisingly, a majority of the responders have picked money over their academic qualifications. While the meme was no doubt meant to evoke a few laughs, it also underlines a growing shift away from a rigid outlook which considered academic accomplishments to be the only benchmark of capability. What it also did is raise a question — how necessary are academic degrees, such as an MBA, in professional pursuits, particularly entrepreneurship in today’s fast-evolving, dynamic business environment?
The answer to this question is extremely simple yet very complex. The Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas Alva Edison, was famously self-taught, and at one point of time was even called uneducable and ‘too stupid to learn anything’ by his teachers. But did he let that lack of scholastic achievement keep him from becoming one of America’s greatest inventors with more than 1,093 US patents to his name? The answer, obviously, is that he didn’t. Apple’s co-founder & former CEO Steve Jobs is another example of an entrepreneur who managed to achieve great success despite having dropped out of college. Closer home, names like Rahul Yadav, co-founder and former CEO of Housing.com, have not let the lack of an academic qualification become a hurdle in their pursuit of entrepreneurial aspirations.
Some may now infer that academic qualifications are not a necessity when it comes to becoming an entrepreneur, and they will be partially right… partially, because there is so much more to a business than just a novel idea. Entrepreneurs today have to consider several factors such as growth, scalability, consumer satisfaction, brand positioning, employee retention, networking, logistics, and investments to drive their businesses towards eventual success.
This is what makes academic degrees and specialisations such as an MBA important for aspiring entrepreneurs. Not only does an MBA give them the knowledge they will need to make their businesses a success, but also enables them to implement insights into practical situations.
Edison once employed his biggest rival, Nikola Tesla, who left unsatisfied with the recompense he was being offered. Steve Jobs was forced out of his own company in a long drawn-out power struggle before eventually being restored to Apple. Something similar happened to Rahul Yadav, who was removed from his position at Housing.com after publicly clashing with the investors. Had they been privy to learning that comes with a specialised course such as an MBA, might they have been able to manage their businesses much better? Nobody will know.
But what one does know by being a close observer of India’s tumultuous and very exciting start-up space is that while an MBA degree in no way guarantees success, it certainly adds value to what one already has to offer as an entrepreneur. In my opinion, there’s little doubt that if you have a great idea and are passionate to make it work, you will make it big, no matter what your background may be. But if you have an MBA degree to back you up, you will most certainly have a slight edge, be it when convincing investors to fund your business, at networking events or simply as a great boss.
Guest Author
The author is founder-director of Value360 Communications
