Is an MBA Valuable for Entrepreneurs?
One doesn't often link MBAs with entrepreneurship; in fact, there are numerous entrepreneurs who will tell you they succeeded without the degree. But today's MBA programs are different from those of the past. You can now choose to major in entrepreneurship as you pursue your degree.
Do today's entrepreneurs find the degree useful? Randolph Gray, founder of Innovus Designs, certainly does. After seeing sunbathers at the beach lamenting their dead cell phones, laptops and battery packs, he came up with the idea of a solar-powered bag that can recharge all those items. While his business grows he has decided to complete the MBA degree he had put on hold to launch his company.
"While I'm taking the classes, I can apply what I'm learning directly to this business as it's formulating at such a young stage," he told MBApodcaster.com. He found the marketing classes "very enlightening" and "very timely," as they helped him create a marketing strategy and PR campaign for his initial products. The MBA also "helps when we're discussing any kind of business contract negotiation," he said.
Emily McHugh, founder of Casauri, which produces fashionable laptop carrying cases, decided to start her own company while taking an entrepreneurship class during her MBA program. Although the degree "is not a prerequisite to becoming an entrepreneur," she wrote in USA Today, and it won't "guarantee or improve your chances for success," it did "remove some of the uncertainty of the business landscape" and helps entrepreneurs "develop confidence to overcome the impossible, and build stamina and endurance to persist in the face of uncertainty."
The two most valuable concepts McHugh learned in business school were valuation and negotiation. "As entrepreneurs, we have to constantly determine value," she wrote, and "entrepreneurship requires endless negotiation."
