Entrepreneurship can be taught ?

An entrepreneur is a person who takes a concept and controls its implementation. Almost all of us have ideas, but we are unable to put them into practice. The difference lies in the characteristics, skills, knowledge, and experience that the entrepreneur has learnt / acquired throughout his life. 

Life is the biggest teacher and entrepreneurship can be taught in many ways.

Management guru Peter Drucker thought that entrepreneurs were not inherently different from others and that anyone could be an entrepreneur.  He wrote in Innovation and Entrepreneurship that entrepreneurship is a discipline much like management, it had methodologies that could be learned: “Most of what you hear about entrepreneurship is all wrong. It’s not magic; it’s not mysterious; and it has nothing to do with genes. It’s a discipline and, like any discipline, it can be learned.”

There is a Structured – Formal Learning Process –at  Business Schools and from community. I will be sharing with you about the UnStructured – Informal Learning Process – which can be seen @ Home, from friends, relatives, mentors etc. & Learning through failures (which is one of the most important facets practiced by entrepreneurs today – the Fail Fast methodology)

Learning is an integral part of life. It is as important to learn in the initial formative years as is in the later part of life. This is proven by the fact that young children at the age of 6 years were sent to gurukuls for their education in various fields in ancient times. This is the right age where children and their knowledge can be nurtured and they can be exposed to various opportunities in life. This exposure, fosters independent and positive thinking, helps students to identify opportunities, and encourages students to have faith in themselves and their abilities.

The exact thing happened to Tilak Mehta – 

He Belongs to a business family – got exposed to business discussions at dinner table. Discussed his idea with his father who mentored him on his financials, put in the initial seed money and supported on implementation of his idea. Has 200 employees and 300 dabbawalas collaborate with him for deliveries.  He makes 1200 deliveries per day and aspires to do 1 lac deliveries per day in 2 years time. He won the youngest entrepreneur award in the logistics sector @ India Maritime Awards.

The 13 year old boy who started papers and parcels – an app based courier service for same day delivery within Mumbai showed that unless there is a proper support from the system, it may be difficult to manage everything on your own.

We also derived that Life is the biggest teacher and entrepreneurship can be taught in many ways.

This is how we see, EARLY INFLUENCE  means a lot in shaping a child’s career choices. An example of entrepreneurship education for kids is the initiative started by Galit Zamler (Israel based business and social entrepreneur). Started in 2009 The k-12 entrepreneurship program is one of the most successful programs for teaching kids entrepreneurship within a school setting. The program has a children's version (aged 7-12) and a youth version (13+). The sheer growing numbers of the program with dozens of Schools implementing it in Israel and across many countries like - USA, China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea - are only a proof of the value it adds to the children in their lives. 

Similarly, Voluntary organizations like TiE Young Entrepreneurs program, many ed tech startups like MetamorphosisEdu, Kidspreneur, Bornpreneur, are providing experiential learning process to kids which helps kids start their own business in a fun and productive manner. 

Learning From Failure aspect can be well understood from our very own Col Sanders of KFC. Having quit school in 7th standard at the age of 12, he used to work on field. After trying his hands at numerous occupations – selling insurance tyres, lighting systems, Col Sanders started a restaurant while working for a gas station. That also didn’t go on for very long and he approached 1009 restaurants to sell his product ; after which he got his first break and thus started the journey of KFC. At 75 he eventually sold his KFC business because he realized that growing this business was beyond his capacity.

In fact he did an 8 week Hotel Management course from Cornell university to learn how to manage his restaurant business better. He also studied Law from La Salle Extension University eventually. This clearly shows that  Life is the biggest teacher and entrepreneurship can be taught in many ways.

Stories of Kids like Tilak Mehta and entrepreneurs like Col Sanders provide us with proof and motivation that Life is the biggest teacher and entrepreneurship can be taught and learnt from many sources and in many ways - which can be Unstructured too – Like at home and from failures.