The Startup MBA

http://venturehacks.com/articles/startup-blogs

by peter123 • 17 years ago

44 13 17 years ago

zokiboy2• 17 years ago

I read 90% listed. Good read. I would suggest one more: http://marketingstartups.com/

teej• 17 years ago

I read a fair number of them too, but it worries me. Between my feed reader, twitter, and HN, I feel like I'm in a startup echo chamber. I need to diversify my knowledge generating assets.

nivi2• 17 years ago

What are you looking for? Let me know and I'll do what I can.

zokiboy2• 17 years ago

Learn to use these resources effectively. It can feel overwhelming. Tip: limit time for feed reading/twitter/HN... if you have a limited time you'll use it better.

chime• 17 years ago

Hate to be negative but reading blogs by accomplished and knowledgeable entrepreneurs does not an MBA make. Please stop devaluing the MBA degree by using it willy-nilly. This would be like linking to authors on arXiv and saying "The Physics PhD."

On the flip side, I think this is a pretty good list though it could use some diversity. One blog I like is http://sivers.org/blog - Derek is a coder at heart but manages a very popular music storefront ( www.cdbaby.com ). Blogs like his may not tell you how to sell your company but will encourage you to keep going, despite all technical difficulties.

Reading what the VCs say is great, but ONLY reading what VCs say is setting yourself up for failure and narrowing down your perspective.

nivi2• 17 years ago

There is a lot to be learned from a lot of "MBA" professors including Drucker, Christensen, Pfeffer, Ackoff, and more. And there are a lot of great graduates of MBA programs.

But the MBA programs have already de-valued themselves into the garbage can. The burden is on MBA programs to prove that they are valuable as these blogs, not the other way around.

ojbyrne• 17 years ago

I like venturehacks (actually a lot) but blogs in general have just as much "de-valued themselves into the garbage can." At least when you are in an MBA program you receive information from different disciplines (HR, Strategy, Operations, etc, etc.) With blogs you first have to get past the fact that the top 20 are just one big echo-chamber.

pg• 17 years ago

I'd say the startup MBA is starting one.

I don't mean that just as a metaphor, either. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it one day starting a company is considered an acceptable educational experience, in the same way an internship or apprenticeship is.

plinkplonk• 17 years ago

"I'd say the startup MBA is starting one".

Extending that principle sideways, a hacker should be someone who has written (and can show) a decent code base. A designer someone who has made some good designs, an entrepreneur someone who has made money running a business , a grad student applicant someone who has a significant research result and so on.

I am sure it sounds very obvious when I write it down like that but I am surprised at how often substitutes are demanded - a CS degree, years of experience, an MBA, GRE/GPA scores.

If I were interviewing a hacker for a startup my only demand would be send me (a url to) some code you wrote and are proud of. The cv can come later (if at all).

netcan• 17 years ago

I would like to hear a great public speaker put that in to the right words.

It seems perfectly natural to hear currently successful people recall the learning experience of running a business early in life. It's seems perfectly natural that if you meet a 21 year old that has been running a business for some time, you will expect future success from them. This is obviously due to the (a)educational value of these activities & (b) what personality traits these suggest (It is usually not because this business is especially successful). You can speculate about which one is dominant, but (a) is unlikely to be insignificant. Already this sounds like a discussion about the value of going to a top Uni.

Like I said, I think a good speaker could take a friendly audience through something like this thought process & come to the conclusions that spending time & money running a business early on is valuable.

But if it comes to making a practical decision based on the above it quickly starts to feel radical. A proactical decision could be to take the time & money it takes to attend University & spend it creating a business. If the educational & associated benefits are similar to a University education, there are two outcomes. (1) The business fails - Education is acquired (2) The business succeeds - Education is acquired + the business can be sold or operated.

The risk doesn't seem that big.

Where I live (Australia) International Undergraduates typical need are: 20k-30k USD * 3-5 years. Students are often from Malaysia, Indonesia, China & India.

60k - 150k buys you a fairly substantial education business experience in these countries. But even some place like England, it is substantial.

In essays, PG implies "risking" about a year and little or nothing out-of-pocket. That is an order of magnitude less "risky" then University typically is.

The logical case is there. What's needed is the emotional resonance. I don't think it applies only to startups in the YC sense.

wheels• 17 years ago

I've said a couple of times that it's the best education investment that I've made yet.

There's the classic, "What if you fail?" question that people tend to ask founders leaving otherwise "good" jobs. One of the local startup old-hands put it well when I was talking with him:

"The value of your startup is unpredictable. The value of your person will certainly increase."

s_baar• 17 years ago

As a not-so-famous blogger once said, the government will give you 200k of debt to go to college, but not to start a business. For some people, one might be more beneficial than the other.

duncanj• 17 years ago

You're right. The government will give you $1500k of debt to start a business. http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/sbaloantopic...

The Startup MBA

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