No need to stop school for a startup dream
There has been a lot of argument for and against stopping school to start a startup. Getting an education has always been prestigious because it opens doors for you, it helps you get a great job, it gives you immediate ‘substance and credibility’ in the eyes of most people you interact with. So why all of a sudden has it started losing it’s prestige and got people wondering if it’s only a waste of time and money after all?
In this generation, some of the most successful people have been men and women who chose to either not go to college at all, or drop out after only a few years. They have been well celebrated in the media and across tech circles: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg come to mind. The success that these two in particular, amongst a slew of others like them have achieved certainly struck a note with many young, aspiring Entrepreneurs. The lure is simple, going to college doesn’t make you successful anymore, if anything it wastes your time, and often times you are playing ‘catch-up’ to those who dropped out earlier. Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems tweeted in favor of this argument when he said “Gates, Ballmer, Jobs all dropped out early, I finished my Harvard/Stanford degrees. I ended up chasing them my entire career. Just saying..” last month.
The honest truth however is that these successful dropouts we always hear about make up about 0.5% of the population that dropped out. No one will come out and say they dropped out to start a company and failed. Even if they did, the media won’t care enough to announce that to you. It’s a “no story”, they will say. No one finds that interesting at all. What is interesting is that 0.5% who beat the odds to quit and were successful. 9/10 startups fail! Education provides a cushioned landing if you end up failing.
In argument for getting an education, it’s noteworthy that the college environment provides a great avenue to start a company because of the people you meet, the connections you make and the already available resource you can tap into for mentorship and seed funding - in the shape of your school’s alumni network. Startups, investors, Co-founders are always looking for the ‘best talent’, so much so that they will merge or buyout other startups just for their staff. Sometimes, or most times actually, an education and the quality of it is what really sets you apart from the crowd.
Agree? Disagree? Let’s discuss it.
