Can You Learn To Be An Entrepreneur?

One of the biggest myths about entrepreneurship is that in order to become a real entrepreneur, you have to be a school leaver or college dropout who unintentionally comes up with a billion-dollar idea.

The world’s most wealthy individuals have seen their fortunes soar to new heights during the COVID era.

All of the people on the rich list are entrepreneurs who struggled their way to the top of the corporate ladder from extremely humble beginnings.

While many strive to achieve the same degree of success as these billionaire business titans, the question of whether entrepreneurship is a skillset that you are born with or can be taught still remains.

History suggests that you can definitely learn how to be an entrepreneur. The big question is, who is the teacher?

You must acquire sufficient knowledge and skills, as well as seek out education from other sources, in order to become a truly successful entrepreneur.

So, how do you go about it? Let’s explore more.

Who is the teacher?

Without a question, the most common quality of great entrepreneurs is a curious mind.

True businesspeople have a curious mind and are eternally seeking to learn as much as they can about their industry, their clients, and the worth of their goods or services.

Curious entrepreneurs learn from other successful people in their field, as much as feasibly possibly, in addition to that of their own experiences.

Skills and knowledge can be acquired in a variety of ways, including through formal schooling, informal on-the-job training, learning by doing (and failing), or any combination of the three.

Education is important though, right?

One of the biggest misconceptions in the world of entrepreneurship is that in order to be a real entrepreneur, you need to be a young college dropout or school leaver who unintentionally discovers a billion-dollar idea.

In reality, the situation is much less glamorous. A startling 95.1% of American company founders surveyed by the Kauffman Foundation in 2009 had a bachelor’s degree, and 47% had a graduate degree or higher.

According to QUT’s 2019/20 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 67% of local entrepreneurs in Australia are graduates of a four-year institution. Of these, 26.4% have undergraduate degrees, 15.2% have postgraduate degrees, and the remaining 9 have certifications in vocational education and training.

Notably, the same survey discovered that Australia scored first among 50 economies for intrapreneurship, which refers to employees who seek out entrepreneurial opportunities for their existing employer.

Forever be a student

It is feasible to learn how to start a business, but there isn’t just one way to do it or one expert who can show you how to succeed.

Since no two people encounter the same challenges or learn the same things, the lessons learned on each person’s path will be unique to the individual.

The same can be said of formal education as well. There are alternatives to studying business, which is a popular choice for many aspiring entrepreneurs and is on the rise—up, as 19% of bachelor degrees awarded in the US from 2017 to 2018 were in this field. Many businesspeople have technical backgrounds and have studied fields like engineering or the medicinal sciences.

But perhaps more crucially, you can acquire knowledge by spending time with those who are more successful than you are.

Being an entrepreneur requires you to be a lifelong learner who constantly seeks out new information from a variety of sources, including other business leaders, organisations, and of course, your own struggles.

If you are starting an entrepreneurial journey, read, investigate, listen, watch, meet, discuss, and, most importantly, take every opportunity to learn, fail and learn even more.