CAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP BE TAUGHT?

Entrepreneurship can be stated in the words of Mr. Richard Branson founder of the Virgin
Group, “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over”.
Entrepreneurship is an activity which once was a just an idea. To be a successful entrepreneur
you need to have an idea first, an idea which may not have the liking of others but you have the
confidence in it. Great businesses were just once an idea, if not who could think that food
delivery can be such a great business or renting a car can fetch a great job. All ideas come from
minds that are motivated, but the question arises can entrepreneurship be really taught?

Entrepreneurship is being offered in many renowned institutes as a professional course and at

higher education level, mostly during graduation or post-graduation. Practical skills covered in
many Entrepreneurship courses include identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, creating a
business plan, securing financial backing and coordinating business growth.
Several Entrepreneurship courses are short programs, designed to help entrepreneurs grow their
business. However question arises can a mind be trained to run a business which is just a
concept? Or can a mind be trained when it’s already full of education till the high school level?

If looked into the course of teaching in an entrepreneurship, it is divided into various stages like
generation of ideas, preparing the business plans, setting up the company and generation of
finance, which can still be taught through education. However if we look into the real world
apart from all these certain other skillsets are there for a successful entrepreneur which separates
him from other entrepreneur which can never be taught to any individual. Such skillset comes
from within and are hard to be taught. In words of Steve Jobs, “I am convinced that what about
half of what separates successful entrepreneurs to the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
To add, Robert Kiyoski once said, “Everyone can tell the risk. An entrepreneur can see the
reward.” From the above two lines it is clear that various skills apart from regular taught college
curriculum are required.

You cannot teach a person to remain motivated if he is not self-motivated, or you cannot teach
perseverance to a person who does not believes in it. Some skills like risk taking, motivation,
perseverance, accepting failure, the ability to think different, acceptance of one’s flaws and other
such skills which are imbibed in an entrepreneur cannot be taught by any curriculum. It has to be
self learnt. You cannot teach everything in high school or colleges, some things are well learnt
outside the premises in the real world. Certain technical skills can be still taught to the person
who has the right motivation and direction but mere course can never teach a person how to be
successful as if that would have been the case then we would have seen every other person
becoming a successful entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a risk taker and a doer, which can never
be taught how to do in a confined environment where everyone is sailing in the same boat with
full protection like the same in education institute.

To sum-up, it can be said that to be an entrepreneur you need to have certain skill set which is
embedded in oneself, but with the right direction there may be an upward movement in one’s
growth curve in the long run.