We basicly agree. No need for a corp work to be successful in a startup, but gives you valuable background.

Neither having a MBA, by the way. Many people also told me that, without an MBA I did not have the background to be successfull, and it also totally wrong. A couple months I read an article about an MBA professor (dont remember where I gues an spanish business school) that agreed to this. MBAs are for management people working in companies, but not for entrepeneurs, they need a totally different background: beleive in own’s work, great ideas, etc…

Jorge, I never said that working in a big company doesn’t gives you experience. It does, and pretty valuable in many fields.

The problem is when people try to make you think that it’s the ONLY experience that is valuable. I would even dare to say that from a technical perspective, you even learn more in a startup (as you have to do everything yourself and you play multiple roles) than in a big company.

Again, most corporate processes, albeit very useful, can’t be deployed as-is in a startup because it would only slow the process down (among other things), so even though the experience is useful, it’s not a MUST have at first.

I agree with you though in that you need a good CEO and most founders don’t have the experience nor the qualities to be good CEOs. That’s the point where normally you bring someone from the outside (normally someone related to your VC or business angel) to take the rol.

Many people have told me the same about how not to build a company hehe It’s true that for most people it’s an experience of how certain business processes don’t work at all and are better leaving them alone. Humans always learn from their errors so it’s a good learning. Personally I see more than enough problems from the outside and I’m not willing to sacrifice 2 or 3 years of my creativity just to learn how deep the iceberg goes

More people in Europe should encourage collage students to start their own businesses.

Thanks for the comment!

Here in the Philippines the mindset is very much the opposite of what you’re asserting in this entry. This should give fresh encouragement to aspiring entrepreneurs. I’ll be graduating from college in less than a year, and a startup is on my list of to-do things.

I agree with you with the fact that working in a corp does not guarantee success in a startup. IN order ro succeed in a startup my recipe is: Lots of Energy, Great ideas and good luck (you know, being at the right place and time).

But working in a corp gives you experience in the fields you work. If working as programmer or analyst (techie guy), gives experience on common systems problems with corporation systems, way to organize a good technology team. If working in sales, I think could bring good sales experience, contacts, etc…

All that experience can later on be great help to succeed not only being the founder of your idea-business, but being the CEO, having experience in sales, tech, etc…

This is the way I see these things. I have a startup and also worked in companies in the last years. Now I want to move to a commercial job (more sales) than the Java thing.

When I was in University in Kansas, my professor during his life worked some years in different departments in Airplane bulding: structures, design, propulsion, etc… He ended up being an expert in everything and taught us to be generalysts instead of spetialists. I believe in this philosophy.

What I belive is certain is: If you have a good idea, just do it. Doing instead of thinking. And the sooner the better.

Also, working in a corp gives you information on how not to build your company. Sometimes it is hard to know how you want to do things, but it is easier to know how you don´t want things done.

The point is, do you feel you would have been more successful had the story been the other way round?

Learning how business processes work on a large company do help, the problem is that most of the times you wont be able to implement them as-is in a tiny startup. You’ll have to adapt them or even ignore them until you grow a little more at which point you can always hire someone that does have the experience.

As someone once said: “I don’t know everything, but I have the phone number of the one that does”.

A larger company setting can teach you about business processes that are needed in a startup. But only if you’re willing to observe, question, and learn.
The entrepreneurial route can do the same, also if you’re willing to observe, question, fail and learn.

I think it’s about what you learn, not where you learn it.