Entrepreneurship can’t really be taught

Alline Oliveira:

Really liked the answers from Franck Nouyrigat (line 15)

 

"entrepreneurship can’t really be taught"

I so agree with him.. But I will add that we are all entrepreneurs in this group, and as entrepreneurs we just don't accept things like they are impossible to be made. So even agreeing that entrepreneurship cant really be taught but only shared as a practical experience, I also believe that we as a group still can totally find a way to teach/share entrepreneurship practices in a scalable and efficient manner.

Let's just see where it goes!

Spike Morelli:

For what is worth it, I've been working with other folks on a parallel project for a while and one of our cardinal principles is "creating a transformative experience". This is to mean that we agree Lean (and other similar things) cannot be taught per se, but can be learned through experience. This means that our job as educator is not to teach, but rather to create an experience that's capable of transforming people's thinking in such a way that they learn how to put this stuff to work.

In this sense anything short term is unlikely to work , things take time and repetition to be absorbed and generally you need reframing and some level of novelty to surprise and "shock".

We're still trying to figure out what that experience is, but I was talking recently with an organization in Denmark that sends new batches of students on an "output" where they live and work together for a month. This is usually an unpaid project for a local NGO.

To me that's on the right path, but as I said I still don't know what that looks like in terms of building a business. I've been toying however with a grown up version of a lemonade stand. If anybody is interested I'm happy to chat about it.

Henrik Scheel:

Great input.. I'd of course completely agree that entrepreneurship can only be learned through experiences and by getting your hands dirty and trying to actually go out and start working on a project. 

I've been playing around with exactly this; how to build an intensive entrepreneurship education program that can train students and first time entrepreneurs; teaching them the most effective tools to transform their ideas into new companies. I've tested several different formats ranging from 3hr workshops to a month long summer school program (immersive program in Silicon Valley). 

The format that seems to be the most marketable/effective is a 2-day intensive bootcamp that I call the Startup Experience (www.startupexperience.org) and we have now run this program approximately 80 times in 15 countries at universities and high schools around the world. We run the program for 20-120 students at a time, we send out 1-2 main facilitators and use local entrepreneurs to participate as team coaches.. 

I'd love to talk more about what the ideal format is, and how to create the ultimate most transformational experience in the shortest possible timeframe..  I envision something like a 1 or 2-day program to spark the interest and train people in the basic principles and then some sort of accountability mechanism that keep the teams/individuals engaged over a longer period of time.