College Vs. Entreprenuership

[pokermonger]

This is a very interesting discussion that I have considered many times. I have a BS in Mathematics and an MBA, but neither of them had to do with wanting to get a better job. I went to college to play baseball, played for 4 years and then was so close to a degree that I went another quarter or 2 and finished my Bachelors. 8 or 10 years later I was tired of the grind of a "real" job and convinced the wife it was a good idea for me to get an MBA. I just wanted to screw around for a couple years, so I did.

I had already been running a hardware store and as it turned out, I learned way more doing that than I ever did in school. It even helped make the MBA pretty easy to get.

Even with all of that, the only real money I have ever made has had nothing to do with college, other than I did polish my writing skills while getting the MBA. The real money came from digging into a business, failing, learning from failing and learning from people who know more than I did. None of that required a degree.

I 100% believe that neither of my kids need to go to college. My wife says otherwise. But, I don't think college will hurt them either. My plan is to help them both get their own businesses running before or while they are in college. That way they will have choices.

[KevinMcC]

I made a post about this when PAL was first launched and again got some great answers and opinions.

My story basically is I went to university last year to play football (when I was 19), during that year I barely went to class but I did have a computer science class which basically taught me how to build a simple html website. This made me come back to these poker affiliate forums I had known about and I started my first website. That year I didn't do too well in school though and I didn't have a good enough shot of starting for the football team, I didn't end up going back. This past year I have taken the year off to work on my sites and play hockey on the side. My sites success and income have shot up a lot and I am convinced I can somehow make a living off of the internet. With that said, I applied for a 'community college' for next year and will be going until I am 100% I can live my life off of the internet.

I am going to make sure working on my internet business comes ahead of school, because I do believe it is more important than a degree or diploma or whatever from a college. One reason that I don't mind going back for at least a bit is if not for anything else, it will keep reminding me how much I don't want to be working for someone else in the 'real world' and how much I love being independent. So although I am going back to college I still really believe what Jeremy and Prop are saying, and I do think I can make a lot more money and also be a lot more happy working for myself on the internet than for any company in the real world. Sorry for the long post

[PTC]

A college degree is just like a credential that says "I'm not a quitter" and it can be very valuable in this sense. Most employers will have to train you anyway unless you are already in an industry, the degree is just means that you can commit to something and complete it successfully. I dropped out and went back, in a matter of months I will finally graduate. Forgive me for not reading all the comments here, I just want to graduate and take a vacation so I can trying to finally become successful as a webmaster.

[JamesLomas]

I haven't been to university since December or so, because I put being an affiliate first. Now I have a lot more time, and staying in/home all the time is getting boring, so I'm going back soon. Not just as a 'backup plan', but for fun too. I'm getting quite demotivated by not really doing much during the week other than work or be bored, so I might even get more done by going to uni.

Not to mention that university -> networking -> finding new poker players. Players from my course + players they know that have since signed up have paid for my education several times over, so there's direct profit from going to uni too

[kdollar]

I went to college and had an awesome time. I got a degree in Business Economics and can't say I learned much but it is nice to say I have a degree.

The great thing about college is you have a lot of free time and during that time I started as an affiliate. I was also able to recruit friends to play and that is what basically gave me enough push to really start making website and figuring out more ways to earn money online.

[Brandon]

I wrote a response but moved it to my blog since I haven't had time to write much on it.

College Vs. Entreprenuership | brandonberndt.com

[PokerNations]

Excellent point in your blog Brandon, about giving someone who's inexperienced 100K to start a business. They're likely going to make numerous costly mistakes because they won't have any sort of training in budgeting & finance, human resource, inventory & supply, public relations, sales & marketing, legal concerns, etc.

If you want to build a successful business it helps immensely if you have enough knowledge on certain areas that you can hire the right people to manage those aspects for you. You don't have to be a whiz at everything, but having some education is going to give you a leg up.

I don't dispute that there was a LOT of useless shit to work through in college, but there were also helpful experiences and knowledge gained as well.

[pokerprop]

I could be a billionaire and wouldn't give my daughter even $5K to start a business. I'd consult with her and consider partnerships if she proved she was responsible in business.
The reason being is I'd never rob her of the learning experience that is associated with business. Also the chance of failing are great. Not as a person but an individual venture.

My father was in jail and my mother worked at a convenience store through a lot of my growing up, so i do mean "from scratch" when I say: I became a millionaire twice from scratch before I was legal age to drink.

Each time made me smarter and more confident. Overcoming is half the experience. When UIGEA happened it completely wiped out my affiliate income (like 90%). My thoughts were been here, done this before. I just refocused, changed plans and got back to work. Had it been my first rodeo, I would have likely stayed in bed depressed for months as I did the first time I lost pretty much everything. Instead my experience allowed me to quickly adapt, and confidence that came from having overcome so called failure many times in the past helped me have the will to put in long hours, and do what it took, knowing full well what the return would be.

So say I gave my daughter $100K she started a business and it did great but ten years later failed. What happens then? She needs another $100K from me or someone else to get started again?

[NickM]

Since the hypothetical "give an 18yr old $100k to start a business" keeps getting thrown around, why not use a more useful hypothetical situation for college replacement?

College does not try to force $100k of education into one shot. What about the idea of an installment business education?

1. 5k to use year 1.
2. 10k year 2.
3. 25k year 3.
4. 60k year 4.

Most likely, if the person has gotten to year 4 and still is not making a profit with 40k invested the first 3 years, the extra 60k will not help.

More interesting is if each year is compartmentalized, and the person is given an assignment of starting a different type of business each year while being mentored. How valuable would that education be? It would be worth a lot more than $100k in my opinion.

/fantasyworld

[321]

College isn't for people who know what they want to do (unless you want to be an MD or something like that), but it is excellent for those who don't know what they want to do, or who have had really fucked up childhoods where they were denied broad exposure to the world in growing up -- like the kids of religious zealots who who homeschooled and basically learned little about the real world.

The choice is like being an entreprenuer or webmaster. If you know what you want to do, do it. If you don't, do what you need to do to figure out what you want to do.