Mistakes business students make when founding a startup

Re:Mistakes business students make when founding a startup by zekevermillion on Sunday December 13, 2015 @11:12AM (#10726680)

Non-technical people can make excellent business people, though there is some truth to the vapid MBA stereotype. However, if you're an MBA lacking the experience and wiring of a Jeff Bezos, then the "convince other people to paint my fence approach" is highly probable to result in failure. I would agree with one point from this post, which is that non-technical first-time founders should select ideas that they can learn to prototype working alone. This has numerous advantages, including:

1) learn the real-world problems of your idea through trial and error

2) if the idea does not become a profitable business, you reduce the risk that you will disappoint others and lose a lot of money that doesn't belong to you

3) develop technical skills that will be useful no matter the business outcome

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Re:Mistakes business students make when founding a startup by louisswiss on Sunday December 13, 2015 @01:18PM (#10727186)

OP here - thanks for bringing your perspective. I agree that non-technical people can make excellent business people.

What I was saying is that, in my experience, non-technical people who have studied at a business school tend to make the same mistakes when approaching their first startup.

This puts them at a disadvantage compared to others who haven't had the 'fortune' of attending a business school.

I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule.

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Re:Mistakes business students make when founding a startup by gtpasqual on Sunday December 13, 2015 @12:06PM (#10726912)

Wouldn't call Bezos non-technical.

From wikipedia:

>After graduating from Princeton in 1986, Bezos worked on Wall Street in the computer science field.[20] Then he worked on building a network for international trade for a company known as Fitel.[21] He next worked at Bankers Trust.[22] Later on he also worked on Internet-enabled business opportunities at D. E. Shaw & Co.[23]

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Re:Mistakes business students make when founding a startup by zekevermillion on Sunday December 13, 2015 @12:33PM (#10727017)

I could be wrong, but my understanding is he was working in a business role and not programming computers in those jobs.

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Re:Mistakes business students make when founding a startup by jsprogrammer on Sunday December 13, 2015 @03:07PM (#10727696)

You also left out the BS degrees in EE and CS.

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