Can Entrepreneurship be Taught?

I do not consider myself an expert in Technology Entrepreneurship. I have friends who are, and they have started firms which are surely going to become sustainable unicorns, or have taught the subject at top schools and consulted for leading firms.

But for nearly a decade now I have run dōnō consulting, am bootstrapping PropMath for the last couple of years, and I have helped bring multiple products to market for our clients.

So, when Beth Lair of Northwestern University asked me for an interview on the subject, I thought I might have a few useful things to say. I have been teaching at the MS Program in Data Science at Northwestern University School of Professional Studies for five years now and the final outcome of the course I designed and mostly teach (MSDS 474) is a financial plan for your own technology start up or intrapreneurial venture. Few students have gone on to launch their own ventures and couple of them even reached back to me saying that this was where they first built a financial plan for their business - which is arguably the most heartening thing to hear for a professional studies faculty, that your course is useful in Real Life! So here is my interview. Thanks Tom Miller and Beth Lair for asking me to be a part of this, and coming up with some terrific questions. Hat tip to Kathryn A. Daugherty who has taught MSDS 474 often and helped make it a better course, and to the amazing Scott Forrey whose contribution to the course is nearly as much as mine. And thanks to my students at NU and elsewhere, who have indirectly been a part of my entrepreneurial journey over the past decade. You can click directly on the Vimeo link below or go to https://lnkd.in/gh58NiTf and scroll right down to the bottom of the page for this interview.