Evan Carmichael argues most successful modern entrepreneurs have undergraduate degrees, which offer networking and a safety net. He completed his degree at the University of Toronto while starting his business part-time, and recommends aspiring founders do the same and join entrepreneurship clubs and investor groups.
Questions this video answers
While dropout stories are popular, most modern successful entrepreneurs have undergraduate degrees, which provide networking, skill development, and a fallback option. Historically, many dropouts left school due to lack of resources, not lack of desire. Evan recommends attending college if possible and leveraging its resources for entrepreneurship.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today's episode is brought to you by Telus Talks Business. We've got a great Facebook page called Telus Talks Business you could check out, and lots of resources and ideas for Canadian entrepreneurs. Today's question comes from one of our Telus Talks Business readers who was asking about, do you need a college or university education to be able to to be a successful entrepreneur. So the question came in saying, "Hi Evan, this article is very inspiring. What always puzzles me though about most of these success stories is that most of them didn't finish their college education. Is that they're smarter than most people, or is that they were just really convinced that college wouldn't help them with their business? Someone please answer this for me." So thank you for the question. That's a really tough one. I think the college dropouts are more well-known. It's a bigger story, I guess, because they take the road less the less traveled. I think if you look at most successful entrepreneurs today, most modern-day successful entrepreneurs, you'll find that they did go to college and university. I think you'd be putting yourself at a disadvantage if you didn't at least go and get your undergraduate degree. You get to meet new people, and just in case you have a fallback plan, you'll be able to get a job if the business doesn't work out. So if you think, if you look at the most successful entrepreneurs now, you'll find that most of them did go to college and university. If you look at the previous successful entrepreneurs, you know, the ones from the past, I think you'll find two things. One, some of them may not have gone to college or university. It wasn't for lack of desire, it was for usually a lack of resources. So they didn't have the money to go, or they might have started and they needed to drop out because they didn't have enough money, so they had to start something just to try to sustain themselves. So that's very common for previous entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs in history. They may have started, but they didn't have the ability to continue or even get started because they didn't have the money to do it. To do it. It's not that they didn't want to do it though. And if you look at a lot of those successful entrepreneurs, you'll also find that at the beginning it really made them doubt themselves because they didn't feel good enough. They felt inadequate, they felt they weren't as educated as other people, and they felt that that actually held them back with their business. So you'll find the rare exception, you'll find some people who say, you know, college, university wasn't really helpful and I didn't want to do that and wanted to launch my own business instead. But for the most part, you'll find that people either went to college or university, or they wanted to go but weren't able to. So you won't find many people who will say, "Don't go to college or university." In my own experience, I went to university. I went to University of Toronto and did my undergrad degree there. And that was a turning point for me. So a lot of my friends were going off to do jobs. I'd already started my business part-time while I was in university. And I had the option to go and work at some big companies, and I thought, you know, I'm going to take a year off, and instead of going to get a job, I'm going to go do my own business. And it was something I felt I might regret. A lot of times you start a job and then you start working on your career path, and the excitement about starting the business starts to fade, and then there's— it's too much of a risk to do because you have a safe, secure job. Where if you do it right at the beginning, I felt a lot of those opportunities would still be there for me. I could always go back and get those jobs if after the 1 year it didn't work out. So I did finish my university education in terms of the undergrad degree for the 4 years, and then I started off doing 1 year of doing my own business full-time, and then never went back to go get another job. So it ended up working out for me. But I would always recommend going to college, university if you can. Try to take courses that you think will help you with your career, and also, you know, learn about entrepreneurship if there's any kind of entrepreneurship stream that you can learn from. Try to get involved in the different programs that they have, if there's anything that supports startup, any kind of startup club or investor club, get involved in that. And also try to meet people who are entrepreneurs. I think one of the greatest experiences you can get and long-lasting from a college or university education is being able to meet interesting people who can hopefully become lifelong friends and also potential business partners for you for future ventures. So hopefully that helped. I know a lot of people think about that decision, should I go to college or university or not, and that's my take on it, at least in terms of my experience and what famous entrepreneurs have gone through. So thanks for the question. For those of you watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. I'd also love to hear what you have to think. If you want to leave a comment under the video, or if you have another question as well, I always read the comments that come in, and I always appreciate those as well as the thumbs up that come in. So thank you. And also don't forget to check out the Telesucks Business Facebook page. They were kind enough to sponsor this video, so thank you. And a lot of great resources there. So thank you, and we'll see you in the next episode.
