Start a Business of Your Own

Many people seek an MBA to start a business of their own. There have been many discussions about the necessity of an MBA for business startups. Many people ask, "Can the entrepreneurial spirit be taught?".

Obviously an MBA is not required to start your own business. A large majority of the most prominent business success stories did not start with MBA holders.

However, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well as many MBA graduates have successfully started businesses.

While in business school I realized just how much business is changing and transitioning. Technology has fueled that change to a large extent.

The traditional approaches to starting a business apply to some situations, but definitely not to all.

You start to see two different types of business startup categories emerge:

• Traditional - Revenue is earned by selling a product or providing a service. There are significant startup cost...these may include office space, inventory, employees, etc. These ventures tend to be larger in scale.

• New Age - Revenue is earned in traditional (products and services) and/or non-traditional ways. There are usually small startup costs due to leveraging technology in many aspects of the business. These ventures tend to be smaller in scale.

While these are two polarizing views, many startups combine the best of both worlds. Not to mention, even though a business starts one way, it does not mean that it remains that way.

For instance, a "traditional" business often strives to stay competitive through technology and everything that entails. Just as when a "new age" businesses grows, it may need to expand in a more traditional manner.

Unless your business idea requires major funding or you are buying a franchise, I recommend the "new age" approach to start a business.

Start your own business with low startup costs while leveraging technology. You can successfully build an online business using motivation and brainpower. Remember it is about business and not about technology.

Let us not forget the lessons learned from the "dot com" era. Technology does not make the business...business principles still have to be adhered to.

Overall, an MBA is not required to start a business but it may be beneficial. Two basic types of business startups are "traditional" and "new age" businesses. The value of an MBA may be more beneficial in the case of the traditional business startup. However, it can aid those involved in new age startups too because MBAs learn business principles.

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