Let’s Clear Here Should You Have to Skip Your College to Start a Business or Get a Degree First!

No doubt, entrepreneurship can be a great way to become financially independent, but let’s also agree on the fact that building a successful business takes a lot of time, hard work and persistence.

However, it’s not necessary to have a college degree to start a business—but it certainly helps. The question arises how?

So, let us give you the answer. The college not only teaches students about academic subjects that can be helpful in starting a business, but also inculcates them with soft skills for lifelong learning.

Now, many would argue that starting a business is possible without a college education and degree. Well yes you can technically start a business irrespective of how much academic knowledge you’ve gained but, how will you decide which career is right for you to pursue?

Therefore, it is necessary to answer several important questions before deciding whether it is a good idea to skip college and start a business or pursue higher education first and then start a business!

So let us read further to clear this confusion going on in your mind!

Everyone thinks of starting their own business at some instant in their life and the first question that comes into your mind is what sort of Business? The answer to this question seems very simple and i.e., “Do what you are best at.” 

However, it itself is quite complicated. Sometimes people think that the field in which they have their professional degree is their strength. This is not completely true as in many cases people do their degree without being interested in that field. Now, the question comes— “Is it possible to start a business without a formal college education?”

Though it is a hypothetical question, the answer of which depends upon two things, firstly what is the business that you wanted to take off? If it is more dependent upon technical fields, then yes! You might need more theoretical knowledge, but that too is not mandatory. 

Secondly, as starting a business requires more than just theoretical knowledge, you must have the basic business skills. 

Now, another question that arises here is that to acquire these skills do I need a business degree to start a business? 

As far as business is concerned, it is an art that includes various skills like Team-Leading, Problem-Solving, Management of Time and Money, Planning, Entrepreneurship, Emotional Intelligence, Patience, Theoretical and Experiential Knowledge of the field. 

So, as you can see, most of the skills can be acquired without any professional knowledge. Sometimes, people even learn them at an early age from their peers. This means that it is not mandatory to have a business degree to start a business, so you do not feel dejected if you do not have one, just keep doing hard work with your business. 

However, if you have a business degree, it will not harm you, it just keeps you one step ahead and helps you overcome many hurdles in your business life. 

So, if you are pursuing any degree, it is not recommended to drop it, even if you can show and improve your time management skill by making a balance between your college and business life. But the most important question is still unanswered. Is it possible to start a business without a degree?  And, what can help you join a business? 

Let us dive into and see how to solve these questions for the betterment of your business’s future—

What If You Decide to Skip College To Start A Business?

In this regard, it is worth mentioning that whatever choice you make comes with its pros and cons. So, the widespread decision to abandon higher education also has some notable advantages and disadvantages.

That said, listed below are the things you may or may not be able to do, depending on whether you leave your college to start a business or vice versa—

Affecting Factors	Going to College	Skipping College
Self-financing  your business	Self-financing your business is more difficult, because you’ve already spent a significant amount of money on your education.	In this case it is easier to self-finance your business, as you have not spent a big amount of your money on education and instead, saved a lot.
Taking actions immediately on suppressing thoughts	This is less likely to happen if you’re in college, because it is quite time-consuming.	More feasible as you’ve more open schedule to act faster.
Developing Skills	Your skills are likely to develop by the end of your college term.	In this case, unless you’ve worked intensively for years before starting your company, your skills are less likely to develop.
Earn Professional Certifications	Once you get your degree it becomes relatively easy to earn professional certifications.	In this case, it is difficult, as you will need experience equivalent to a degree to earn a professional certificate.
Networking with peers	You will find abundant opportunities through classmates, professors and job fairs to get clients for your new business.	Networking with peers is difficult in this case because you’ll have to find and make new connections yourself.

What Types of Businesses Are Better If You Start Them With a Degree? 

You generally don’t need a degree to start a business, but there are some industries that rarely hire someone who doesn’t have a college degree.

So, if you start your own business in such areas, you may struggle to find clients unless you can demonstrate your expertise as they look at your academic achievements to validate your claims.

For example, it’s good if you’ve managed to file taxes yourself before your graduation date, but it probably isn’t enough to start an accounting business. Because of that, you need to gain an accounting certification such as Certified Management Accountant (CMA) or Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and you may not qualify for the same without a degree.

This means that if you wonder “will college education help in your field?” then, certainly it is!

However, there are also many highly skilled fields where you can easily skip college education, but it does not mean that you can skip any education completely. Understand it this way—

If you want to start a medical billing or coding business, you’ll need at least one certification. Here, you cannot make your way without completing your education.

In fact, Lauren Grech, CEO and co-founder of international event management firm LLG Events, even said that getting a degree or, at least some kind of higher education is very helpful for starting your own business.  

According to her, college experience teaches you skills like accountability, time management, ownership, prioritization and emotional maturity. She has also said that, in some career options this may not be necessary. 

However, it helped me personally to develop a proper business model, enabled me to understand certain legal documents or tax laws and gave me the ability to think critically and analytically, and provided the knowledge of necessary equipment to read these documents thoroughly.

What Types of Businesses Are Better If You Start Them Without a Degree?

Now the question arises: “what business can you start without a degree?” Well, you can probably offer products or services locally without a degree.

If you’re selling everyday products such as sustainable clothing or offering everyday services such as furniture assembly then, it will be less likely that clients ask for any formal credentials. Plus, you probably know from the many tech mogul success stories that you can get away with self-education in certain software and computer areas by simply earning an IT certification rather than having a degree.

How to Get into the Business?

It is true that a business not only makes you financially independent but also gets you fame around the globe. But it is not a simple decision to make to get into the business. 

First of all, this feeling should come from inside that you want to become an entrepreneur and are ready to take risks. After that, you must have an idea about what your business should be. 

The more unique your idea is, the higher your chances of becoming famous. After that, you can move forward in the following sequence—

1. Refine your idea
2. Write a business plan
3. Assess your finances
4. Determine your legal business structure
5. Register with the government and IRS
6. Purchase an insurance policy
7. Build your team
8. Choose your vendors
9. Brand yourself and advertise
10. Grow your business

There are the steps to becoming an entrepreneur but all of these steps are known to everyone. Then what will make your business grow is how unique your idea is and how determined you are to execute it. 

Both of these things do not depend upon whether you are in college or not, whether you have a degree or not, but how much expertise you have in your skill. If you think that you have a degree, and you can become a businessman, that is not always true as there are many examples of people having doctorate degrees working for a firm whose owner is a school dropout. Let us see how you can start a business without a formal degree.

How to Start a Business without a Degree?

We are at a stage where we understand that it does not matter if you are a postgraduate or a school dropout, you can start your business. But how can you do this? In this regard, let us understand some important points that help you start your business without any degree.

Know Your Skill/Craft

No one knows you well better than yourself, so do some introspection and find out what you are good at, and what your strengths are! Believe me, if you do something that you are good at, you can give your full potential to it. 

In this case, you become an expert and an expert always gets extra attention from a lot of people. A lot of people will reach out to you— who will give your business an extra exposure and there will be no more need of marketing it. 

This is the most important part of any business and the whole thing depends only on this idea. So do not be hasty, take time accordingly.

Have a Business Plan

Once you know what you are going to do, the work of cognition is almost done. So, bring a pen and a paper and make a layout of the plan which includes the Present and Future of your business. 

For the present perspective, your plan should show the initial state of your business and for the future perspective; your plan must have a couple of strategies to expand your business. 

However, if your plan goes below your expectations, then do make more efforts to bring it back to the pace and if it goes beyond your expectations then efforts should be towards managing it as per the plan so that your customer does not feel inconvenienced. 

Calculate your  Expenses, Create a  Budget and Plan Accordingly

Like your college, your business is also an investment. So, before dedicating your life to the business that you have planned, you will need to calculate your expenses, create a budget and plan your timeline accordingly.

On this, Tom Portesy, director at MFV on the Braintree academy franchise also said that—“It is important to understand and calculate the total cost estimate. Therefore, before you look for a new business opportunity, map out the total investment including purchase cost, initial inventory, how2invest, and how much working capital you will need in advance.”

Know Your Target Audience

Target audience means those customers for whom your company is providing services or objects. Every business has a fixed audience, for example, in case you are making toys then your audience is only children below 5 years, if you are a technical firm then you provide services to various cyber hubs, if you are an interior designer, then only new home buyers are your customers and so on. You must identify the audience best suitable for your business and do attract as many as you can.

Get Some Experience

Before digging into entrepreneurship, it is recommended to get guidance and experience from someone senior in this business. The more time you spend doing it the more you understand the challenges of this business. Always remember, “The biggest lessons are learned outside the classroom”. 

Along with this, you will gain additional expertise for your business. While doing so, do not hesitate to ask questions and make contacts and links with people related to your business. It has been seen that the people venturing into business without any work experience ends up having nothing in their hands.

Keep Your Expectations Realistic

Patience and perseverance are the most important qualities that you must possess. About this also, Tom Portesy said that “True entrepreneurship is a full-time, 24/7 job where entrepreneurs must be patient and persevering in the face of failure, as there are no guarantees when starting your own company. There are ups and downs, and it’s important to be patient when business isn’t going in the direction you’re headed.”

So, never expect overnight success even if your product is unique. Do not feel dejected and demotivated if your business does not go as per your expectations, especially in the initial months. Remember that the good things take a fair amount of time and work to become better. 

So, keep your expectations as per the feedback experience of the customers and work for the suitable changes, once your audience becomes comfortable with your product, you will get the expected results. Whether your business took off very fast or very slow, both ways keep working for your business to remain on the positive side. 

Do You Have to Go to College for Business Schooling? 

Now that you understand all the theoretical concepts of starting a business, let us ask you a question, what do you think now, do you have to go to college for business schooling? 

This is true that, except for theoretical knowledge, none of the business skills is a part of any college or school curriculum. 

Starting a business and going to college for formal education are two different phenomena that partly depend on each other. This implies that from a college education, you can only get theoretical knowledge of a particular field, but it does not guarantee you that you will become a good businessman. There are hundreds of examples where you see that college dropout students have started a world-class company.

However, it is also true that you cannot learn all the business-related knowledge and skills on your own and if you have a business you don’t want to take risk of something that you do not know. 

So, it is a plus point if you understand all the terminologies and procedures of business during your college life. You learn various case studies which help you understand many Dos and Don’ts while running a business. 

Also, in doing a business we somewhere feel the importance of education whether it is cognition, planning, or plotting. So, the question is what if you try to execute your plan without education? 

Let’s see -what are the possible issues you might face in this scenario!

What If You Try To Manage A Business Without Education?

It costs a little more to manage the business if you try it without education as you have to hire manpower for each and every step of the business whether it is planning, accounting, banking, taxing, and many others. 

However, we have repeated various times that education is not key to success, a good idea and diligence are. But we cannot deny the fact that education and knowledge will give your business a boost and will prove very helpful. 

Without education, whenever you feel a problem or hurdle in your business, you have to ask someone else about the next step, that is you have to be depended upon someone else, it costs money and time both, and we all know that many times while in business we miss various important opportunities if we do not take the decision at the right time.

Also, with education and knowledge about your product and services, you feel confident, and it ultimately helps you expand your business to a whole new level. Does this mean that entrepreneurs need education? 

Let us see the different aspects of it—

Should Entrepreneurs Go To College?

As far as entrepreneurship is concerned, there is no particular path or course which helps you become an entrepreneur. If you want to become a doctor, you have to study medical courses, if you want to become an engineer, there are various courses in engineering, but there is not any well-defined path for entrepreneurs. 

Does this mean that entrepreneurs should not go to college? The answer to this question is No. As we have discussed there are various skills that an entrepreneur should acquire and some of these can be acquired in college, these are accounting, marketing, and data analysis. They are the basic things on which the success of your business depends.

Another problem that an entrepreneur faces is the financial constraints and the solution to this question is also solved by getting an official college education. As you get your degree, you may work for any enterprise; make sure that it is relevant to your dream company. In this case, you not only get the funds for your business but a lot of experience also. Hence, we can say that going to college is never a wrong decision but keep your mind clear and focused on your goal. 

Moreover, we can say that life is very unpredictable; you cannot say anything about the future. So, if you get a chance to go to college, try not to leave it and keep working for your business goal too. All that we can provide you is the theoretical knowledge of what are the different angles to see the possible things that can happen to you while you go to start a business. But ultimately it all depends upon you, how you can execute your plan and how fine your skills are.

That’s all! Hope this article helps you make your decision.