Programmer wants to be a Entrepreneur

Question

So, I've been out of school for 2 years and working as a programmer and I've decided that my single most goal in my career is to create a start up or work as a consultant/free lance. I've recently accepted a position that will allow me to go back to school if I want.

With my goals to create a start up or be a consultant/free lance I'm trying to decide if I should go back to school and get a MBA or just spend my extra time creating and developing my product.

So I have some questions:

1. Are VC's more likely to give you money if you have an MBA?

2. The school that I'm thinking of getting a MBA from has a professional MBA where you take most of your classes on-line. You take the same classes required for their on-campus degree. Would an on-line "Professional" degree be as respected as an on-campus?

3. I already have some ideas for products. Should I just start developing these products and not worry about going back to school? My big problem is I'm not too familiar with the business side of things, but I could just subscribe to sites like startuptodo.com and read some books as well.

Thank you to all that respond.

Answer 1

You should ask this at http://answers.onstartups.com

Answer 2

You may want to look at a book, The Monk and the Riddle, as it may help get you into the mindset of at least one VC in Silicon Valley, and it is just a good book.

But, in my experience of working for two startups, one that really didn't get off the ground (bad choice of partners) and the other that ran out of funding, you may want to start developing your own product first. Get something that you can demonstrate.

Once you have a product, then it is easier to see about getting people excited, even if it isn't feature-complete.

When you need to write a business proposal you may want to partner with someone that is more of a business-oriented sort, as it is doubtful a VC will help if you can't even get your friends to be excited and to jump onboard, and running a company, and doing the development is too much for one person.

If you want to leave the development to someone else, then work on your MBA and have someone else come on to do the main development.

Answer 3

How do you plan to get customers? One of the toughest parts of consultive/freelance work is getting jobs lined up while you are working on the one that you have -- assuring that your pipeline doesn't go empty.

Your MBA program might be an opportunity to make contacts that will be valuable to you in the future. You might reconsider whether you want to take all of your classes online.

I can tell you that as a hiring manager, (fair or not) when I see a degree from University of X online college, I pretty much ignore it -- mentally, it goes into the "doesn't count" bucket for me.

(edit) What I really value more is what you've done. A track record of solid experience is gold. To respond to your comment below, if the candidate has great experience working for a fortune 500 company, then that's the valuable part -- it demonstrates what you've done with your degree, your time, and your own natural talent. That's the valuable part. We've probably all met that guy with the name-brand degree, or the certification who can't program his way out of a paper bag. I'm looking for the person who can show me they've done some great work, and that they are excited about their profession.

Answer 4

As someone who is getting their MBA online (October 31st baby!!!) I say go for it. You learn so many things that you can carry over into a new position its not even funny. Make sure that the school is reputable though, try and find one that is a top-tier (top 25 or 50 in the nation) business school, whose MBA program is also highly ranked. There is no correlation between MBA program and B-School Rankings. The program I originally started out in was a High Technology MBA, ranked in the top 5 High-Tech MBA degrees in the nation, where as the Graduate Business school for Northeastern was in the top 25 in the country. (this factors in quality of ALL graduate business school programs)

Some of the skills you learn are that you can talk about how not only did you learn all this stuff about business, but you learned more about time management skills, seeing projects through from start to finish, managing cross functional teams, how to produce financials, a better understanding of accounting (you learn business speak too!) etc. . . anyone who looks at a degree from an online school and dismisses it is a fool in my book. My Northeastern MBA that I received online (hopefully :) ) means that I am a proven self starter, and my little piece of paper is just as good as someone who spent 3 years on a campus. In fact I would venture to say that my degree is more impressive because I learned the information on my own through various sources, did it in 2/3s the amount of time that most people will take, and managed to pass by impressing professors (who also teach on campus) with my knowledge, while maintaining above the minimum GPA required to graduate. In my case I think the minimum to graduate is a "B".

As for VC's . . . you will have a better chance of getting through the door with them. They will realize that not only are you passionate about your cause, but you are educated, and they know that you will be more willing to work with them, as they will usually require a significant position of ownership. Additionally, it will be easier for them because you will understand WACC, balance sheets, and your financial projections will be much more believable.

As for 3 . . . that is a choice you will have to make. If you can do school AND start your product, it will be better for you when you go to the VC's.

Again, make sure the degree program is nationally accredited, and the degree comes from a reputable school. At the end of the day, no-one needs to know that you took the courses on-line. (In fact a lot of B-schools make you take some of the more basic courses online anyway)

Answer 5

I'd work on the product, at least to the point of evaluating if it's a good idea. Why get an MBA so you can work for someone else if you have a good product idea?

If you do your Marketing first you could get a very good idea of whether there's a market for your product with 50 or less hours of work. Find some early customers, test the market with Adwords (will people click on an ad for your "future product", etc.)

You could whip together a rough alpha version (heck, just a paper prototype) and find out how much people are willing to pay.

Either you'll find out in 40 hours or so that you're idea is not a good one or that you're on the right track. If it's a bad idea, blog about it.

Even if your product idea flops (and you can protect yourself by being "customer driven" not technology driven) it's great experience, at least for being a product lead or trying to get VC funding (IMHO). I suspect a VC would be far more impressed by what you'd learned at a failed company than at a successful MBA program. The world is filled with MBAs, far fewer folks have started software companies.

BTW, one last option is to do the MBA and use your product company for all your projects. (E.g., "market research project? Do market research for your product idea"). That'd be twice as hard as just doing the product and redundant if it's successful but it might give you some useful structure and rigor to your process of starting your company.