Entrepreneurship

You know I teach entrepreneurial problem solving online and in-person, and that the course gets reviews, like This is one of the greatest classes I have ever taken. It was engaging, thought provoking, challenging, and fun. Josh is an incredible teacher, mentor, and friend to everyone in the class who is passionate about the subject matter. If I could take this class all over again, I would Earlier this summer I taught the course in a doubly new way. For the first time I taught it as a block-week course, meaning a full fourteen-week university course in five days, 9am-5pm, which is intense. Also for the first time, I taught it to high school students, who were taking it as a summer college experience. One…

Why do I call my class "Entrepreneurial Problem Solving" or sometimes "Entrepreneurial Thinking and Behavior" instead of "Entrepreneurship"? Entrepreneurship means starting a company. It's a subset of things you can do entrepreneurially. Solving a problem entrepreneurially means solving it without the resources at hand you need to finish it. Solving a problem non-entrepreneurially means you have the resources at hand to solve it. If Johnson & Johnson wants to introduce a new consumer product, it has all the resources it needs to research the market, develop the product, distribute the product, and so on. If someone has an idea for a new product, they put the idea into the machine and either the machine decides it won't work or it brings it to market. People…

Whoever created the first business plan competition was on to something. I applaud their idea and implementing it. That time passed. We know more effective ways to motivate learning entrepreneurship. Those competitions aren't helping. They distract students from starting businesses with one-time awards too often created in the interests of venture capitalists, not aspiring entrepreneurs. To illustrate, consider the question: Which would you prefer: to win a business plan competition, to get investment, or to sell your product and make a profit? These results don't have to exclude each other but pursuing competitions takes time from getting investment and selling your product. Students, I recommend looking at business plan competitions skeptically. Faculty, I recommend you consider other ways to motivate practicing entrepreneurship than competitions that…

I can't tell you how honored and flattered I feel from the following message a former student sent me on my birthday. She took my class in her first semester in school, just months after finishing high school, and got her project running before the semester ended, still working with the partnership with the company she started forming that semester. Dear Josh, I would like to wish the most inspiring, hard-working, talented, and generous professor, friend, entrepreneur, and NYC marathon/world burpee champ the happiest and most wonderful of birthdays today. Your guidance and mentorship have meant so much to me over the last almost-three (I can't believe it's been that long, either!) years of my time at NYU. Anytime I email you--to update you on…