Disciplined Entrepreneurship, 2nd Edition

INTRODUCTION: News Flash: Entrepreneurship Can Be Taught!

Entrepreneurship is nurture, not nature. Everyone can be an entrepreneur and it can be taught.

THE FIRST QUESTION I ask when I begin a new course or workshop is, “Do you think entrepreneurship can be taught?” Invariably a silence comes over the group. They wiggle uncomfortably in their seats. Some amiably agree, telling me that is why they came to class in the first place. After a polite back and forth, someone will invariably say what is on the mind of many in the room: “No, either you are an entrepreneur or you are not.” That person, once empowered, begins to passionately argue the case.

I have to say that I tend to like this person, in large part because that person would have been me in the not too distant past. But now I know that entrepreneurship can be taught. I experience it every day in the courses I teach at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and around the world.

When we look at Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jack Ma, Mark Zuckerberg, Tope Awotona, Sara Blakely, and all the other highly visible entrepreneurs, they seem to be different from us. They seem extraordinary. But each of their successes is a result of great products (or replicable services) that made them successful, not the result of some special gene.

To be a successful entrepreneur, ...