ETM_2013_3_30_10

hey’re called entrepreneur-ship or small-business certificates, and they don’t carry the cachet or the

credit of an MBA. But they take far less time to obtain, and they cost less, too. More colleges are offering them as a way to help people get their businesses off the ground.

The classes cover topics such as marketing and advertising, finan-cial management, tax and legal issues, business plans, pricing, fund-raising and customer service. Beyond the basics, programmes can offer electives covering a spe-cific business or skill, like selling over the Internet. Programmes can be tailored to the needs of the surrounding community, and the faculty can be businessmen and women in the area. Teachers have the potential to provide mentoring in addition to knowledge.

Teaching entrepreneurship seems clearly a growth business. In the 2010-11 school year, 260 post-secondary institutions offered en-trepreneurship and small-business certificate programmes, compared with 72 institutions 10 years earlier, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which is part of the Education Department.

Certificate Programme“We try to prepare students with what they need, but also who they need to know,” said Raul Deju, director of the Institute of Entrepreneurial Leadership at John F Kennedy University, based in Concord. Through the institute’s certificate programme, which be-gan in 2010, executives who serve as teachers might lead the way to connections and financing, he said. The programme costs about $4,000, which includes meetings with mentors and potential investors, he said. More than 70 people have received certificates, he said.

William Martinez, 33, attended the programme last year while work-ing to expand his nanotechnology company, Nanotech Biomachines, based in Berkeley. The company

makes an ultra-thin substance known as graphene for computer and industrial applications.

With a bachelor’s and a master’s in materials engineering, Martinez knew his science and technology, but he didn’t know the answers to some basic business questions: How do I write a business plan? How do I find customers? How do I attract investors? He said the programme helped fill those gaps. It also helped him make connections with lend-ers, he said.

The programme “jumps into a lot of the core things that people face”, said Bill Wiersma, the founder and principal of a management consul-tancy, who teaches classes on pro-fessional values and also serves as a mentor. Starting a business is not

for the faint of heart, and mentors can help entrepreneurs through the rough patches “so they can live to fight another day”, he said.

Experienced Mentors KeyBut learning is no substitute for doing, people involved say. “When you run a business, you learn how to make your gut work,” said Scott Gerber, founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, a non-profit membership organisation. “You can’t do that in a classroom setting — there is no exception to that.”

Certificate programmes that pro-vide experienced mentors are su-perior to ones that don’t, he added, “because these are people who are in the trenches”. And it’s crucial to have faculty who are real-world business people, he said.

The time it takes to complete a

certificate programme can vary depending on a student’s other commitments. Many programmes try to be flexible to accommodate full-time workers. The programme at John F Kennedy is meant to take around six months, or two quarters.

It can take less than a year to two years to complete the small-business and entrepreneurship programme at Hunter College in New York, said Cristian Gallardo, associate director of continuing education. A faster pace might work for someone who was let go from their current job “so they have to reinvent themselves”, he said. A bachelor’s degree is not required to enroll in the programme.

Aimed at Military VeteransThe Hunter College programme began about three years ago to help returning military veterans, who can receive tuition and housing aid, but it is not restricted to veterans, he said. Without financial aid, the programme costs $2,350.

In Traverse City, the small-busi-ness/entrepreneur certificate pro-gramme at Northwestern Michigan College costs just $400 to $500. An aspiring entrepreneur in Traverse City, a small, resort-style commu-nity on Lake Michigan, may well be an artist or craftsman. But just like Martinez, the nanotech expert, they may be very good at what they do without possessing much business knowledge.

The Northwestern Michigan programme offers eight classes in four core areas: starting a business, financial management, market-ing and customer service. Elective classes cover topics like how to run a bed-and-breakfast, how to become a personal trainer and how to bring your business online legally.

Not Trying to be an MBA“We’re not trying to be an MBA programme,” said Julie Doyal, programme coordinator for the college’s Extended Educational Services. “There are plenty of those out there.” The goal, she said, is to get people on track to fulfill their

entrepreneurial goals. The programme can be more

nimble with its offerings compared with MBA programmes, which can require a longer curriculum review process, she said. Sometimes by the time a class has made it through the review, the skill it covers is no longer relevant, she said.

Valid Way to Make MoneyRecently the programme added classes on how to use Etsy, the on-line craft site, Doyal said. Several years ago, “who would have even known what Etsy was? And even within Etsy, it continues to change”.

Michelle Smith-Ronk, 38, decided to attend the programme in 2009 because she knew all about making cookies but almost nothing about accounting. Through her company, Custom Cookies by Michelle, she bakes cookies and decorates them for baby showers, weddings, birth-day parties, business functions and other events.

“I always liked arts and crafts growing up, and I always liked bak-ing,” Smith-Ronk said. “I just decid-ed to combine the two of them, and I found out I was pretty good at it. I decided I would take some business classes to see if that would be a valid way for me to make some money.”

Adding CredibilityDuring the programme, Smith-Ronk learned how to use QuickBooks for small-business ac-counting. She also set up a Facebook page after taking a class on using social media. She incorporated the business last year.

She now works as a receptionist at an auto dealership, and the cookies are a side business as she raises her young son and daughter. Doyal said that holding the certificate might give some added credibility to someone seeking financing. But to Smith-Ronk, the main value of it is that “I like to know I went through the steps and tried to make myself more knowledgeable about the proc-ess” of starting a business.

Phyllis Korkki / NYT News Service

Entrepreneurship or small-business certificates are fast gaining currency in the US. These may not carry the credit of an MBA, but they take far less time and cost less too

Because employees can’t be trust-ed, we have put in place a massive system of policies and controls to make sure no one steps out of line. It costs hundreds of millions of shareholder and customer dollars to manage this system, but it must be worth it because we’re so certain our employees are untrustworthy — notwithstanding the fact that we hired every one of them ourselves.

We run people through online honesty tests, writing tests, back-ground checks, and drug tests, but we must have hard evidence that employees still can’t be trusted. If we didn’t have that evidence, why would we subject every one of our employees to soul-crushing, forced-ranking exercises and constant performance appraisals? If our leadership behaviour is any guide, our employees are not to be trusted.

Because employees can’t be trusted, we put in place policies that require our co-workers to bring in evidence of a doctor’s visit when they are sick, no matter how much they tell us they hate to be out, and no matter that half the city is down with the same virus. Since employ-ees can’t be relied upon, we require them to bring in a funeral notice proving that Aunt Sally really died last week — no matter that every-

one in the department has met Aunt Sally at social gatherings.

Policies such as the proof-of-death protocol are expensive to adminis-ter, so it must be beyond doubt that our employees — whatever our rela-tionships day-to-day with them may be — are unworthy of our trust.

Since employees are conniving little beggars likely to shank us the moment our backs are turned, we hold them to weekly, monthly, and quarterly milestones. If we were to trust them to carry out a project without close supervision, who knows what wrong step they might take? Our job ads require appli-

cants to have 15 years of experience, suggesting that the people we bring into our shops might have passed all the can-you-be-trusted tests in our collective corporate quivers many jobs ago. But even a 15-year veteran can breach a policy or make a misstep, and the ramifications could be horrible. (Say, the wrong typeface ends up in a product bro-chure, requiring reprinting.)

Our leadership systems scream: “We love our customers. Our em-ployees? Different story.”

If we were to treat our customers the way we treat employees, they’d run for the hills. Somehow, because

customers give us their cash, we believe their wish is our command. Since employees give us only their brains, guts, emotional connec-tion, time, and goodwill, the deal is slightly different. We treat our em-ployees as though they’re only wait-ing for the chance to take us down.

We write mistrust into our man-agement guidelines. We institution-alise it in our policies. We reinforce it with every insulting memo and “to the staff” broadcast email. We ding employees when they forget their ID badges and penalise them for leaving work a half-hour early. We willingly take and make the most of the juice and spark our teammates bring us because they can’t help connecting to their work at a level far above what the paycheck requires, but we fall back down to the level of the transaction as soon as it’s convenient to do so.

If we value talent, we’ll start dis-mantling the lumbering Godzilla of controls and policies that hampers creativity in virtually every or-ganisation, and we’ll start trusting ourselves to hire people we trust. Then our jobs will get easier and the energy at work will improve dra-matically. What are we waiting for?

Liz Ryan / Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Since customers give their cash, most companies believe their wish is supreme. But since employees give only their brains, guts, time, and goodwill, the deal is slightly different

MANAGEMENT

WORKPLACE

TThe classes cover topics such as marketing and advertising, financial management, tax and legal issues

How an MBA Lite Helps Budding Businessmen

Why Corporates Don’t Trust Employees

COVERINGTHEBASICS

GEETANJALI

Institutes contend the main aim of short-term ‘MBA’ programmes is to get people on track to fulfill their entrepre-neurial goals

!

Here are some entrepreneurs from India and other Asian countries who’ve arrivedSTARTUPS

It’s An Asian Tsunami At Entrepreneurs Inc

Neil Dufva

Founder & CEO, Crunchy Logistics

2011 Revenue: $2.1 m

3-Year Growth: 1,881%

Neil Dufva led several entrepreneurial

ventures before founding Crunchy

Logistics in 2008. The tech firm expanded

rapidly since its inception, focusing on

the deployment and support of highly

secure control systems, content

distribution networks, and natural user-

interface advancements.

Rose Cook & Lynn Faughey

Co-Founders,The FlexPro Group



Though identical twins Rose and Lynn

Cook do not come from an

entrepreneurial family, they are no

strangers to risk-taking. They started the

FlexPro Group in 2008 during the Great

Recession. The firm offers supply chain

consulting to the pharma industry.

David Chen

Founder & CEO,NextWorth Solutions

2011 Revenue: $20.4 m

3-year Growth: 3,154%

A serial entrepreneur out of Babson

College’s hatchery, David Chen launched

NextWorth in 2005. “I remember selling

floppy discs to prep school kids when I was

in 8th grade,” recalls Chen. NextWorth

helps consumers and big retailers recycle

old electronics.

Byron Hsu

Founder & CEO, Xenon Project Int’l



Byron Hsu’s parents wanted him to get a

PhD, but Hsu had other plans. In 2008, he

founded Xenon Project, to sell remote

control cars on eBay. Today Xenon

Project distributes remote control and

nitro-fueled toys and other goods, such as

kitchenware and sports equipment.

Andy Kim

Founder & CEO, IT Source

2011 Revenue: $24.8 m


Started in 2002, IT Source offers

companies of all sizes tech support with

credit card processing and

telecommunications. Founder Andy Kim

believes that his engineering

background helps him see flaws as

opportunities for improvement, which is

reflected in his company.

These 10 entrepreneurs have immigrant roots in Asia and India, but they have

built some of the fastest-growing, private companies — many in technology — in

the US. Meet the Tech Rajas ready to make it big:

Source: Inc.com

Kenneth Lin

Founder & CEO, Credit Karma



Frustrated that he had to pay to find out

his credit score, Kenneth Lin came up

with a way to give consumers a better

offer. In 2007, he founded Credit Karma,

which allows consumers to check their

credit scores online for free. It also

informs users about ways to save money.

Pradeep Goel

Founder & CEO, EngagePoint

2011 Revenue: $13.2 m


Pradeep Goel’s Consumer Health

Technologies develops software to help

employees manage their own health

benefits. Used by third-party

administrators, insurance payers

and financial institutions, Consumer

Health Technologies, which was founded

in 2007, strives to make consumers active

buyers of insurance policies rather than

passive recipients.

Krish Patel

Founder & CEO, Wireless Comm

2011 Revenue: $22.9 m


At a young age, Krish Patel became an

entrepreneur by filling houses. In 2008, he

founded Wireless Communications,

which operates 32 Verizon Wireless retail

locations in Georgia, Kentucky, South

Carolina and West Virginia.

Zia Islam

Founder & CEO, Zantech IT Services

2011 Revenue: $17.8 m


Zia Islam founded Zantech IT Services in

2007 to offer enterprise technology

systems to the federal government. He

was inspired by his brother’s success

building his own company. “The

customer is always our No. 1 priority,”

says Islam.

David Tam

Founder & CEO, RateSpecial Interactive

2011 Revenue: $15.5 m


After graduating from

UCLA, David Tam was prepping for law

school when a part-time job with an

online ad agency changed his plan. Today,

he wears many hats as CEO of

RateSpecial, an interactive advertising

and marketing agency.

AN

IMIS

HA

THE CROSSWORD 5526

DILBERT by S Adams

10 Management & LeadershipThe Economic Times, Mumbai, Saturday, 30 March 2013

Signature Senior LivingForms JV withCoimbatore’s Covai p3

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