Facebook shows how university is a startup’s friend
MARK Zuckerberg could be forgiven for thinking that dropping out of Harvard to develop Facebook was the best decision of his life, when he’s in line for a windfall of more than £11bn today. But this success is a smokescreen. A degree is often the best way to prepare someone for a future of entrepreneurial success.
Earlier this month, Zain Jaffer, a graduate of UCL’s Technology Entrepreneurship Masters, secured $2m in funding from Google and AOL Ventures for Vungle, an app promotion start-up. Jaffer is part of a growing trend of graduates starting firms, and of universities making support for entrepreneurs part of the core of what they do.
That universities now offer entrepreneurship degrees would be unbelievable a generation ago. But now the UK educates students from Chile to China on how to launch a start-up in emerging technologies. Five years ago, support for entrepreneurship was rare. Now, nearly every major university offers support to budding business owners.
Likewise, student enterprise societies have mushroomed – the National Union of College and University Entrepreneurs, for example, boasts 40,000 members, 70 member societies and aims to have a society in every university in the country by 2015.
This is no surprise: the years spent at university provide the safest, most supportive environment for entrepreneurs, and expose them to innovative research and support, financial or otherwise.
One graduate told me that university is a golden opportunity to fail, and then succeed better. He’s right. University gives graduates confidence to take risks and think big – and a test bed of thousands of potential consumers.
Take HelpYouApply, a website started by an undergraduate this year to help students apply for internships in the City. Anish Vinayak started it after canvassing students to see if there was a better way of filling in information on application forms. There wasn’t – and so the site, to perform the task automatically, was born.
University, too, is a time when students can build the networks and friendships which will define their future careers. Yesterday, UCL awarded nearly £100,000 in start-up funding to students and graduates starting businesses. All are operating in different sectors, but the defining theme is that entrepreneurs are brought together, and nurtured, by a shared university experience.
We need the brightest, most ambitious entrepreneurs to fuel an economic recovery. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg – they’re all successful, but now they wouldn’t have to drop out to realise their ambition. We must recognise that when starting a business, a degree and the university experience is the best preparation on offer.
Professor Stephen Caddick is vice-provost (Enterprise) at UCL.