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The Entrepreneurial Agenda by Robb Mandelbaum
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March 27, 2008
Is Impatience a Virtue?
Posted at 12:21 PM
If you doubt that GenY has entrepreneurship on its collective brain, all you need to do is look at the exploding number of entrepreneurship programs at U.S. colleges and universities: there are now over 400 endowed chairs for professors of entrepreneurship
and more than 2,100 classes. Forget the perennial “can entrepreneurship be taught” argument. Fact is, it is being taught, and it’s actually being taught differently now than, say, five years ago. I particularly like what’s going on at Belmont University, which just won an award from the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship for having a “National Model Undergraduate Program” in entrepreneurship.
The school has three “hatcheries” or incubators, where 65 students operate businesses with access to mentors and business center services. Belmont has also invested several hundred thousand dollars in six on-campus student-run businesses, five of which are in the black. There’s a dorm store, a public relations firm, an audio production company, a graphic design shop, and a clothing store that serve not only the university but the greater Nashville community.
All of this, of course, is wildly different from the way entrepreneurship was taught even as recently 5-10 years ago. Far fewer undergrads studied entrepreneurship and those who did were typically bogged down in theory and core requirements until junior year. Now, says Jeff Cornwall, who runs the program at Belmont, “it’s a whole new world.” Fully 40% of undergrads come to Belmont with businesses already started – an astounding number. “So we try to make learning so relevant to their businesses that they don’t want to leave,” he says. “A lot of what drives them is impatience. They want fulfillment and success and they’re not willing to wait 10-15 years. They want it today.” It’s a trait that may make GenY difficult to employ, but that could bode well for their future entrepreneurial success. What do you think? Is impatience an entrepreneurial virtue?
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I'm a fan of Jeff Cornwall and his Belmont U entrepreneur program and I often include references to his posts in my own blog at the Innovators-Network. Thanks for recognizing his hard work and success of his program. I'll be checking out the Inc.com blog more in the future for similarly excellent bits.
It's a total virtue! I am truly impatient - and it has forced me to be innovative, prioritize, and be increasingly strategic about my choices. Impatience doesn't mean being sloppy - I think it equates more with being aggressive and trying to be efficient to move quickly.
It's a total virtue! I am truly impatient - and it has forced me to be innovative, prioritize, and be increasingly strategic about my choices. Impatience doesn't mean being sloppy - I think it equates more with being aggressive and trying to be efficient to move quickly.
Unequivocally yes. Though it can certainly lead you astray at times, impatience is a virtue with my generation. We're not patient enough to wait till graduation to earn an income, not patient enough to put our ideas on hold, and certainly not patient enough to take baby steps. Everything is now - let's expand, let's innovate, let's move!
While impatience is only one factor (certainly some level of foolhardiness is involved, too!), I think it is a critical aspect of that "hunger" or "drive" that makes Gen Y entrepreneurs so successful.
Impatience isn't a virtue for entrepreneurs. Efficiency is, wanting to see results sure is, but not impatience. The key trait that Gen Y-ers lack is discipline. I blame Saturday morning cartoons, sugar cereal, and the GATE program.
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