What education is needed to start a business is one of the most controversial issues. Among some entrepreneurs there is an opinion that there is no need for special training at all. However, sooner or later, even such self-confident company owners and managers are faced with the need to fill the gap in knowledge and skills. Often, on the way to this realization, they make mistakes that cost the business dearly.
Others are sure that the only correct answer to the question of what kind of education to get for business is an MBA or Master of Business Administration courses. Indeed, this is the international gold standard for entrepreneurial training. However, it usually assumes that you already have a higher education and even work experience. Because higher school really helps entrepreneurs develop, and they make a lot of useful connections there.
The truth lies approximately in the middle between the two poles described. When you are deciding what kind of education you need for a business, it is important to understand that you do not need to have a certain degree to start your own business. However, knowledge of many disciplines is, at a minimum, useful, and at a maximum, necessary for successful entrepreneurial activity. Sooner or later, all businessmen are faced with the need to study these disciplines. What is it about?
Project management
1) How to create a startup that will change the world (Eduson)
This course is a guide for those who want to build scalable companies with high growth potential. Dmitry Repin tells how Skype and Evernote began their path to success, and advises how to launch a truly successful company.
Cost: $99.
Duration: 3 hours
2) How to create a selling website for an online store (“Business Environment”)
It will be useful for those who want to launch their own online store and organize product promotion at the stage of website creation. Presenters: Artem Sokolov and Timofey Gorshkov.
Cost: subscription to the course database is 1,750 rubles per year.
Duration: 1 hour.
3) Where to get money for a startup (“Business Environment”)
Yuri Mitin and Mikhail Khomich will talk about all available sources of financing and why it is important to distinguish between investors at different stages of company development.
The course is free.
Duration: 1 hour.
4) Time drive for a manager (“Synergy”)
Studying the course from Gleb Arkhangelsky will teach you to control the tasks assigned to your subordinates and ensure that the most important tasks are completed on time.
The course is free.
Duration: 1 hour.
Businessmen without education - are there such people?
To contents
There are many such people among foreign billionaires. The most famous:
- Bill Gates. To pursue software development, he dropped out of Harvard University after his second year. Harvard subsequently named the Microsoft founder an alumnus.
- Michael Dell. The creator of DELL Corporation and one of the richest men in the world also decided that business was more important and dropped out of the University of Texas after his first year.
- Steve Jobs. He refused to study at the most expensive private university, Reed College, considering the program boring, and completely devoted himself to creating the “Apple” brainchild.
- Larry Ellison. The founder of Oracle went to university twice and dropped out to pursue computer science.
- Richard Branson. The multimillionaire who created the Virgin corporation did not even graduate from school, but that did not stop him from launching three hundred successful projects.
Among Russian entrepreneurs without higher education there are also multibillionaires, for example, Roman Abramovich, who rose to fame in oil trading, or the king of Moscow real estate, Zarakh Iliev.
But, perhaps, Oleg Tinkov is considered the most prominent opponent of higher education in entrepreneurship. From a young age, he felt the talent of an entrepreneur and was engaged in the resale of imported goods. Having entered the Leningrad Mining Institute, the future billionaire studied there for only three courses. He decided that time should be spent on creating a business. And within a few years, he transferred his aspirations from wholesale and large stores to the banking sector.
Fact! Tinkoff Bank, founded in 2007, initially operated as a financial institution with remote services, but then expanded into a diversified corporation with constantly growing profits.
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2018, Oleg Tinkov argued with TV journalist Vladimir Pozner about the benefits of higher education. The businessman considers it not only unnecessary, but also harmful. According to him, innate talent, tenacity, willpower, stress resistance, knowledge of psychology and the ability to build the right strategy are much more important.
Conversation between Tinkov and Posner at SPIEF 2018 – on video:
Sales
1) Effective sales (Lendwings)
By listening to Radmilo Lukic's course, you can get an effective sales technique, learn how to work with key clients, earn money by asking questions and getting the right answers.
Cost: 4500 rubles.
Duration: 13 hours.
2) Sales development in a startup (Web.University)
In her course, Ekaterina Ukolova will tell you how to build a sales department from scratch that ensures consistently high and predictable results in a startup.
Cost: 5000 rubles.
Duration: 78 minutes.
Team
1) The Art of Hiring: How to Build Your Dream Team (Eduson)
Alena Vladimirskaya will show each of the stages of recruiting, tell you where to look for candidates, how to build an interview process, convince the right candidate to accept a job offer and then keep him in the company.
Cost: $79.
Duration: 2 hours.
2) Recruiting through social networks (Web.University)
In this course, Ilgiz Valinurov will show you how to quickly search for candidates on social networks, build relationships with them, talk about the “tricks” of the search and teach you how to position your brand on social networks so that candidates come to you themselves.
Cost: 3000 rubles.
Duration: 4.5 hours.
Who benefits from business courses?
Don’t miss the opportunity to choose any business courses you need in one training center. They are simply necessary if you:
- aspiring entrepreneur - you will learn the basics of doing business, you will be able to study the disciplines necessary to create a successful business;
- You’ve been doing business for a long time , but the “bird of luck” just doesn’t fall into your hands. During the trainings, we will help you find mistakes made and prevent new ones from being made;
- develop new directions - we will open new prospects for your business in our courses.
So, in order to competently and successfully run your business, be sure to take appropriate advanced training courses. The training center has prepared everything necessary for profitable and trouble-free economic activity in the future. All you need is a desire to learn, a little time and effort!
Opening a business is easy, but keeping it from closing is an art!
Finance
1) Financial modeling in Excel (Eduson)
Natalya Zagvozdina will tell you how to read financial statements correctly, what changes in key indicators can lead to and what assumptions you should base your forecasts on, and she will also teach you how to evaluate any company.
Cost: $99.
Duration: 4 hours.
2) Basics of financial literacy (“Megabreakthrough”)
Together with the course leader Dmitry Zaitsev, students will go through the full path of drawing up a workable financial model, along the way understanding profits and losses, financial risks and business problems, sales planning, capital expenditures and investment attractiveness.
The course is free.
Duration unknown.
Specifics of business education in Russia
Business education is a term that has appeared relatively recently. It denotes the process of acquiring knowledge in the classical sense of the word and its simultaneous testing in practice. If today in institutes and universities the principle of “learning” prevails, then in this system it is “teaching”.
Basically, business training programs are intended for specialists who already have a university diploma, occupy management positions and at the same time strive to expand their professional horizons. The classes cover both specific aspects related to company management and issues of personal growth.
In this area of business education, several large areas can be distinguished:
- a variety of business school programs aimed at obtaining new knowledge and skills that allow you to effectively manage a company in any industry;
- coaching to help you achieve balance between personal and professional goals.
There is a choice of both large comprehensive courses and applied ones designed to solve specific problems.
Business education in Russia was initially based on Western models. Time has shown the incomplete demand for pro-Western courses in domestic realities. Therefore, many programs were brought into line with the specific needs of listeners and refocused on solving current Russian business problems.
According to modern scientists (for example, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Dean of the Higher School of Management at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, S. Filonovich), in Russia several large branches of education in this area can be distinguished:
- formal-traditional - we are talking about obtaining a master's or bachelor's degree. It is still popular in Russia, although practical experience is more valued in the West.
- second higher education and retraining;
- MBA programs;
- courses at business education centers covering certain aspects of administration and management.
Some experts note that, despite a fairly large number of proposals, there are not so many of them that are truly useful. In this regard, it is necessary to be as careful as possible in their choice.
Strategic planning
1) Where to look for business ideas? (“Business Environment”)
Valery Astanchuk and Yuri Lifshits will tell you where to get ideas from and what to rely on when developing your own business model, and why brilliant ideas for business do not come to everyone.
The course is free.
Duration: 1 hour.
2) Choice of strategy)
This course will help you choose the right strategy for your own business and the development of your company. The secrets of strategic planning are revealed by Yuri Mitin and Mikhail Khomich.
The course is free.
Duration: 1 hour.
3) How to build a startup. Stage 1 (“Business Environment”)
In the first course of the series, Steve Blank explains why a startup is not a smaller copy of a large company, urging not to compare the work of a corporation with a young “idea” business.
The course is free.
Duration: 20 minutes. The rest of the courses in the “How to Build a Startup” series can be viewed at the link.
4) Building a business model for an Internet project (Netology)
In this course, business modeling specialist Alexander Morozov will share his experience and proven solutions, which have been tested over years of work in the Russian innovation sphere.
Cost: by subscription to the course database 790 rubles per month.
Duration: 4 hours 24 minutes.
Financial plan and risk assessment
Break-even calculation
K = SFI/(CPIud.),
Where:
SFI total fixed costs;
Price per unit of goods sold or service provided:
PIUD specific variable costs (SFI/K);
The quantity of goods sold or specified services that ensures break-even (break-even point).
In the case of our company, total fixed costs (TFC) include:
- * office rent;
- * car depreciation;
- * one-time expenses (registration and other fees, equipment of premises, purchase of computers, office equipment, etc.);
- * fee for using the services of INTERNET provider companies;
- * depreciation of computers and office equipment.
The remaining expenses of the individual entrepreneur fall into the category of variable costs. It is necessary to indicate the values of such costs for the provision of one unit of services, i.e. unit variable costs (PIud.).
List of variable costs:
- * advertising expenses;
- * tax payments and payments to extra-budgetary funds;
- * expenses for the purchase of methodological and information manuals;
- * staff salaries:
- * gasoline costs for the car;
- * costs for purchasing office supplies.
According to our rough estimates, the monthly amount of fixed and variable costs will be about 75,000 rubles. When substituting it into the break-even equation, it turns out that K = 250, i.e. Every month it is necessary to serve 250 clients to cover all costs. If we assume that there are 26 working days in a month, then 910 people need to be served per day. We are able to serve at least 12 clients daily. Thus, the costs are recouped and the individual entrepreneur brings some profit even at the initial stage of work.
Presentations and public speaking
1) Slides that work: presentation design that sells (Eduson)
In this course, Makr Khlynov and Sergey Slutsky will teach you how to make professional selling presentations. Students will understand the basic principles of presentation design and also master the design of 7 slide elements.
Cost: $99.
Duration: 4 hours.
2) Exciting public speaking (Zillion)
The author of this online course, Alexander Yanykhbash, will share a collection of techniques that will help captivate the audience with ideas and encourage them to propose cooperation.
Cost: 7900 rubles.
Duration: 6 hours. The course includes webinars and is date specific.
3) Pareto course on presentations (Web.University)
Alexey Kapterev will teach you how to make beautiful presentations that not only convey information, but also energize and inspire people. Listeners will learn what to do if you are nervous before a performance, what to do if there is too much information and time is limited, and how to keep in touch with the audience.
Cost: 1500 rubles.
Duration: 1.5 hours.
4) Presentation design as an art (Netology)
The course will help everyone who works with presentations. The author of the course, Mark Khlynov, will tell you how to make them more interesting and capacious.
Cost: by subscription to the course database 790 rubles per month.
Duration: 2 hours 11 minutes.
Where to start opening a higher education institution?
At the very beginning, you should decide on the profile direction of your educational institution. After this, you should start creating a business plan. It should contain the following points:
- Educational charter.
- Curriculum Plan.
- Methodological developments.
- Job descriptions for staff.
- Registration of a license for activities in the Ministry of Education.
Creating your own university from scratch will not be easy; it is better to focus on some popular courses: foreign languages, design, programming, training for makeup and hairdressing masters.
Of course, you can start a business by opening a university, but it is worth considering that its popularity will depend on accreditation and how highly rated the diploma is.
Obtaining a license to open a private higher education institution
A license to open an educational institution must be required; without it, you will not be able to conduct business in this area and issue certified diplomas to graduates.
In order to obtain a license, you will need to contact the Ministry of Education and provide them with a package of documents, which includes:
- Application for a license, which will indicate a detailed list of educational programs and services of the institution.
- Submit a certificate about the teaching staff and the estimated flow of clients.
- Provide a lease agreement, as well as information about the condition of the premises of the educational institution.
- You will need constituent documents, a business registration certificate, and a certificate of registration with the tax service.
- Provide reporting information on the material and technical support of the organization.
- Provide a list of purchased scientific and fiction literature.
After a specially appointed commission, the university can obtain a license for future activities. In addition, it is worth taking care of state accreditation - this is a document that will allow you to issue state diplomas, which are more highly valued by students and employers.
Be prepared for the fact that the educational institution is accredited every five years, so you should take care of the quality of the services provided, the staff and the appropriate material and information support.
Budget places
The business plan of the university must contain a clause on the creation of budget places for students. Recently, commercial educational institutions have been able to open such places, but in strictly limited numbers and in certain areas.
List of destinations where budget places are available:
- Education, pedagogy.
- Natural Sciences.
- Humanitarian sciences.
- Economics and Management.
- Informatics, computer technology.
Teaching Staff
The profitability of an enterprise, its reputation and the number of people willing to enroll in it largely depend on the teaching staff recruited. Qualified specialists who are able to convey information in an original way, give interesting lectures and find an approach to all students are simply worth their weight in gold. Finding such a specialist can be very difficult, since such people often do not sit without work for a long time and very rarely move from one place of work to another, even to more favorable conditions.
At the very beginning of the work of your university, the teaching staff may not be permanent, but in the future it is recommended to conclude contracts and hire professional staff of teachers for long-term cooperation.
Often, teachers working in private educational institutions are registered as individual entrepreneurs, which implies the absence of additional licenses for their activities. This is quite beneficial for the leader, but not for themselves. With this scheme of action, they cannot get several jobs at the same time.
One of the main difficulties is that your staff must have at least 60% of teachers with an advanced degree, and at least two with a doctorate.
In addition to the teaching staff and the director of the institution, you will need to hire an administrator who will deal with all organizational issues and attract clients to the university. It is also necessary to open a medical office, hire a psychologist and an accountant. It’s impossible to do without several cleaners and security guards.
Marketing
1) Content Marketing Management (Zillion)
Artem Polyansky will teach you how to promote your brand and retain customers using interesting and useful content.
Cost: 12900 rubles.
Duration: 17 hours. The course includes webinars, face-to-face meetings and is date specific.
2) Internet marketer: from beginner to pro (Netology)
This course will allow you to master the profession of an Internet marketer; upon completion of the program, you are offered to defend your thesis.
Cost: 20900 rubles.
Duration: 37 hours. The course is conducted in the form of webinars and is tied to dates.
3) Loyal clients from social networks (Web.University)
Vlad Titov will teach you how to create truly effective communities on social networks as a funnel for loyal customers. All tools for working in communities are understood.
Cost: 3900 rubles.
Duration: 9 hours.
4) Basics of Internet Marketing (Netology)
In this course by Andrey Gavrikov, students will gain an understanding of the main tools of Internet marketing: different types of advertising, features of social networks, SEO, content marketing, website optimization and customer management systems.
Cost: by subscription to the course database 790 rubles per month.
Duration: 2 hours 09 minutes.
5) 6 trends from Igor Mann (“Synergy”)
Igor Mann raises issues of solving problems in strategic marketing, internal marketing and raising the employer brand. Listeners will also learn what responsible marketing is.
The course is free.
Duration: 1 hour.
6) Guerrilla marketing (“Synergy”)
Alexander Levitas will teach you techniques that require almost no investment of money. Very cheap or completely free advertising methods. Tricks, tricks and tricks that will allow you to reach potential customers before your competitors do.
The course is free.
Duration: 1.5 hours.
7) Basics of contextual advertising (Netology)
After studying Anna Karaulova’s course, students will be able to independently launch advertising campaigns in a short time, create working media plans, come up with attractive advertising messages and increase the impact of the context through competent automation.
Cost: by subscription to the course database 790 rubles per month.
Duration: 2 hours 51 minutes.
Business trainings from GreenSales and Peter Ponomarev
GreenSales is an online school for entrepreneurs, founded by Peter Ponomarev in 2008. The school works at the intersection of psychology and business, describing how the beliefs, attitudes and goals of the owner influence the development of the company. While other business schools tend to provide toolkits, GreenSales describes business as a system consisting of different elements and levels. GreenSales teaches how to manage and develop a business from the position of director and owner. The school has created many online trainings, intensive courses and webinars, but in addition to this, they have offline trainings in Moscow and in many other cities around the world. You can see details and reviews about the school at this link, and also join the “Systematic business instead of self-employment” community on Facebook.
Market analysis
Market analysis: how to collect information (“Business Environment”)
Students will learn how to effectively use publicly available sources of information, which ones will be useful for a business model, where to look for them, and how to check their correctness and reliability. The author of the course, Dmitry Valkov, provides real cases and examines tools for working with information sources.
Cost: subscription to the course database is 1,750 rubles per year.
Duration: 1 hour.
Russian Association
The Russian Association of Business Education made a huge contribution to the development of the industry. At its origins are the famous leaders of the first domestic business schools - V. A. Burenin, L. I. Evenko, A. B. Manukovsky. RABO was created with the aim of ensuring interaction and coordination of the work of schools, as well as bringing their activities to a common denominator. At the first meeting of RABO alone, more than 20 heads of different companies providing services in this area were present.
The main achievement of the association can be considered didactic developments, combining foreign and domestic experience.
RABO sees its goal in the formation of a business education structure capable of preparing specialists whose skills will meet world-class standards.
Today the association includes 150 organizations. The Business Education magazine is published twice a year, which highlights pressing issues in the industry, discusses and declares strategies and plans for further development.
