I started business school with my mind set on getting a job at an investment firm. I really enjoyed investing in stocks for my own personal account and thought how cool it would be to do that for a living (It only took a year in that role to dispel that notion). The most popular club on campus, however, was not the Investment Club but rather than the Entrepreneurship Club which also drew me in. What made the club so appealing? The guests. Founders of companies large and small came to campus from Pete's Wicked Ale (a craft brew) to an entrepreneur buying cable companies in the Eastern bloc.

What I remember most about these presentations was how it demystified this whole concept of entrepreneurship. Behind every start-up stood a passionate founder who thought about the world a little bit differently than the consensus at that time. They identified a pain point and committed themselves to solving it in a way that could create a sustainable business. They also had the resilience to deal with the setbacks that inevitably will come from fighting against the odds. When I eventually went down the entrepreneurial path, I realized those after-school presentations would take on added significance. They helped me realize the key ingredients for start-up success.

Many of you include an entrepreneurship lesson or unit in your existing personal finance course (and if you don't, I encourage you to). I've been on a bit of a podcast binge recently and wanted to recommend a few for anyone interested in start-ups. As your students will see, start-ups often fail first (and fast) before honing in on a successful idea. I thought they would enjoy learning the origin story from the founders of companies that created two products that may play a role in their lives (Instagram and Spotify). 

• Masters of Scale - Kevin Systrom, founder of Instagram (acquired by Facebook) describes the inspiration behind his photo-sharing site and how he kept the Instagram feature set simple while scaling big. 
• Masters of Scale - Stewart Butterfield of Slack (popular business application worth over $7 billion) and Flickr (acquired by Yahoo) describes the successful pivots that enabled him to take failed business ventures and make them successful. 
• Masters of Scale- Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify, describes how he had to get the record labels to trust him given the problems of piracy that preceded Spotify. 

Enjoy!

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Want to stoke your students' interest in entrepreneurship? Check out NGPF's Entrepreneurship lesson! 

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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