If we restrict the question to now much education in entrepreneurship an entrepreneur needs, a large amount of formal education is not required. The skills necessary to succeed can be learned informally. In Silicon Valley, there are lots of organizations that support the entrepreneurial ecosystem such as the Silicon Valley Forum, that hosts educational seminars, networking events with investors, and connects entrepreneurs with mentors.

In my own experience, as mentioned in a previous post, to a question posed by Brian, the academic training as part of an MBA program is wholly inadequate. It focuses on the wrong things. In your typical course it is structured around writing the various sections of the business plan, culminating as a business plan as a capstone project. That is of minor importance compared to other aspects like navigating business registration, raising money (the professor tells you that the business plan is a plan, when it in fact is a sales document for raising money), real estate transactions, HR issues, insurance, managing cash flow (guerrilla finance), negotiating.

Were I teaching in a business school, I would be using lots of guest lecturers, veterans of startup companies to tell their stories, especially their failures, so that the students can benefit from the entrepreneur's mistakes. This is so superior to doing packaged case studies, which really just prepare MBAs for case study interviews, useful in itself, but produces what we call at Cisco 'MBA weenies'. They don't actually know very much and lack appreciation for subtlety and detail.

One of the big weaknesses of business school for teaching entrepreneurship is that the skills you learn in business school actually discourages entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs need to have an erroneous estimate of the probability of success to undertake the venture in the first place. (For this reason, every investor knows that the finance plan in a business plan is an optimistic fiction.) Were you to act as a rational economic actor, you would never undertake the venture in the first place. All that financial modeling you do in the required finance class in an AACSB accredited MBA is not very useful. Nor in accounting do they teach you the guerrilla finance tactics to stay alive when you have a new product and no customers.

To recap, formal schooling is not that valuable, but informal education and mentoring is invaluable. I learned more in lunch time conversations with Don Massaro (Shugart Associates, Xerox, Metaphor, Silicon Gaming, Reconnex) than I ever could have learned in school.

The question cannot be answered in a general way. Some entrepreneurs who just build their business upon their selling of expertise (as many freelancers do) are heavily dependent upon academic knowledge and formal university degrees (e.g. as architects, physicians, tax advisers) where others depend on their market niches which need clever entrepreneurs to get founded and exploited but they are more dependent upon tacit knowledge and a solid education. The last group needs flexibility, intuition, creativity and may buy formal knowledge.

I saw an interesting presentation in the morning. Most of the biggest entrepreneurs dropped out of school. Focus on the 2nd slide :-)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/its-never-too-late-become-independant-evgeniy-sen/

The question is very specific the normal / average entrepreneurs. In this context ,Education is necessary to shape individual character and mold aspects of decision-making and leadership. It is not merely learning technical skills, education must be educare, a holistic development of an individual.

education is extremely important for entrepreneurs, yet academic education might not be the only route to gain knowledge. Entrepreneur should be a constant learner to gain knowledge.

Advanced literacy and technical skills are required, but not educational knowledge in academic terms. People skills are a definite surplus, in terms of the ability to 'create a customer or client'.

as much as he can

If we restrict the question to now much education in entrepreneurship an entrepreneur needs, a large amount of formal education is not required. The skills necessary to succeed can be learned informally. In Silicon Valley, there are lots of organizations that support the entrepreneurial ecosystem such as the Silicon Valley Forum, that hosts educational seminars, networking events with investors, and connects entrepreneurs with mentors.

In my own experience, as mentioned in a previous post, to a question posed by Brian, the academic training as part of an MBA program is wholly inadequate. It focuses on the wrong things. In your typical course it is structured around writing the various sections of the business plan, culminating as a business plan as a capstone project. That is of minor importance compared to other aspects like navigating business registration, raising money (the professor tells you that the business plan is a plan, when it in fact is a sales document for raising money), real estate transactions, HR issues, insurance, managing cash flow (guerrilla finance), negotiating.

Were I teaching in a business school, I would be using lots of guest lecturers, veterans of startup companies to tell their stories, especially their failures, so that the students can benefit from the entrepreneur's mistakes. This is so superior to doing packaged case studies, which really just prepare MBAs for case study interviews, useful in itself, but produces what we call at Cisco 'MBA weenies'. They don't actually know very much and lack appreciation for subtlety and detail.

One of the big weaknesses of business school for teaching entrepreneurship is that the skills you learn in business school actually discourages entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs need to have an erroneous estimate of the probability of success to undertake the venture in the first place. (For this reason, every investor knows that the finance plan in a business plan is an optimistic fiction.) Were you to act as a rational economic actor, you would never undertake the venture in the first place. All that financial modeling you do in the required finance class in an AACSB accredited MBA is not very useful. Nor in accounting do they teach you the guerrilla finance tactics to stay alive when you have a new product and no customers.

To recap, formal schooling is not that valuable, but informal education and mentoring is invaluable. I learned more in lunch time conversations with Don Massaro (Shugart Associates, Xerox, Metaphor, Silicon Gaming, Reconnex) than I ever could have learned in school.

@Dieter, just in passing, i have found "freelancers" to be not that innovative or business mart, hence they come across as managers rather than entrepreneurs.

To buy knowledge you need knowledge. Or perhaps insight is the right/ better word - here and in general.

Together with experience or experiencing, and learning, as you also point out.

@Atilla, it is hard to argue against facts. However these and such people are good learners.

@Swetha and Stephen touch on a point: it may be hard to account for the shaping and moulding of education. It is easy to overlook and difficult to account that (good) education shapes thinking.

A lot of the answers suggest very tacit knowledge.

Dear Friends and Colleagues of RG,

From my observations, it appears that entrepreneurs often do not need academic knowledge to effectively set up and develop their businesses. Often, a basic or secondary education is enough to set up and run a company efficiently, at least in the scope of various traditional types of enterprises, types of product manufacturing processes or offering services. In addition, in many countries, to organize a service plant or the production of well-known and manufactured goods for many years, no higher education is required, a secondary vocational education in a specific specialty is sufficient.

However, in the field of setting up technology, internet and IT companies based on new technologies of advanced information processing typical of the current Techological revolution of Industry 4.0. often entrepreneurs of this type are founded by entrepreneurs with slightly higher education than secondary ones, often people with higher technical education, IT, etc.

On the other hand, higher education in these fields does not necessarily mean several years of study. They can be 1-2 year postgraduate studies as supplementary to other fields of study. An important issue is the ever-increasing mismatch of study programs in the field of new technologies of advanced information processing typical of the current Techological revolution of Industry 4.0 due to the rapid technological progress in these areas. If the studies last for several years, then the technologies may change significantly and the study program ceases to be valid if it is not updated quickly.

Best wishes

Market awareness is THE key. Relevant education is an added advantage.

It is not necessarily how much education or knowledge as it is how to apply the education and knowledge received to a particular context or venture. There is much advice on the internet, for example, do these ‘5 things,’ and you are going to be successful. However, a relevant entrepreneurial education will help individuals to look at the research to identify not only successes but failures or 'hit and miss' situations plus an array of possible dynamics. For example, founders need to consider the development of critical components such as negotiation skills (i.e., helpful when seeking funding or interacting with suppliers) and the ability to build and sustain teams’ synergies (i.e., how to assemble different expertise toward a common goal). Also, within a specific context, the identification of strategic networks, collaborations, and organizational capabilities. Thus, a comprehensive approach is required to develop sufficient knowledge to grow a viable business.

The more training, technical and human, the more entrepreneurial will be found in a society.

The job of the entrepreneur is that of an orchestra conductor. Whatever skills are required by the business the entrepreneur has to provide, by himself or elsewhere (employees, trainees, consultants,...). Also a business does not exist without customers so finding customers, learning how to listen would be my very first priorities, cost structures the second, employee acquisition and retention third...

I have spent 40 years working on innovation – hands on with 2500 projects and studying about another 2500 case studies. So, I know too well that most great ideas never happen – and I am probably the cause of some of those ideas not happening!

My insights from 40 years of struggling to find the key to innovations are:

• There is NO correlation between the quality of an idea and whether it happens (except that somebody must think there is a spark of possibility in it)
• There is NO correlation between investing in great science and whether it happens
• There is NO correlation between throwing funds at an idea and whether it happens (except it is useful to have access to possible funding for innovation)
• There is NO correlation between education and innovation (except innovation is more common with bachelor and trade qualification graduates, but this is largely attributable to their drive to make their life work. Innovation declines following masters and PhD level study)
• There is NO correlation between tertiary entrepreneurship education and whether students become entrepreneurs (but there is the rare exception of an inspired course design)
• There is NO correlation between business planning and making an idea happen (there is a strong link with strategic thinking and iterating between planning and doing, but too much business planning gets people stuck in their left brain analytical side and they become less willing to act)

So what does work?

In every successful innovation there was always one individual whose identity was the success of the idea. It looks identical to parenting. There is a moment of passion/inspiration, then nine months of vague planning that does not include a detailed written plan, excitement when the great day arrives, followed two hours later with anxiety on how to feed the child and the green pallor on the skin, and then 20 plus years of trying, experimenting, getting it right, getting it wrong, and just keeping on …. because … well, just because … it matters. That’s the same story for innovation.

So for years I have been experimenting with getting potential innovators to be parents of their idea, not just a hired nanny. It involves a lot less analysis of economics, markets, marketing, cashflow, financing, technology development, organisation structure, legal structure, and commercial law, and a lot more on fostering creativity, insight, judgement, problem solving, visualisation, backcasting, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills, communication, influencing, reflection, peer influence, making commitments, and taking action now on the smallest step possible.

@Deb, in the latter part of your answer you describe a ceryain type of knowledge and education.

Therefore, to argue for no correlations to me is too strong a phosophy or position. It builds on a too simplistic model. It overlooks many intracacies and obscurities.

Still a very good answer though.

You maybe surprised but don’t shut down. I will invoke John Locke and the Law of Nature. What inspires dominance in natural ecology? We think of attributes like leanness and hence resilience. The most dominant creatures are not necessarily the most knowledgeable. Now, turn to human ecology and enterprise. Again, the dominant entrepreneurs are not necessarily the most knowledgeable. Now, many people turn around and ask, so why pursue the rigour of science? That question is absurd. It presupposes that the ultimate objective of humanity is material and money. Yet, what greater joy do we have than appreciation of reality! That joy comes from the tools of science (defined broadly in the Kuhnian sense).

Knowledge and formal education are an asset in the current IT driven world.

However your team, opportunities and luck may be other decisive factors.

I think that an entrepreneur with a broad Outlook and a vision of solving emerging issues, having professional competencies, an innovator in its essence will have a successful business. it's not the quantity, but the quality of knowledge

Answering the question about the correlation of entrepreneurs' knowledge and education and the effectiveness of business activity conducted by entrepreneurs, I conclude that the key issue is the type of business activity, sector profile of the enterprise, company and specificity of the offer of products or services produced on the market. In addition, the technological level of the product or service offer being manufactured, including the technologies used for production, is also a key issue. In the context of all the knowledge necessary to conduct a business, certain categories and fields of knowledge are important, such as knowledge of applicable legal bases shaping the principles of doing business, knowledge of the tax system, production and knowledge of the basics of economics, developing a business plan, etc. The basics of this This kind of knowledge is useful when starting a business, starting a startup, starting a company, starting production of goods. On the other hand, in the event of a company's development, gaining a significant share in the sales market of a particular assortment, current consultants, consultants, analysts, researchers, scientists employed in the company may conduct ongoing analysis and update of the necessary information regarding the above-mentioned categories of knowledge. At the next stages of the company's development, the necessary knowledge may be archived in Big Data database systems and for the purposes of supporting company management, large collections of knowledge collected can be analyzed using Business Intelligence analytical platforms. In technology companies operating in knowledge-based economies, the development of Data Science and the use of ICT information technologies and advanced data processing technologies, knowledge, etc. typical for the current technological revolution Industry 4.0 is an important issue.

Best wishes