Why Small Business Owners Should
Adopt a Back to School Mindset at All Times
The
best students are self-directed and develop their own learning tools and
resources. Founders should take note.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
Sep 23,
2025
I recently assisted in
the delivery and installation of two of my granddaughters at their respective
universities, and it occurred to me that their next year of college comes at a
time when few things in our lives and at their school could be more uncertain,
imperiled, confused and discouraging. But, to their credit—and due to the hard
work and careful planning of the school’s staff and administration — the
overall atmosphere, attitudes of the participants, and willingness of the new
and returning students to roll up their collective sleeves and dive into the
whole upcoming adventure was consistently positive and upbeat.
Watching the frantic
hustle and bustle of beating the clock, jamming far too much material into
clearly too small a space, and racing back and forth to stores for scarce
supplies reminded me of the same experience watching and assisting literally
hundreds of startups as they launched their attempts to turn their early
concepts, grand dreams and sometimes outright fantasies into viable businesses.
We called this process “turning ideas into invoices,” and it had exactly the
same components that I witnessed last week as the students invaded their dorms.
Boundless enthusiasm was
one obvious and essential element. Unfortunately, too many of our schools are
still organized around the old factory model (compliance and conformity) and
the educational methodology seems to be designed to suck all the diversity,
variance and creativity out of our young pupils and turn them into good worker
bees. The old adage still largely applies that teachers concern themselves
almost exclusively with what they are teaching and rarely focus on the far more
important consideration of whether their students are listening and learning.
The best and most successful students at college these days are self-directed,
developing and constructing their own learning tools and resources, learning
from and sharing ideas and information with their peers, and largely gaining
essential knowledge and wisdom in spite of their professors. To survive in
environments like these, enthusiasm is crucial, as is persistent perseverance.
Of course, absolutely
none of this should come as a surprise to any entrepreneur. These are exactly
the same kinds of early challenges and obstacles that every new business
builder faces. Everyone has a million reasons why your ideas won’t work, and
they’re happy to share them with you—all from the sidelines and not in the fray
alongside you. Investors string you along, have a million questions and
concerns, take their sweet time and eventually disappoint you and disappear. It
takes a thick skin, the same kind of excessive enthusiasm, and a tremendous
amount of energy and resilience to stay the course and keep moving forward.
The second sentiment
that I saw all around the school was unbridled optimism. Not especially from
the crowds of parents facing ridiculous six-figure tuition costs along with an
awareness of just how horribly misdirected, dangerous and destructive things were
going with the Orange Monster in charge of our country who was attempting every
day to destroy our basic institutions (including colleges and universities) as
well as the basic doctrines of democracy like free speech. But the students had
a different view (maybe unfortunately misinformed) of the state of the times
and the future prospects for themselves and the country. They have high hopes
for the world ahead, not simply fears of and for it. They weren’t going to let
their folks or their faculty dampen their excitement or diminish their belief
in a better world to come. And they believed that the changes needed were in
their own hands, that by eventually working together they could accomplish far
more than any of them could working alone, and that making positive changes
were ultimately their responsibility and their burden.
Here again, the students
all sounded like mini-makers. We used to tell our entrepreneurs that, if you
didn’t believe fiercely and absolutely in your business, not only would that
negativity show and spread to your team, but it would be almost impossible to
convince anyone else to invest or believe in it. Entrepreneurs need to be
leaders and merchants of hope and dreams. Optimism is completely contagious,
and your people need to have a realistic sense of possibility. You’ve got to
show them a future vision and a viable path to get there if you want them to
follow you forward. A leader without a team fervently following him is just a
guy taking a walk.
Finally, I was grateful
to see but slightly depressed that—just like young entrepreneurs—all these
future doctors, lawyers, and game changers had absolutely no idea of just how
long, hard and painful their journeys were going to be and how so many of them
might end in failure and disappointment. Entrepreneurs are visionaries with a
poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.
My sadness came from the
realization that we, as parents, mentors, and educators, have done a pretty
poor job of preparing our kids for the bumpy and often unfair road that they’ll
be taking. Too many strokes, too much false encouragement, too much emphasis on
“talent” and too many participation trophies don’t make things better. Nor does
a lot of wishful thinking as we constantly try to smooth, streamline and
prepare the path for our offspring rather than prepare children for the path ahead of them. These are
all setups for heartbreaks down the line and actually a disservice to them.
We need to get back to
telling them the truth—that all the talent and hope in the world won’t beat
hard work and persistence—and that in this world: “you don’t get what you wish
for, you get what you work for” and, even at that, not every time. Not every
heroic effort has a happy ending. This isn’t bursting anyone’s bubble, it’s
simply telling it like it is.
