Many people across the globe right now are thinking about their future and career as one year closes and a new one begins. If you’ve been dreaming of quitting your job and working for yourself for ages, now is a good time to put a plan in place to make the transition.
However, before you write a resignation letter and spend time and money on launching a startup, it pays to invest in your education first. Read on for some important topics worth studying ASAP if you want to enjoy business success sooner rather than later.
Business
Obviously, if you want to be in business for yourself, studying the general topic can be of great assistance. Whether a bachelor degree or a higher degree in the area (such as this no GMAT MBA), enrolling in a university course in this specialty will give you a good overall understanding of subjects such as leadership, marketing, psychology, communication, organizational management, administration, international markets, and the like.
These types of degrees, particularly MBAs, will not only teach you relevant practical skills that you can use to create and growing a venture, but will also give you the chance to meet like-minded people from all over the country. These contacts may end up becoming not only your friends, confidantes, and support systems over the years, but also potentially your investors, employees, partners, and consultants.
Computer Science
Living in such a computer-driven world, as we do these days, computer science is another handy area of focus for your studies. Take a look at some of the most prominent startup founders, CEOs, CTOs, and COOs over the last decade or so, and you’ll see that many of them have a background in computer-based topics. With technology disrupting markets all over the world more and more, as well as being used to find quicker and cheaper ways of doing things, having skills and knowledge in coding, data analytics, and other related fields can be invaluable.
Study a degree in computer science and you can learn how to create top websites, apps, and other programs which could go on to become the “next big thing,” following on from famous tech stories such as Amazon, Snapchat, Google, Angry Birds, Facebook, Evernote, and Basecamp. Learning about this field can help you to become proficient in building and using analytics programs for big-data sets too, which you can then use to save money, notice trends, streamline processes, and boost employee morale over the years.
Sales
Of course, it doesn’t matter what industry your business will be in or what products or services you will sell, you must be proficient in sales techniques if you want to get ahead in the marketplace. If you don’t know how to sell your wares to investors, lenders, employees, journalists and, in particular, customers, you’ll not only not achieve your big business goals over the years, but you may also not be able to keep your organization open.
Even if, after a time, you can hire staff members or contractors to handle the day to day customer sales process for you, as the owner and manager of a business you still need to have top-notch sales skills. As an example, you may use them to negotiate with suppliers; sell employees on ideas; get investors to put more money into the business; and lure top job candidates away from other companies.
Finance and Accounting
Lastly, another key skill for any entrepreneur to have is a thorough understanding of finance and accounting topics. If you want to grow your business and make as much money from it as possible, it’s essential to be able to budget, keep track of expenses, prepare reports, and make financial projections.
Study finance and you will learn how to raise capital and to keep the money flowing as the years go by, and how to best trade in international markets and work with different currencies. You can wrap your head around the effects of micro and macro economic decisions, and become better at cutting costs and working out where money is most effectively spent.
Even if you outsource finance and accounting tasks to someone else, it is still necessary to have a decent understanding of these topics so you can be sure they’re doing their job right and not trying to pull the wool over your eyes in any way. Being qualified in this area can also make you much more interesting to investors if you need to gain funding from an external party.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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