How to Create Your Own Real-World MBA | Hacker News Reader

How to Create Your Own Real-World MBA

fourhourworkweek.com

I've been doing the "Create Your Own Real-World MBA" thing for ~6 years: it's called the Personal MBA. My approach is different - instead of assuming you have $100k+ and are an accredited investor, I recommend a set of great books to read. Once you master the essential concepts, you're prepared to start making a difference immediately, without mortgaging your life for an MBA.

Based on my research, these books are the best for business self-education: http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/

Here's an essay about the project: http://personalmba.com/manifesto/

My first book (titled The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume) comes out December 30th: http://personalmba.com/book/

In the meantime, I'm creating summaries of all of the books on the PMBA reading list: http://personalmba.com/category/book-summaries/. (David Allen just jumped in on my GTD summary.)

Not sure why Ferriss didn't point people to the Personal MBA in his post (I know he knows about it), but that's not in my locus of control. At any rate, if this type of approach appeals to you, feel free to AMA - I've been at it for quite a while, and I love helping people learn business without taking on crippling debt.

Like he mentioned, his situation was favorised by the fact he lived in the S. Valley and the fact that he already knew CEOs and top notch people.

But I like his main advice. Instead of paying $XXXXX in theoretical education, try to find ways to spend it in actual learning experiences.

I didn't realize he was involved in so many startups (I knew about RescueTime and DailyBurn).

I really am annoyed and almost think it is borderline wrong that he failed to mention that to be an angel investor (his $120k invested in startups), you have to be an accredited investor by the standard IRS regulations. My guess is most of the people reading his blog aren't accredited investors, otherwise they would not be reading his blog regularly and getting all pumped up 4HWW style.

"Currently, there are two ways to qualify as an individual:

- You are single and make $200K/year, or you are married and make $300K/year as a household

- You have over $1M in liquid assets"

http://blog.adamnash.com/2010/05/19/accredited-investors-fix...

You don't have to be accredited, but the company would be playing with fire by taking your money if you're not.

Good point. Friends & family can always invest.

The actual regulations are that the company owes you slightly more in terms of unaudited financials as an unaccredited investor, and there's a maximum total (something like 20 or 30?) number of unaccredited investors they can have.

Companies try to avoid it -- who wants one extra burden as a startup, even a small burden? But it's not as onerous as you might think.

He outright says, "I would not suggest mimicking this approach," and not to even try "unless you limit angel investment funds to 10% or less of your liquid assets." Which at 120k of angel investments would make you an accredited investor.

The point of his post wasn't to push people into becoming an angel investor, but to push people to be willing to invest heavily in their own education and dreams.

For example, take Mondays off, with a pay cut, and pursue a writing career.

It's certainly worth mentioning, but... I've made an angel investment, not as friends or family, and I'm not an accredited investor. Be up-front about it to the company, naturally, but we talked to several companies, and it's not uncommon for them to be willing to consider it.

Like a lot of Tim Ferriss' advice, this is superb - with a pinch of salt.

The core message is inspirational and, I think, a good one. But it's up to the reader to decide how best to apply it to their own life.

That said, I look forward to the day when I can apply the tips from this post in a literal way! ;)

I believe that all good advice comes in the form like this : a mixture of background theory, personal anecdotes of application, and a suggestion that the reader applies it to their own situation.

Specific how-to books are only good for concrete tasks like painting a wall. When it comes to life direction and investments, the variables are so numerous that specific advice is useless for most people, and so inspirational stories are much better. But for many, they just read and say 'well, I don't have 120k to invest, so the advice was no good'.

You coudl even interpret his poitn as something like : it's OK to burn money on investments as long as you can afford it, and you learn lessons and meet people along the way.

I agree with it. The real world teaches more than the classroom. I have written quite a bit about the efficiency of business education and have created alternatives as well.If you will permit me, Do we need MBAs: A 5 part series http://bighow.com/tags/doweneedmbas Do we need MBAs: A presentation http://www.slideshare.net/pramitsingh/the-success-manual-do-...

Inspired by The Personal MBA, I went one step ahead and created The Success Manual: Guide to 130 important skills - It contains summaries of 100+ Greatest business books. Version 2.0 is on the way http://thesuccessmanual.bighow.com

Right after our company got bought-out one of the first employees enrolled in a rather prestigious MBA program that took him over 3 years to complete, still working for us mostly full time. I heard he dropped $125K to finish the program. It did nothing to make him a better asset for us. He finally left, and I think the MBA had something to do with his new position. So maybe it was worth it, finally.

In theory I like the idea of dropping that money into creating your own MBA, but I think there are great practical problems in doing that while you are still employed. In the case of my co-worker, he couldn't afford to quit and pursue the MBA full time.

I think approaches like this should increasingly replace the need/desire to go to business school. Not all forms of higher education can be short-circuited so easily -- you wouldn't want someone forgoing medical school and just staying at home and practicing brain surgery on his neighbors, making mistakes (ouch) and learning as he went along. But I think it clearly works in the fields of business, software and writing.

Seth Godin's "Graduate school for unemployed college students" is something along the same lines: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/graduate-sch...

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