I spoke with a professor at a regional nationally-known university a few months ago. He was setting up a program for students to get real-world experience working with startups.
"Awesome!" I told him, "If I can have 2-3 kids for 3 days a week of around 4 hours, it will provide me with enough value to be worth my time, and in return they're going to get a lot of great experience. Just don't tell me you're sending a group of them here to do some kind of bullshit interviews, research, and reports. Really don't need much of that."
To his credit, he agreed with me that yes, that was exactly how he was planning it: the post-grads would roll in, take a look at some problem, go away and study it, then provide me a nice bound report at the end of their time. He wanted me to present them with little nicely-wrapped problems to consume.
I pointed out that this was not working in a startup. This was not entrepreneurial. This was -- for lack of a better term -- pre-consultant training.
We parted on friendly terms, but it really made me sad. I feel like both the students and I could have gotten a lot of value from a short time together, I was willing to invest in infrastructure and my time in return for their participation, and it was a shame that the university couldn't work out something that would be beneficial to us all.
"Awesome!" I told him, "If I can have 2-3 kids for 3 days a week of around 4 hours, it will provide me with enough value to be worth my time, and in return they're going to get a lot of great experience. Just don't tell me you're sending a group of them here to do some kind of bullshit interviews, research, and reports. Really don't need much of that."
To his credit, he agreed with me that yes, that was exactly how he was planning it: the post-grads would roll in, take a look at some problem, go away and study it, then provide me a nice bound report at the end of their time. He wanted me to present them with little nicely-wrapped problems to consume.
I pointed out that this was not working in a startup. This was not entrepreneurial. This was -- for lack of a better term -- pre-consultant training.
We parted on friendly terms, but it really made me sad. I feel like both the students and I could have gotten a lot of value from a short time together, I was willing to invest in infrastructure and my time in return for their participation, and it was a shame that the university couldn't work out something that would be beneficial to us all.
This sounds like a great idea. Sign me up.