Do entrepreneurs need any 'education'?

Continued from previous post

Conversely, I realize that entrepreneurship requires skills which come in very cheap and are not exactly "business related". Business skills (imparted in MBA courses) are required in entrepreneurship way down the curve when your business idea/company has already survived a couple of winters.

For example if you want to start something in software - you need to basically know coding and stuff like that; if you want to start something in energy - you need to know the technical details behind that. One doesn't need to know accounting methods or Investment management or Supply Chain principles when one is in startup mode.

So here is the dilemma which needs to be dealt with when it comes to "education for entrepreneurship". The basic skills for entrepreneurship are not difficult to learn - and the soft skills for entrepreneurs are more intrinsic than those which can be taught. So, how can education make or break an entrepreneur?  In my opinion Entrepreneurs are born with it!

However, Prof Prasad disagrees; he feels that [italics mine] - 

"Entrepreneurs ARE NOT BORN - they are  product of their fate. It is the fate that makes them. Even they don't know why they became what they are and if you carefully observe, this category is only 1 or 2 Percent of the entrepreneurs and will not be  more than that. They by chance became entrepreneurs. 

"In reality, people can be made entrepreneurs with a proper learning system - it is like making musicians, cricketers. When I say this, I mean to say that probability of conversion [by learning] is higher than compared to chance method. If the chance conversion has a 1 percent [success rate], this method has got 15 percent conversion. Still 85 percent people are not converted into entrepreneurs [that's ok!].   Only thing is that we need to design the system for producing them- and so far we have not done it and we are not presently doing this, many B-schools and E-schools are also not doing this."

Rohit has yet another view ... 

The competition that has to be won is of STRUGGLE, and of LIFE. You will have to put your own money in (whatever miniscule it is), grow your idea bit-by-bit, take small steps at a time, endure pain and hardships, keep on improving whatever you are doing, till the point arrives when backers come behind you. 

Going through this process is very important. First of all, it teaches you the lessons of LIFE which no formal education system can ever impart. Secondly, it gives you the experience necessary to handle hardships. That's what made Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Dhirubhai Ambani, and other first generation achievers, and thats what will make a successful entrepreneur. Never cut your hardship period short. You will cut your education of life.    

Schools/Courses or Environment

I feel that entrepreneurs are born with it and they can only be provided the right opportunities. 

[... to be continued - 3, 4]