Self-Education for Startups – Today, YouTube has become an infinite library of how to’s and DIY videos, allowing anybody with internet access to teaching themself a new skill, trade, or subject with one click. And while YouTube was already well on it’s way to becoming the go-to spot for necessary information, with searches of “how to” videos growing at 70 percent per year, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the wide acceptance of YouTube as an actual educational platform.
At a moment when people around the world are spending more time at home, millions of people seized the opportunity to learn new things and tackle tasks they used to outsource through YouTube.
While there are literally thousands upon thousands of DIY and self-education videos on YouTube, there still seems to be a vacancy when it comes to self-education in the entrepreneurial startup industry. That’s why self-education for entrepreneurs will become the most important topic in the startup ecosystem over the next few years.
According to LinkedIn News editor Jordyn Dahl, high unemployment has encouraged would-be business owners to finally pursue their great ideas, and more people are making the shift from “employee” to “entrepreneur.” As of mid-November 2020, the number of new business applications had skyrocketed — up 38 percent year-over-year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, leading to a demand for education tools pertaining to succeeding as a startup.
This demand is due to the sad truth that without business skills and real expertise, these entrepreneurs are destined to struggle. Different failure types such as not building the right team, pricing issues, mistimed products, lack of an effective business model, and legal challenges can all be attributed to a lack of education for founders.
In total, only about half of all startups make it to their fifth year, and while you don’t have to be at the frontiers of technology and land on Mars in order to guarantee success, being aware of the skills and fundamentals necessary to survive as a startup in today’s economy are essential to making it in the long-run.
Many of these first-time entrepreneurs turn to the internet, and its unlimited information, spending hours navigating articles, blogs, and other documents in order to learn the basics. However, in many cases, this strategy overwhelms and confuses the founder, as every investor, blogger, and entrepreneurial expert has a different opinion on what founders should do when starting their business.
For many startups, the best source of education or advice on the matter at hand comes from incubators. A startup incubator is a collaborative program designed to help new startups succeed, in which incubators help cohorts of entrepreneurs solve some of the problems commonly associated with running a startup by providing workspace, seed funding, mentoring, strategic relationships and training.
To start, many incubators require a time commitment of around one to two years, plus adherence to the schedule set by the incubator, which can include many trainings and workshops. While you will learn a lot, you’ll also spend a fair amount of time doing it, time that could be spent on the startup idea itself.
On top of all this, even getting into an incubator is pretty tough. There are about 9,000 incubators worldwide, with most of them being non-profits, but roughly 4.4 million new companies started in 2020, so the math doesn’t demonstrate a favorable outcome for most startups. The application process can also be rigorous and competitive. For most incubators, an applicant is required to submit a detailed business plan and disclose all business activities. Unfortunately, less than 3% of startups get accepted into these programs due to the limited bandwidth and resources of those managing these accelerators to effectively review all of the applicant companies. In total, it took the industry 10 years to put roughly twenty thousand companies through accelerators programs to provide them with strategic advice, mentorship, education, networks of investors, corporations, and funds
And while accelerators, incubators, and many other services exist out there to help them move faster to build a successful company, some people simply believe no one can truly teach entrepreneurship. Many of the lessons necessary to building a strong business must be experienced by entrepreneurs themselves during their journey from start-up to success. However, education can still play a vital role nonetheless, as “first-time” entrepreneurs can learn much to reduce their risk factors and not repeat common mistakes that many have done before.
That’s where Peachscore comes in, as our mission is to help the industry to accelerate from twenty thousand startups in ten years to the same number in just twelve months, and that’s why we call it a revolution and true “Mass Startup Acceleration.” Peachscore understands the importance of guidance and tips for startups looking to blossom into successful company and is setting out to solve the lack of self-education problem in the entrepreneurial industry. Peachscore’s platform provides a low-cost and very robust educational solution for startups, through the use of AI-driven technology.
By collecting and analyzing early-stage companies’ information in real-time using 14 different dimensions with over 340 evaluation factors, Peachscore’s engine pinpoints and explains which areas of the startup need improvement, why it needs improvement, and how founder’s can specifically address the problems. By offering this at the click of a button, Peachscore is virtualizing and democratizing the startup incubator and entrepreneurship education industry.
Currently, about 90 percent of all startups fail, with about ten percent of those coming in the first year. However, stats like this are never going to stop people with an idea from starting a business and attempting to run with it. With the right guidance tools to help these new business owners educate themselves as they are experiencing the world of entrepreneurship firsthand, slowly, the number of failed startups might start to go down.