I wrote a response to a post on Smaller Indiana by Doug Karr about the 21 Fund and their mission.

In particular, I was responding to this quote: “(Steve Hourigan) shared that the benefit of the fund really isn’t the money as much as it is the education that they could be providing companies with the right resources.”

My comment:

“I really enjoyed this post and your commentary on the 21 Fund, although it has left me confused about what the 21 Fund’s mission is - but I think that’s the point. Their mission isn’t what I thought it was or what most people think it is.

I’d be interested in hearing more about what “education” the 21 Fund is providing. I think the industry of educating entrepreneurs is already oversubscribed. I shudder to think how many productive hours have been wasted teaching a group of “entrepreneurs” the different ways to finance a startup. I say wasted because most people who consume this knowledge will never end up starting a business or are years away from using it.

Financing a startup is just one of those subjects that comes up a lot. There are plenty of others like which corporate entity to choose and how to hire your first employees.

This type of entrepreneur education feels good but it doesn’t move the needle. This type of generic education is a Google search away and the doers, the people who start businesses and create value from nothing, don’t usually get their entrepreneurship education from sitting in a classroom.

Most of the education someone needs when starting a business is very time sensitive and subject specific. For instance with Pocket Tales, my biggest issue today, June 9th, is redesigning our application UI. We also have a lingering issue of hiring a tech lead, and that is actually a place I think the 21 Fund could really help the state of Indiana.

How can we better match technical talent, whether it’s software “technical” or medical “technical,” with business talent to form stronger founding teams?

How can we imbue more people in Indiana with the attitude of “screw it, let’s do it,” instead of training them to sit in classrooms consuming knowledge, further delaying the act of creating until they know all the answers?

As you and I both know Doug, you never know all the answers. You only hope you can find the right answer when you need it, and you don’t have the time or the resources to think much beyond today’s bottleneck.

Just my two cents about most of the entrepreneur education I see.”