The US Government Should Fund Startup Ideas

The Obama administration made news recently when it announced a program that will offer free community college to young Americans. So the question is whether the move made by Obama administration the right move? There is a debate happening these days about the value and cost of college educations. In fact, Peter Thiel started the Thiel Foundation, which offers the Thiel Fellowship. The fellowship is an opportunity to build a startup instead of going to college.

I have posted about this topic here. I would prefer to fund my kids' startup or product ideas than spend money on college. The cost of a good college these days is upwards of 50K per year. Total cost is astronomical, ranging from 120K to over 200K in 4 years, plus room and board, books, etc. So, is the administration's move purely a marketing play? Does it make sense to offer free college with the huge amount of college loan debt in the market, the lack of entry level jobs, and the continued disruption of the labor force by technology?

This was a mistake by the administration. Given the needs of our people during this disruptive technology era, we should consider nontraditional forms of education. We should consider providing something with much more value, a higher return on investment, and relevant to needs now and the future. I think providing young adults with the opportunity to build a product or company provides far better return on investment than sending them to community college for free. It could be funding (or matching funding) of a startup idea, providing free coding classes, or even providing free access to entrepeneurial/accelerator programs like Y-Combinator.

Supporting an entrepreneurial project provides the following "real world" experiences:

• Project and Product Management - learning how to build a product is an invaluable experience that they can take with them into any role. Responsiblility for ensuring all team members do their part and on time is a critical skill-set.
• Teamwork & Collaboration - pulling together a team of people with different backgrounds to get a project done will teach
• Financial Management - raising money, paying employees and contractors, while making sure the money in the bank, is an incredible lesson. How will you price your product? Is it free? Beta free? Freemium model work?
• Human Resources - you have a team of people, some are cofounders, others contractors or employees. How do you pay these people? Do you have to provide them benefits? You learn the very basic foundation of a company starts with its HR.
• Recruiting - you need a user experience contractor. Where do you find this person? How do you know they are right for the role? Recruiting people starts on day 1 and never ends until you exit.
• Sales & Marketing - you've built a product based on an awesome idea and a game-changing user experience. What now? No one knows about your company/product, so how do you get it out into the world? Do you talk to Tech Crunch, list on CrunchBase? Is this okay for Product Hunt? Is there a beta launch? Do you know what to say? How to say it?

You can learn all of these things, in theory, at college. Talking about theories and case studies only gets you so far. I am not completely discouraging anyone from attending college, there is a foundation of knowledge to obtain in college for many professions. I do ask for folks to think about college seriously. Should it be automatic right after high school or are there other options? Learning by doing is extremely valuable, which is why I still remember those lab experiments from high school science. The learning experiences from having to launch a product by a specific date, conducting your first press interview, or making payroll on time cannot be found in a textbook.