Entrepreneurship Degree: Why Asking the Right Questions Matters Most
There's no answer key when you're building a business from scratch.
By Tristan Kromer · - Entrepreneurship Degree
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
- Albert Einstein
In school, we’re constantly taking tests to gauge how well we’ve learned last week’s material. We cram geographic boundaries, the dates of battles, and multiplication tables into our heads and spit out the results. Sadly, those rote memorization skills and the ability to answer pre-formulated questions doesn’t help us as entrepreneurs in entrepreneurship degree. When building a new business model, there is no test or quiz to cram for. It’s as if we sat down for our final and open up the exam book only to find a blank piece of paper in front of us. 
“Where is the test?” we ask. “Right there in front of you, “ answers our teacher. “Is there a right answer?” we hesitantly inquire. “Yes there is,” assures our teacher. “What are the questions?” we plead. “That’s what you have to figure out.” As an entrepreneur (or intrapreneur) we can’t just guess at the answers without first identifying the right questions to ask. If we just guess by building a fully functioning product, it’s very likely that the market will judge us wrong and punish us with zero sales and bankruptcy.
21st Century Education
(Note: I wrote the above text as part of The Startup Real Book to explain why the book focused so much on asking the right questions instead of handing out Step 1, Step 2, Step 3 answers. I wanted to repost it here because I’m deeply concerned about the state of education in the US and the world.) We (in the US at least) should be concerned by how badly our students do on standardized tests, but we ought to be terrified of shifting to rote learning. Standardized tests are a metric. They tell us something about our education system but If we refocus our entire educational system around the metric instead of the goal, we’re doing an immense disservice to our students.
Quick Answer: An entrepreneurship degree’s real value isn’t in memorizing frameworks or following step-by-step playbooks. As entrepreneurs, we face a blank sheet of paper — no pre-formulated questions, no answer key. The critical skill is learning to identify the right questions before jumping to solutions. Skipping straight to answers (like building a full product without validation) often leads to zero sales and bankruptcy. Foundational skills like prioritization, listening, emotional awareness, and retrospectives matter far more than rote knowledge — and we should be learning them long before any accelerator or startup.
Diplomas & Certificates
The focus of recruiting in top tier tech companies isn’t in having the perfect skill set for entrepreneurship degree. It doesn’t matter if the engineer knows Rails or Java. It matters how they think. Academic credentials that demonstrate a baseline competency does open doors. Having a Stanford degree is still pretty badass and will remain so for a long time. For some companies, desperate for warm bodies, a degree or certificate may be all the qualification required to be hired on the spot. But the great companies don’t hire for just skills. They hire for culture. They hire for determination. They hire for the ability to rapidly improve those skills and figure things out from a blank sheet of paper.
Wish List
I’ve been looking back at the dozens of accelerators and hundreds (if not thousands) of entrepreneurs I’ve worked with over the last 6 years. I’ve also been thinking about my own haphazard entrepreneurial journey going back to when I was playing guitars in coffee shops two decades ago. From that, I have a wish list. These are the things I wish I had learned long, long ago. I wish I had a few more decades just to practice these skills. They are also the things I wish entrepreneurs knew and have an entrepreneurship degree before they went into an accelerator.
Focus on the Question, then Figure out the Answer
Too many entrepreneurs assume they have to know everything in order to get funding. They jump to answer every question with the confidence of a prophet. But when we pretend to know everything and jump straight to the answers, we’re invariably failing to ask the right question. Trying to fool everyone into thinking we know everything just winds up fooling ourselves.
Prioritization
The word priority should not have a plural. What’s the one thing we should be working on this week?
Retrospectives
Critically looking back at our own behavior is the only thing that lets us improve. Regularly managing that process is a hard won skill. Some startups get lucky. Most successful ones make their own luck by continually improving.
Communication
Often the desire to express our own opinions overrides our ability to hear other points of view. Communication starts with listening. It’s very easy to blame others for mishearing us or not saying what they meant. The fault is always partly with the speaker and partly with the listener. We need to practice listening, repeating the key points back, listening again for confirmation. Expressing ourselves, listening for confirmation. (Note: Listening is also a key component in conducting good customer discovery interviews.)
Emotional Awareness
Why the hell don’t we teach this in kindergarten? How much better off would we be as adults? How much better would we be as a society if everyone could identify when we’re feeling angry or nervous? Instead of just lashing out for unrelated reasons, we might take a step back, make some space, and use emotions to drive us…not let them control us. How many “founder issues” could be avoided with a little bit of emotional awareness?
Patience
Patience doesn’t mean complacency. It’s good to want to move forward. It’s good to be quick and iterate. But results take time and patience.
Lessons Learned
I don’t have any lessons learned here. I don’t have a strong thesis to defend here and very little advice. But What am I missing? What should we be teaching from kindergarten up?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an entrepreneurship degree really about?
An entrepreneurship degree isn’t about memorizing formulas or following step-by-step instructions. As entrepreneurs, we face blank sheets of paper — no pre-formulated questions, no answer keys. The real value comes from learning how to identify the right questions to ask before jumping to solutions, a skill that rote memorization and traditional education rarely develop.
Why is asking the right questions more important than having answers in entrepreneurship?
When we skip straight to answers — like building a fully functioning product without validating the problem — the market often punishes us with zero sales and bankruptcy. As Einstein suggested, spending most of our time understanding the problem is far more valuable. Identifying the right questions first prevents us from fooling ourselves into false confidence.
Do top tech companies care about entrepreneurship degrees and certificates?
Top-tier companies don’t primarily hire for specific skill sets or credentials. While a degree opens doors and demonstrates baseline competency, great companies hire for how people think — their culture fit, determination, and ability to figure things out from a blank sheet of paper. Skills can be learned quickly; the mindset to ask the right questions cannot be easily taught.
What skills should entrepreneurs learn before joining an accelerator?
We wish more entrepreneurs arrived with skills in prioritization (focusing on one thing at a time), retrospectives (critically examining their own behavior), communication (especially listening), emotional awareness (identifying and managing feelings like anger or nervousness), and patience. These foundational skills aren’t typically part of formal education but are essential for startup success.
Why is rote learning dangerous for future entrepreneurs?
When we refocus our entire educational system around standardized test metrics instead of actual learning goals, we do students an immense disservice. Rote memorization trains people to answer pre-formulated questions, but entrepreneurship demands the opposite — the ability to face uncertainty, formulate the right questions, and think critically from scratch.
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