Get your hands dirty!!!!

I had the plessure today to be invited by Dr Shuyuan Wu as a guest lecture for a undergrad paper at AUT in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. One of the objectives of the paper was for students to generate a business idea and present it in front of a panel - just like Dragons Den. I used my own company, Transfercar, as a case study to demonstrate how an idea was turned into a new venture. I was amazed with the quality and diversity of the ideas that these students have generated - but gee - what happend to good old fashioned market research? Not that the student have not done any market research - they had been told to identify their competitors and estimate the market potential - simple Google research - but none have actually been out getting their hands dirty. None have actually been out talking to real people - real customers - real suppliers. I guess it is not the students fault - but maybe academics should spend less time teaching students how to do regression and Porter's 5 forces - and spend more time teaching them how to use their network and communicate with people - because at the end of the day - isnt that what entrepreneurs do.