6 skills that make PhDs successful entrepreneurs
Whether it’s a side hustle or a full-time gig, being an entrepreneur is about wearing allll the different hats. You need to simultaneously work on marketing, branding, content creation, accounting, strategic planning, video and graphic creation, writing copy, and honing your skills around the thing that’s the core product or service of your business (for me, coaching).
My experience of starting my own small business this year has showed me that (surprisingly) earning my PhD actually prepared me well for entrepreneurship! PhDs have several skills that make us successful entrepreneurs, small business owners, and/or start-up founders. I’ve listed just a few of those skills below, but there are certainly more!
1) Project planning and management. Planning and completing a research project involves a ton of project management. To take something from the idea stage, to the research and testing stage, all the way through the execution and dissemination stages takes a ton of planning and project management. Whether that’s a research project or some kind of product or service, PhDs have the skills to plan and manage big projects.
2) Working independently. While collaboration is a huge part of the research process, earning a PhD definitely requires learning how to work independently. There aren’t always hard and fast deadlines for a research project, or micro-deadlines to ensure progress is being made. Often it’s up to the individual student to make sure they’re making progress and getting their work done in time. Being a small business owner is so similar! There’s no one there to hold you accountable to deadlines, it’s really up to you to find ways to build in that accountability. Having the drive and the skill to accomplish things without a firm external accountability structure is so crucial as an entrepreneur.
3) Thirst for knowledge and learning. You don’t get a PhD if you’re not interested in learning new things. In fact, being really interested in learning more might be the core requirement for getting a PhD, and that’s not something that goes away after you graduate! Having a thirst for knowledge and learning new things is such an important skill as an entrepreneur. So much of starting a small business is about stepping outside of your comfort zone and learning something new you might not have previous experience with, which is something that many PhDs excel at.
4) Knowing how to research. One of the biggest things earning a PhD taught me was how to figure things out. Whether through my own research, calling on resources, or in collaboration with others, I learned how to seek out and evaluate quality information. Earning a PhD doesn’t teach you everything, but it does teach you how to learn new things, something that’s key in starting a small business. I may not have formal training in SEO or marketing, but I know how to find quality information and integrate it into what I do already know.
5) Asking and answering big questions. Starting a business requires a good amount of reflection and asking yourself big questions, things like “Who is my ideal client? What problems or pain points are they struggling with? What can I do to help them?” As above, this definitely includes some amount of research, but it also requires being able to take different pieces of information and pull them together into a cohesive story to answer questions – something that PhDs know how to do!
6) Problem solving. When your experiment doesn’t work or the SPSS syntax you’re running fails, you work to solve that problem – going over what might have went wrong, checking your work, and trying new things. Similarly, the skill I use most frequently as an entrepreneur is problem solving. Whether it’s troubleshooting why an e-mail workflow isn’t functioning properly, or trying to figure out why a program didn’t fill, solving problems is so crucial.
Are you a PhD considering exploring entrepreneurship? Maybe considering taking on some consulting projects or developing a side hustle? Coaching can help make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality. Reach out to schedule a free 30-minute exploration session to learn more.
