So you have some great ideas and are ready to start your own business venture. The idea of being your own boss sounds promising. The opportunity to let your ideas translate into profitable business is appealing. So in a stage where you are attempting to get cash together for your start-up, how would an MBA come into the picture? The answer: An MBA can help you acquire the skills that you need to supplement your ideas and passion.

Here’s what you’ll get.

• Good Deadline Habits

Crazy deadlines are in. If you thought that your undergraduate professors were being too demanding or unreasonable, welcome to the real world. An intensive MBA programme like the one at Nanyang Business School will keep you motivated to achieve targets one after the other. Because that’s how things work in the real world! Long hours and seemingly impossible time frames will be of no worry to you once you complete the programme.

• Networking Skills

You can’t like everybody and everyone can’t like you. Still, people do business with those who they know and trust. An MBA will push you into regular interaction with business experts, alumni, classmates, locals and other people around. With time, you will pick up the ability to create lasting relationships with them. Building powerful networks lays the foundation to success as an entrepreneur. Who knows? Maybe you will find future investors for your start-up.

• A Platform or a Test Bed

Launching your own business involves risk. A lot of money and time goes into beginning each venture and there’s no better place to test the waters than your B-school. MBA candidates get the advantage of having a trusted space to share their ideas without really starting anything officially. So entrepreneurs can gain from feedback. It will be good to know if your business idea is leaning toward failure and the reasons behind it – before spending a fortune on it.

• Analytical Proficiency

Just because you have a decent idea does not mean that you know how things work behind the scenes of a start-up. Reading and understanding financial statements and being proficient with spreadsheets is a must for any entrepreneur. If you don’t know it and think that hiring somebody would be good enough, think again. You need to know what is happening in your business instead of hearing a short summary about the reports. Thankfully, MBA students spend lots of time analysing balance sheets, profit and lost statements, and cash flow statements when they work on case studies.

• Teambuilding Drive

Most entrepreneurs are confident individuals who love building on their own ideas and seeing the results. Sometimes they forget that a team works together to get things together. When you choose to attend an MBA programme, you’ll find yourself collaborating with fellow candidates who you may not like to be friends with. In other words, you learn to work in groups consisting of all kinds of people. Everyone will have their own objectives and skills, and you will need to learn how to work with their ideas without losing sight of your own.

When entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs invest in an MBA degree, they are bound to learn in one or two years, what they would have learned on the job in five years or more. Of course it isn’t cheap, but it gives you the power to avoid mistakes that could end up costing you more.