There is a rare and powerful tremor that runs through a growing business—a feeling of traction, of the market leaning in, of phones ringing and orders stacking up. It’s the moment when your idea stops being a theory and starts becoming a reality. This momentum is a gift, but it also presents a profound and often difficult choice: to stay the course in a formal education or to dive fully into the tide that is pulling your venture forward. For some, the answer is to let go of the ladder you were climbing and build the aircraft already in flight.
The heart of the argument isn’t a dismissal of education’s value. Knowledge, frameworks, and the disciplined thinking cultivated in school are undeniable assets. The conflict arises from a scarcity far more critical than money: time. A burgeoning business is a jealous, all-consuming entity. It doesn’t operate on a semester schedule or respect exam periods. Its needs are urgent, its opportunities fleeting. That pivotal customer call, that supply chain crisis, that chance to secure a game-changing partnership—they happen in real-time. Splitting your focus means you are, by definition, giving less than your best to both pursuits. In the arena of a competitive market, “good enough” is often the precursor to “gone.”
Consider the nature of the education you’re receiving. Academia, by its design, teaches from the past. It offers case studies of what worked yesterday. Your business, however, exists in the volatile, thrilling present. The lessons you need are being written right now—in your customer feedback, in your failed marketing tests, in the late-night scramble to fix a product flaw. This is experiential learning of the highest order, where the stakes are real and the feedback is instantaneous. You are not studying business; you are conducting it in a live laboratory where the results shape payrolls and define futures.
There is also the undeniable truth about networks. A classroom connects you with professors and peers, a valuable community. But a taking-off business connects you with a different echelon: customers, mentors in your industry, seasoned investors, and potential collaborators. These are the relationships that directly fuel growth. Each becomes a thread in the fabric of your operational reality, offering insights no textbook can capture. Choosing to be fully present in that world often accelerates your development in ways a curriculum cannot map.
This isn’t a call for reckless abandonment. It is a plea for honest prioritization. Momentum has a half-life. The market window that is open today may be shut tomorrow, held ajar by competitors who are working with singular dedication. While you’re writing a paper on business models, someone else is iterating on theirs in the wild, capturing the very customers you seek. Formal education will almost always be there to return to; the chance to ride a unique wave of demand and passion may not.
If your business is showing you tangible signs of life—real revenue, growing user bases, unsolicited demand—recognize it for what it is: the most potent education you could currently be receiving. It is teaching you about resilience, market fit, and execution under pressure. Sometimes, the most strategic decision an entrepreneur can make is to respectfully step away from the theory of the classroom and commit, wholly and completely, to the profound practice of building. Your degree, in that moment, is being written in real-time, stamped not by an institution, but by the market itself. Don’t miss the chance to earn it.
