Smart People Should Build Things, by Andrew Yang: on Corporations

Economies recede after switch from making things to services

Both the Netherlands and Great Britain were global manufacturing powers in their day. The Dutch and British then turned to financial services and insurance as the drivers of their economies. Unfortunately, it's hard for an economy to rely solely on financial services, and both countries receded from the world stage.

We no longer manufacture devices, we manufacture analyses. Investment banks, private equity firms, corporate law firms, and management consultancies are all vitally important to today's US economy. They offer prestige, high-starting salaries, training, expense accounts, and the promise of community and open doors.

Explore ideas on the side while working full-time job

Research your idea (figure out the market)
1. Undertake legal incorporation and trademark protection
2. Claim a web URL and build a website or have it built; get company e-mail accounts.
3. Get a bank account and credit card (you'll generally have to use personal credit at first).
4. Initiate a Facebook page, a blog, and a Twitter account
5. Develop branding (e.g., get a logo designed, print business cards).
6. Talk it up to your network; try to find interested parties as cofounders, staff, investors, and advisers.
7. Build financial projections and draft a business plan
8. Engage in personal financial planning (e.g., cut back on expenses)
9. Create a mock prototype and presentation for potential investors or customers.

Send top people to startups, not financial services

We'd restore our culture of achievement to include value creation, risk and reward, and the common good. By solving this one problem, we solve many other problems at the same time.

We are hyper-allocating the bulk of our top graduates to professional services industries, while leaving promising new companies around the country under-resourced.

Venture for America: non-profit entrepreneurship support

I began talking to people about this idea, which I called Venture for America--the most self-explanatory name I could think of. It would be a nonprofit with a three-part mission:

• To revitalize American cities and communities through entrepreneurship.
• To enable our best and brightest to create new opportunities for themselves and others.
• To restore the culture of achievement to include value creation, risk, and reward, and the common good.

Start a company? More realistically "Join a team"

These people--the builders who work with the founders to help these companies grow and prosper--are, in many ways, more appropriate role models. The plan should not be, for the most part, "start a company." More realistically, the plan should be "join a team." If you're positioned to start your own organization, that's great--but rare.

If you join a growth organization, you'll likely do different things in different roles throughout your career. If you have a good run, you can always come back and start something later.

And it's not just coders and engineers that these new companies need. Just about any growth company is going to need smart salespeople, content creation, and analytics.

Enlist entrepreneurs as mentors

I've identified a way forward--policy goals that, if achieved, would have a profound impact on our economy as well as the character and fulfillment of our young people:
• Introduce human capital allocation as a policy goal.
• Encourage professional services firms to tailor their recruitment.
• Make growth companies a distinct category for university career services.
• Provide scholarships and loan forgiveness for graduates heading to growth companies.
• Enforce transparency and better financial data educational institutions.
• Present builders as role models, in newspapers and media.
• Improve and invest in entrepreneurial education.
• Enlist entrepreneurs as mentors, in universities and business schools.
• Make accelerators and incubators more accessible.
• Form and expand regional innovation hubs.
• Entrepreneurs should reach back, and share their stories [to] mentor up-and-comers.
• Support risk-takers you know.

Ran test-prep company, then sold it to bigger company

• Help students achieve their goals
• Our standard is excellence
• Build a strong team

Prior to Manhattan GMAT, I'd been accustomed to something of a venture-capital mindset, to try to keep your investors excited. With Manhattan GMAT there were no investors to placate.

In 2009, after a competitive bidding process, we agreed to be acquired by Stanley Kaplan Test Prep and the Washington Post company.