Earning an MBA and Owning a Small Business

By: Katie Bigelow

It was now or never. I had to decide. I had entered the Army for the GI Bill. Don’t judge. I had 15 years to use it after I exited the Army. Fifteen years seemed like PLENTY of time. At 12 years, I started to feel it slip away. I had been a special needs mom and housewife. I was now the President of my own company with 7 children. I had to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up and how using my college money would have a roll in that future. I had an AA in Foreign Language and a BS in Aeronautics. Could I get an MA in Juggling because I could probably use some lessons. True to the path of my other degrees, I decided to pursue a degree in the field I was already in, Business. So, I signed up for an MBA at Temple University in Philadelphia.

This spring, I will put my degree in a file drawer and update my resume. I have a Fellows Program and a Capstone project left, and those will be finished shortly. Finance 5001 and Accounting 5001 are distant memories. I love my business and, God willing, I will never have another job outside of my current gig. I have no need of a job and no chances for a promotion. The question remains, why would I bother getting an MBA?

My plan was to make my GI Bill count for something, and it totally did. I have taken 17 classes. In every single class, I learned something that would make my business better. There were amazing people in my classes that mostly worked in universities and corporate jobs. They were in risk or finance or marketing, but they rarely touched every aspect of business like I do. My professors mostly taught from the corporate viewpoint, but those corporations didn’t get to where they are without starting out as a small business just like mine.

I don’t want my business to grow into a large corporate machine, but I do want to grow smart. We studied case after case of businesses that made it and those that didn’t. All the while, I had two running lists: 1. What makes a company successful? 2. What makes a company fail?

My two biggest takeaways for success:

1.       Companies that plow ahead with the changing market win. Companies that stick to the old ways fail.

2.       People are everything to a business, big or small. Find great talent and then love them, celebrate them, and help them to give their best.