Entrepreneur major Jon Burd|Entrepreneurship major Jon Burd

Why entrepreneurs should go to college

Most 11-year-old kids who like Legos™ spend hours building creations, and then pile the pieces in bins in the basement. When Jon Burd was 11, he instead started selling his own Legos online. At age 12 he started his own business buying and reselling them. Since then, the business has grown to involve his whole family and underwrite his college education.

“It took off at about age fifteen,” Burd, a senior entrepreneurship major, recalled. He’s maintained the business as a student with the help of family and friends he trained throughout the summer before he came to NCU. Since the business began, Burd’s company has sold close to $3 million worth of Legos and ships around 100 packages per day via his website and Ebay, where he’s an official top-rated seller.

The self-described “serial entrepreneur” started another business in 2016 with fellow students now alumni, Ben Murphy ’16 and Nora Holm ’15, providing bookkeeping and payroll services to small businesses. In December he sold his Lego company to his family and plans to invest the proceeds in another business venture he hopes to launch shortly after graduation next May.

Why should an entrepreneur go to college?

So if you’re already a successful entrepreneur making a livable income, why go to college?

“I actually made my decision to come to North Central after I visited NCU Days,” Burd explained. He and his dad came for the visit from their home in Indiana when he was 16. “The two things that were the most impactful were the friends that talked about Christ-centered business education, and talking to Dr. [Bob] Brenneman.” Burd had felt a call to missions in Turkey since he was young, and meeting Brenneman felt like a confirmation “that this is where I needed to be.”

Since coming to North Central, Burd said, “I feel like I’ve learned so much.” As a young entrepreneur he has been guided mostly by intuition. “But you don’t learn the terminology,” he noted, adding that learning basic business practices, such as managing the right balance between assets and liabilities, has been important.

Bill Tibbetts, director of the NCU School of Business, affirmed Burd’s decision to back up his entrepreneurial instincts with formal education. “Most startups fail early on or don’t achieve the market share that they desire because they lack business knowledge,” Tibbetts observed. “Passion can only get you so far. Startups that want to succeed need to partner passion with best practices in business. That’s why getting an education as an entrepreneur is critical.”

Business professor Brian Stewart also chimed in on the importance of a college education for entrepreneurs, saying, “Entrepreneurs see the world in a different way than most. For them, there is opportunity everywhere, which is why it is not uncommon for entrepreneurs to be working on multiple businesses at a time. While this can be good, it can often create opportunity costs and result in costly mistakes.

“In my experience, the process of attaining a business degree (for the entrepreneur) is one of refinement and sharpening the tools he or she already has. The business market is very Darwinian in nature, thus knowing how to make better decisions than your competitions, affords the entrepreneurial student an advantage.”

For Burd, his NCU experience has gone beyond the classroom. He’s been active in Enactus, a business student organization, is actively involved with a local church fellowship, and even studied abroad.

Burd spent a semester in Istanbul, Turkey last year, engaged in language studies and online classes. He loved the experience and still sees serving in Turkey one day, but his focus has been on his business classes and honing his skills.

Entrepreneurship major Jon BurdConnecting faith to business and education

Integration of faith and learning are vital to Burd for his education and his future as a businessman. “I’ve gleaned a lot from my classes about how we integrate faith into business,” he said. In School of Business chapels speakers regularly discuss how they bring faith into what they do.

“The focus is heavy on ethics,” Burd noted. “That’s been really helpful to have, with how often people ask for you to do unethical things—I’m surprised at how often that happens!” Standing firm in his faith is important for this entrepreneur. “People will ask us to write a different value on a customs form—we just don’t do that! We lose a lot of sales because of that.”

Burd enthusiastically affirms his choice to attend NCU. “Opening class in prayer is something I found really unique about the school,” he shared, “and to see high-level business people and professionals have a passion for business and for God—they are role models.”

North Central’s downtown location has also afforded Burd and his fellow students opportunities even beyond internships and jobs. “We went to East Town Business Partnership events,” Burd said, noting that these and other events provide a great chance to network.

The impact of starting and succeeding in business has shaped Jon Burd, but he acknowledges that it is connecting his faith to his endeavors that matters the most.

“As a home-schooler, I had unique opportunities to work from home even while doing school. I finished high school early and worked for two years before I got to college,” Burd explained. “I was able to spend a lot of time praying about my future and thinking about that while I worked. My mom would write Bible verses on the white board in the [downstairs] office, and we would pray over the company together.

“What has impacted me the most is the continual experiences in prayer and how it changed the course of the company. One time I was on a mission trip and the company had slowed down to $100 in sales per day. I started freaking out because I had a lot of inventory! Mom reminded me to pray about it. I spent two hours in prayer and the next day we sold $10,000 in Legos! It happens all the time. It’s amazing to see how much God has proven how effective prayer is.”

Step out with your ideas in faith

Burd recognizes that his experience is unique, but also encourages others to be bold. “People get more intimidated by business than they should,” Burd observed. “They think they need a huge business plan or startup capital—but there are so many ways you can do business without [a lot of] money.”

Helping others achieve their goals through business is something Burd is eager to pursue. Now he has the right instincts—and education—to do so.

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