by Yasyf Mohamedali

Hey you. Yea, you. In the blue Dropbox shirt. Hurriedly pushing past the obnoxiously slow tourists in the Infinite. Speed walking towards Stata. I know you’re in a rush but I have just a couple questions to ask you. What course are you? Ah, 6. Big surprise there. Well, the joys of 005 can wait, there’s something I want to talk to you about first. Have you ever considered starting a company? Yea like a startup! You have? Awesome! So how’s it going? What would help you move faster?

“I don’t know where to start”

“I have an idea but I don’t have time

“I’m not quite sure what the next step is”

There are some of the common responses I’ve heard around campus. Not just from Course 6 (EECS, for our non-MIT readers), but across all departments and ages. And you know what? It’s not surprising at all! Like many things at MIT, the entrepreneurial ecosystem is extremely fragmented. For every resource you need, there are three groups that offer it, and a million different paths to take through all of them. It’s a total mess, and it’s totally perfect. The chaos and firehose of options are exactly what makes us MIT, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Having said that, it can be pretty insane for anyone to navigate when trying to start a company, particularly if it’s their first time.

Read the full piece at Medium.