This essay addresses a skill that is indispensable for entrepreneurs for it helps them not only overcome the risks facing their projects but also achieve great success as they become more independent.
What is self-learning? What are the revenues gained from acquiring this skill? Can this skill be an added value to entrepreneurs and earn them good money? What are the most famous platforms that help entrepreneurs acquire this skill?
Entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly popular, especially among the youth. For example, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg were in their early twenties when they founded their businesses that later turned into major companies that changed the world.
A team from Harvard University analyzed the age of all business founders in recent years from the US Census Bureau and found that the average age of entrepreneurs at the time they founded their companies is 42, which shows that our generation's youth, in particular, is starting to accept the concept of entrepreneurship.
So, what is entrepreneurship and who is an entrepreneur? The formal definition of entrepreneurship is the process of starting a business or establishing an organization for for-profit purposes or for meeting social needs.
An entrepreneur is someone who develops and builds a business model by gathering human and financial resources to start the business, operates its, and is responsible for its success and failure.
Entrepreneurship is not trouble-free as an entrepreneurial project may fluctuate between achieving tremendous success and ending in complete failure, which highlights the importance of being distinctive with many skills that help the entrepreneur save the project.
What are the key skills in self-learning?
Self-learning is an educational and training mechanism or tool used alongside traditional ones. It is the individual’s acquisition of information, skills, and experiences independently without the help of any educational institution. This process is a conscious activity that stems from the individual’s personal convictions and motives that urge him to improve and develop his personality, abilities, and skills through the learner’s practice of a set of educational activities depending on himself and utilizing various and purposeful sources after defining his educational goals and the means for realizing them. A self-learner sets an educational plan appropriate to his learning speed, tendencies, and directions.
This definition concludes that self-learning requires self-reliance in learning. It has proved to be effective, especially online. A person can now learn and master many sciences by watching an educational channel on YouTube or attending a training course on an e-learning platform.
Benefits of Self-Learning: The most important reasons for opting for self-learning - whether alone or alongside other teaching and learning mechanisms - can be summarized as follows:
Yara and Graphic Design: An example of that is when my friend, Yara, told me about her rich self-learning experience. She said, "I spend six hours a day watching a YouTube channel and learning graphic design. I watch free lessons and apply everything I see. And here I am designing the identities and logos of many entities and companies."
The WWH Rule: In order to start acquiring the self-learning skill, we should set a list of priorities based on the WWH rule, as follows:
Applying this rule will make it much easier for the entrepreneur to list the necessary sciences and skills that he seeks to learn, identify the motives and needs to learn these sciences, knowledge, and skills, and write the best way to learn, whether through reading a book and applying it, passing a training course to acquire some necessary skills, or sitting with a consultant in a consulting session and asking the most important questions about the project. This rule is awesome and beneficial as it helps brainstorm on paper and then on the ground.
Six best platforms for self-learning: There are many self-learning platforms and resources, especially since it is linked to harnessing digital and technological development. The following are six of the best self-learning platforms:
✔ Coursera is one of the most prominent global self-learning platforms. Most of the website's courses are translated into Arabic.
✔ Udemy is the best platform to learn any skill as quickly as possible. It offers various courses, some of which are in Arabic.
✔ LinkedIn Learning is a platform by LinkedIn.
✔ Edraak is one of the best platforms to offer courses in Arabic.
✔ Rwaq offers many courses for free in various fields.
✔ Hsoub Academy provides internet services to Arabic-speaking users.
✔ Khan Academy aims to spread science to everyone, using advanced educational methods.
In conclusion, self-learning has a great role in facing fears, identifying them closely, and studying the details of the project to support entrepreneurs' creativity and the diverse and various skills acquired by self-learning.
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