Founder: Dr. Malpani, everyone keeps telling me I should hire graduates from “good colleges” to build my startup team. But honestly, the salaries they ask for make my balance sheet cry. Am I being foolish if I look at self-taught students instead?
Dr. Malpani: Foolish? Quite the opposite. In fact, you’re probably being smarter than most founders. Let me ask you a counter-question: are you trying to run a college placement cell or a business?
Founder: A business, obviously.
Dr. Malpani: Good. Then you shouldn’t hire for degrees. You should hire for outcomes. Startups don’t succeed because employees have certificates. They succeed because people solve real problems for real customers.
Degrees Don’t Predict Performance
Founder: But a degree is proof that someone is capable, no?
Dr. Malpani: A degree proves you can clear exams. It does not prove you can think, build, sell, debug, negotiate—or survive chaos. Most colleges in India still teach theory from the Jurassic era, and faculty who’ve never run a business are somehow training students “for industry.”
Founder: That’s harsh.
Dr. Malpani: It’s accurate. If degrees were reliable predictors of business success, India would have run out of unemployment long ago.
Self-Taught Students Learn for Survival, Not for Marks
Founder: So what makes self-taught students different?
Dr. Malpani: Intent. Self-taught learners don’t study for a syllabus. They study to solve a problem. When you learn coding at 11 p.m. from YouTube because your app is breaking, you’re not chasing marks—you’re chasing results.
Founder: That explains why some of these kids know tools that graduates have never even heard of.
Dr. Malpani: Exactly. Self-taught students live in the real world. They google. They experiment. They break things. They rebuild. That’s the startup mindset.
Hunger Eats Qualification for Breakfast
Founder: But won’t graduates be more “professional”?
Dr. Malpani: “Professional” is sometimes code for “entitled.” Many graduates arrive with inflated expectations: salary, designation, perks—and very little understanding of customers.
A self-taught student, on the other hand, has something far more valuable: hunger.
Founder: Hunger?
Dr. Malpani: Yes. The desire to prove themselves. The willingness to learn. The courage to try. Hunger creates energy. Hunger creates progress. Hunger builds companies.
Skill Beats Resume, Always
Founder: Investors ask about my “team pedigree.” Won’t this hurt my fundraising?
Dr. Malpani: Good investors fund traction, not pedigree. If your product works and customers are paying, nobody cares where your developers went to college.
Founder: Fair point.
Dr. Malpani: In startups, skill is the currency, not degrees. Would you hire a cook who has a hotel management diploma but can’t make good food? Or a street-side chef who has no degree but makes dishes people queue up for?
Founder: I see where this is going.
Self-Taught Students Think Like Owners, Not Employees
Founder: What about accountability?
Dr. Malpani: Self-taught learners often behave like builders, not passengers. They’re used to figuring things out on their own. They take ownership because nobody else is going to rescue them.
Graduates, on the other hand, are often trained to:
- Wait for instructions
- Follow rules
- Optimize for safety
- Avoid mistakes
Startups need the opposite.
You Pay for Output, Not for Certificates
Founder: But parents also push for “qualified people.”
Dr. Malpani: Parents also push for government jobs. Should you hire a clerk mentality for your startup?
Founder: (laughs) I get it.
Dr. Malpani: A degree inflates cost without guaranteeing output. A self-taught student delivers output without inflating cost. In bootstrapped businesses, cash is oxygen. Don’t suffocate your startup by overpaying for logos on resumes.
How to Hire Smart Instead
Founder: So how should I evaluate self-taught talent?
Dr. Malpani: Simple. Don’t ask “Where did you study?”
Ask:
- What have you built?
- What problem did you solve?
- Show me your GitHub / portfolio / project
- What did you learn last month?
- What’s the hardest thing you’ve done alone?
Massively more predictive than a degree certificate.
Final Truth Bomb
Founder: Bottom line?
Dr. Malpani: Hire attitude. Train skill. Ignore degrees.
Self-taught students:
- Learn faster
- Cost less
- Experiment more
- Quit less
- Build better
- Care more
Graduates come with certificates. Self-taught students come with capability.
If I had to choose between a gold-plated résumé and a scrappy problem-solver—I’ll take the scrappy one every time. Unicorns aren’t built by certificates. They’re built by curiosity, grit, and execution.
Want to learn more about bootstrapping and creating sustainable businesses? Explore more insights and resources for entrepreneurs at www.malpaniventures.com . Let’s build businesses that put customers first!