What kind of “degree” are you working on?At a certain point in my career, I spent nine months working in an undercapitalized tech startup business trying to build a widget and acquire paying customers. I had to forego a lot of immediate financial rewards (such as a monthly salary) for deferred gratification: to go do something I enjoyed, and build something that would make a difference. It didn’t work and I decided to move on.

So was it all a waste of time—a lost year that I will never get back?

The answer is clearly a NO. What I gave up in earnings through a steady salary, I more than made up for given the experience I had: working with limited resources, building a platform, winning the first few clients (even though they didn’t pay much), pitching investors (unsuccessfully), having theological debates with the co-founder (won some / lost some), and eventually deciding to go back to a corporate job.

So: Nine months of learning about business, foregoing a steady salary, and moving on to a corporate job. What does that sound like? You guessed it: an MBA.

I do have an MBA—the formal kind, where everyone sits in classrooms and discusses case studies about buggy whips and transportation; where “learning” means being at the receiving end of an outdated 20^th century pedagogical tool (classroom lectures); and where graduating is the objective. That, and getting a coveted McKinsey consultant job.The degree I earned working at my startup was unique: it was a one-of-a-kind, custom-built program that I alone could experience.  How many of you think of your startup experiences this way?

A lot of entrepreneurs go straight from school to a startup. Others give up a job to pursue their dreams. Some become very successful at what they set out to do, others don’t. Regardless, they earn a post-graduate degree, especially if they apply themselves sincerely to building the business. Here are some courses you attend (whether you know it or not) as a “university” student in a startup:

I could go on.The point is that working on your own startup is nothing short of a compressed MBA from a top-tier university (there are a lot of questions about what a top-tier MBA—or any other degree from a top-tier university—is really worth today, but that’s a whole different discussion). It requires (painful) financial sacrifice, long hours, project management, discipline, and all the other things that MBA students generally go through. I picked an MBA as the example degree, but it could be anything—like a Ph.D. in some subject that’s at the core of what your offering is about.

Graduation Day comes around when:

I got into a startup after many years of corporate experience and gave up a well-paying job, title, and perks, because I wanted to create something very badly. My personal business model, in hindsight, was wrong as it turns out. I had no business going all-or-nothing on the startup. I moved on and received a well-paying job (which turned out to be just as entrepreneurial in nature as my startup), only this time it was well funded. I know that without the scar tissue I gathered during my nine-month startup venture, I would not have found the job I eventually did. My new employers respected what I had gone through, and gave me the job for that more than anything else.My story is about my own personal university degree—my special, one-of-a-kind MBA. I wouldn’t be able to find a comparable one anywhere in the world, for any amount of money. It was priceless (though it left me nearly penniless).

So, what kind of “degree” are you working on?