Small business owners turn to the Web for education

Many potential entrepreneurs believe that starting a successful small business requires enrolling in a time-consuming and costly MBA program. However, a host of alternative educational sources are available to help entrepreneurs kick-start their plans.

The internet is an invaluable resource for small business aspirants. The Small Business Administration offers 29 free half-hour training sessions, including accounting, creating a business plan and marketing. The SBA also partially funds the nonprofit venture SCORE, which provides online and offline training and mentoring through a network of more than 12,000 volunteer executives and entrepreneurs, BusinessWeek reports.

Entrepreneurs can also participate in free online MBA programs such as Micro eMBA. While the program does not offer a degree, Carter McNamara, the site’s developer, told the news source that it provides “20 percent of topics that you need 80 percent of the time.”

Open Courseware, a consortium of 173 educational institutions, is another option for small businesses. The site provides free course materials from schools such as MIT, Tufts University and the University of California at Berkeley.

Once entrepreneurs have launched their businesses, there are additional methods they can employ to keep costs down, the Associated Press reports. New owners can work from home or in a friend’s space, hire accounting students to do record-keeping and use independent contractors.