Why Experiential Learning Works for Entrepreneurship
For decades, entrepreneurship education has relied on case studies, lectures, and business plans. But there's a fundamental problem: you can't learn to swim by reading about water.
The Gap Between Theory and Practice
Traditional entrepreneurship courses teach frameworks like the Business Model Canvas, lean startup methodology, and customer development. These are valuable tools—but tools only become useful when you actually pick them up and use them.
Research from Harvard Business School shows that students retain 75% more information when they learn through experience compared to passive learning methods. When it comes to entrepreneurship—a discipline defined by uncertainty and real-time decision-making—this gap is even more pronounced.
What Real Founders Actually Do
Talk to any successful entrepreneur, and they'll tell you: the journey was nothing like they expected. They pivoted when they thought they'd persevere. They found customers in unexpected places. They made decisions with incomplete information, every single day.
This is what Runway recreates. Not a sanitized version of entrepreneurship with clear right answers, but the messy, uncertain, exhilarating reality of building something from nothing.
The Decision-Making Muscle
Entrepreneurship isn't a body of knowledge to memorize—it's a decision-making muscle to develop. Every choice you make in Runway has consequences:
There are no textbook answers. There's only your judgment, shaped by experience.
Learning Through Consequence
The magic of experiential learning is consequences. When a decision leads to losing a key customer or running out of runway, that lesson sticks. When you successfully navigate a crisis, you remember how you did it.
Runway compresses months of real-world learning into hours. You make more decisions, see more outcomes, and develop better instincts—all without risking real money or real failure.
Ready to Start Learning?
The best time to start your entrepreneurial education was yesterday. The second best time is now.