Learning to be an entrepreneur

Can a summer course make you the next Dell (left) or Branson? Students at the London Business School hope so.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- How do you go about being a tycoon like Virgin founder Richard Branson or computer firm founder Michael Dell?

In this post-Enron era, "accountant" has become a dirty word. So what about "entrepreneur?"

The London Business School (LBS) has launched a summer course in how to be an entrepreneur. It teaches how to spot a good idea, how to sell it -- even when to think about going bankrupt.

It's like business studies with added extras, nurturing ultra-capitalist instincts and teaching all the tricks of the trade.

"When I did my MBA 30 years ago, I never heard the word entrepreneur," says LBS professor John Mullins. "Today entrepreneurship is one of the most fundamental things on most strong MBA curricula.

"At LBS about 80 percent of students take one or more entrepreneurship classes. And they do that because they know that down the road, if not sooner, that's what they're going to do with their life."

At the end of the intensive eight-week course, students make a presentation to real venture capitalists to convince them their newly honed "great business idea" really is great.

They're grand concepts, to match the grand aspirations on the part of the students who come here. But the big question is: Can you really teach someone to think in a unique way?

"Somebody who came in yesterday and gave us a talk said that entrepreneurs are not well-adjusted people," says student entrepreneur Chris Hanage.

"I think there's probably an element of truth in that. ... You're looking to build a business, perhaps you've got a vision of something you want to create, perhaps you want to make a lot of money -- and so really it's a case of trying to do something all yourself."

Adds fellow student Ogola Ambala: "Most of us have already accepted that once we do start doing what we plan to do, we'll lose all our friends and our partners, our wives may not love us as much as we want them to, because it's going to be difficult. It's not easy."

Students on the entrepreneurship course have embraced the fact that success comes at a price -- and that values may have to take second place.

But they have yet to learn how many of them will make the sacrifices -- yet never reap the rewards.