Business Lessons from My Engineering Degree

My electrical engineering degree taught me more about business than I realized.

Systems Thinking

Circuits are systems. Businesses are systems. Change one part, and the whole system responds.

Can't optimize inventory without affecting cash flow. Can't reduce support load without better docs.

Everything connects.

In engineering, you design for failure. What happens when this component fails?

Same in business. What happens if our biggest customer churns? If GCP goes down? If I get sick?

Plan for failure before it happens.

The most efficient circuit runs at maximum capacity. It's also fragile.

Resilient systems have redundancy. Slack. Room for error.

Same with startups. 100% utilization means any shock breaks you.

Build in slack.

Prototype. Test. Measure. Iterate.

This works for circuits. This works for features. This works for pricing.

Don't guess. Test.

Engineering teaches you to think in systems, plan for failure, and test assumptions.

Those skills transfer perfectly to startups.

Technical degrees aren't just for technical work.