Startups just had a record funding quarter — $285 billion in Q1 2026. Here's what the headline doesn't tell you: 43% of that went to one company's raise, and the rest of the money is piling into AI. So if you're a student founder building anything else, what does "record year" actually mean for you?I sat down with Dr. Jeni Al Bahrani, who teaches entrepreneurship at Miami University's Farmer School of Business, and Sarah Bosse, a senior who went from a student in Dr. A's class to her TA to her mentee.

We get into why entrepreneurs can't outsource economics to their accountant, the pricing mistake Sarah watched half her classmates make as a TA, why rising interest rates change what investors are willing to fund, and why TAM/SAM/SOM is really a demand-estimation problem dressed up as a pitch-deck slide. We also get into why I've stopped calling them "soft skills" — they're durable skills, and they're the actual product of a good entrepreneurship classroom.Timestamps:0:00 – Why should entrepreneurs learn economics at all?10:00 – The pricing mistake that burns first-time founders17:00 – Interest rates, the $285B funding headline, and what it means if you're not building AI33:00 – TAM/SAM/SOM: the market-sizing mistake that isn't really about math44:00 – Why "soft skills" is the wrong word, and what workforce-ready actually meansIf this episode connects to something you're building — or teaching — leave a comment and tell me what's landing.