Should an Indian economics graduate from a pharmaceutical family complete a master's first or start the packaging business first?

Complete the master's first and do not delay it. The reasoning is practical and business-oriented rather than academic: any business, regardless of industry, takes at least five years to reach a point of real stability and profitability, and the first two foundational years of building a business, market research, vendor relationships, initial sales, team building, can be done in parallel with studying and preparing for a program. By contrast, entering a master's program while already running a business creates a split commitment that serves neither well.

• The master's provides the technical knowledge in material science or packaging science that transforms you from someone running a business on inherited industry familiarity into someone who understands the materials, the chemistry, and the manufacturing science at a level that creates genuine competitive advantage.
• It also provides the credential and the international network that is harder to build from within the operational grind of running a business.
• The sequence, master's first, then build, is more efficient than the reverse.