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How to leverage college resources for your startup (Part I)
By Dan | April 17, 2007
As a college student and entrepreneur, I’m faced with the everyday challenge of balancing schoolwork, social life, and my startup venture. But when you know how to leverage available resources at your college, it becomes less of a load to run your business and manage schoolwork. This post is the first part of a series of the lessons learned while running a startup in college.
The theme of this first segment is ‘Learn to take initiative’.
1. Learn about your school’s entrepreneurial support program.
This should be the first thing you do if you have any sort of desire to build a business. Even before you have a business plan or team. Find out if your college has an entrepreneurship department, a business incubator, or any former entrepreneurs now in the college faculty. If you know how the school treats its entrepreneurs, you will be better prepared for the next step.
2. Get into an entrepreneurial environment
Assuming that your school has some form of entrepreneurial support program (and most do), you need to get your foot in the door. Setup a meeting with a faculty member, apply for the business incubator, or take entrepreneurship classes. These environments will naturally introduce you to on-campus business resources, give you new connections, and help you meet fellow students who are interested in entrepreneurship.
2. Get started!
Nothing impresses professors or other students more than when you actually get a business started. Whatever it is, you need to do some legwork on your own to get things rolling. A lot of wannabe “entrepreneurs” like to talk about their ideas, but never start them simply due to lack of initiative. Experienced entrepreneurs know this, and the fact that you can actually get rolling on a business plan or product or website will show that you have the drive necessary to create a business. Students and faculty will take notice and are much more willing to spend their time helping an actual entrepreneur rather than waste their time listening to you hype an idea that will never happen.
All the above steps are initiatives that you need to take on your own. Part of being an entrepreneur is learning that people aren’t going to point you to success. You need to be an opportunity seeker, both in markets and in getting help for your business. If you want to be an entrepreneur, don’t expect that everything you need will just fall in your lap.
The second part of this series will focus on building your team at college, finding advisors in faculty, and balancing your time.
Topics: Startups, Management |
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:18 pm
[…] week I wrote part 1 of leveraging college resources for your startup. The theme of that post was learning to take initiative at your school. Professors and […]
April 24th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
[…] part 1 of the starting a business in college series, I discussed taking initiative. Part 2 was about creating your company - building a team, advisors, and […]
April 25th, 2007 at 4:16 am
[…] at your college, it becomes less of a load to run your business and manage school work”. How to leverage college resources for your startup (Part 1). Student entrepreneurs out there … are you listening? That also gives non-student entrepreneurs […]