Many of the most successful businesses we know started in colleges; Facebook, Dell, Insomnia Cookies, and dozens of world-class brands were once just random ideas written down into a textbook on a campus.
Starting your business as a student may be the most challenging thing you have ever done. You’ll have to take care of your grades, extracurricular activities, and possibly work somewhere else until your business starts to pay back. But college is precisely the time when you can withstand such a load while you’re still young and enthusiastic enough to endure the challenge and finish school as a successful businessperson.
The 2016 Kauffman Startup Activity Index survey shows that almost a third of all the new entrepreneurs are graduating from colleges. It doesn’t guarantee instant success, but it still means that many people can do it. You can do it too.
Prioritize your goals
The main mistake is an attempt to do everything at the same time, not dividing the most important things from the least important. When you are fully occupied with such different things as work, business, study, and personal life, this mistake may be fatal for at least some of them. To deal with everything successfully, you have to set your priorities. If you have an unfinished order and an exam tomorrow, what will you do? Can you negotiate with your tutors or apologize before your clients with a free gift card? Or, maybe, you prefer a sleepless night and finishing both tasks?
Sometimes the questions may become as essential as the purpose of staying at school or starting a business right now. Maybe, the business idea can wait for a couple of years to be used when you’ll have much more free time. Maybe, the college isn’t as important as you thought and you are ready to dedicate these years of your life to developing your own business idea. Maybe, you can change the college or the way you study and make your study process and business development complementary.
Don’t take more than necessary
If you are dedicated to starting your business while staying at college, think of time as your most precious resource. Choose the right courses; don’t overestimate your capabilities. Maybe, it’s better not to take a minor or align it with your business model. Maybe, on the contrary, some extra college classes may help you understand your business’s subject. Maybe, your business may count as your term project.
If you are totally sure that you need that much of study, try to combine it with your business. Take a minor in public relations or marketing, and it will greatly help you to promote your business later. Or have a look at some courses that will explain to you the manufacturing technology of what you are doing, give you some tips or insights. Combining always works better than just doing some unrelated tasks.
Use networking
Building your business is all about team and connections. Even if you can handle everything on your own now when your business starts growing, you will inevitably need more people to deal with it. Why don’t you start searching for them in your college? A business project is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved with the possible side effect of becoming rich and famous. You may find people with skills that you aren’t as experienced in yet. It will divide the load equally, letting you handle the study process, and giving your business the best experts you can get right now.
Possibly, your college has a special supporting program for student entrepreneur teams so, if you are recruiting your fellow students, the direction of the college may offer you some individual studying plans or financial support. So learn more about the possibilities that open before you in this case.
College is the right time to learn about work-life balance, but don’t push yourself too far. If you’re really passionate about what you are doing, take that challenge, stay dedicated to your goal, take care of yourself and learn to rely on others. By following that formula, you’re more likely to succeed in both study and entrepreneurship.
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