Starting a Business in College: 4 Things To Know

If you’re interested in starting a business in college, you’re in great company: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and our very own CEO, Liz Wessel developed business ideas during their undergraduate years. As encouraging as these success stories are, it’s challenging to forge your own path during college – especially if many of your friends are planning on entering into companies that have been well-established for years. Even so, as a college student, you have a lot of leverage and resources at your disposal – you just have to know what you need to do in order to succeed. Check out the tips below – they’ll help to lead you in the right direction as you embark on this new venture!

1. Be willing to give up your free time.

If you’re not in class, you’ll probably be working on your idea. Jesse Kaplan, now the founder and CEO of an NYC delivery service called Parcel (they’re hiring!), started a popular bakery and coffee shop in his Harvard dorm, Cabot Cafe. He spent about 10-15 hours a day working on the cafe during its launch (and after the cafe took off, about 20-30 hours a week).

Yeah, that’s a serious time commitment, and it’s no surprise that with a full academic schedule, extracurriculars and a campus job, giving up your free time won’t always be easy. However, if you’re passionate about growing your startup, then keeping yourself motivated won’t be as difficult as you think.

2. Don’t be secretive about your idea.

Anyone with a great idea (or anyone who has watched Silicon Valley) knows that there’s always the possibility that someone might steal your idea. However, as counterintuitive as it may seem, it’s better not to keep your idea under wraps, but instead to ask for feedback and support – not only from the people you trust, but from professionals who can give you the guidance you need to implement your idea.  

“Cold email a ton and lead with ‘I’m a student,’” our CEO, Liz Wessel says. “Get really good at writing [and] sending great emails.” Liz’s mantra is that everyone wants to help college students, and she would know: She started UniEats, a company that sells restaurant discount cards to college students, during her sophomore year at Penn before working on Campus Job.

Think about all the speakers–from celebrities to dignitaries–who come to your school and share their insights, and you’ll realize that people LOVE giving advice to college students. It’s crucial to you and your business’ development to learn from new people in order to gain invaluable advice and direction, so be bold and email someone asking for their expertise; no one is going to be offended by your request, and the worst that can happen is that the person will say no.

3. Be adaptive.

As innovative as your idea may be, your product or service may go in a completely unexpected direction. Venmo’s original prototype conducted money exchanges through text messages and is now a mobile app. Not to mention that even after your idea takes off, you’ll have to adapt to feedback from future customers and investors.

This doesn’t mean saying “yes” to every piece of feedback you receive along the way. You’ll just need to be thoughtful about responses and reactions to your idea, and do your research–whether that means Googling potential competitors and seeing if they are implementing something similar, or polling friends and innocent pedestrians (we literally did this just last week).

4. Be willing to work hard without recognition.

“If you start a business, no one’s going to know about you for a long time,” says Jeff Carelton, founder of Carelton Energy Consultants and Heatwatch, two companies which help to reduce energy usage for building owners.          

Not getting immediate gratification is frustrating – not only because we live in the instant age of “I want this now,” but also because in college, immediate rewards are everywhere: from winning a game to getting an A on your midterm. However, Jeff says that you “have to be happy with what you’re doing” — your entrepreneurial passion is what will ultimately keep you going.

Ready to start your own business? We hope the answer is yes – and we DEFINITELY hope you’ll use WayUp for all your new hires :D.