Entrepreneurship Can Always Start From College
College campuses are still mostly shut down, while classes move online. Unemployment are still at all time high, while most of us college students are struggling to find any on-campus jobs. This in fact can be a perfect opportunity for most college students like us to pursue our dream of entrepreneurship and focus on building our own venture. Something that we mostly had to postpone due to our lack of time or motivation.
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non successful ones is pure perseverance”- Steve Jobs
Most venture ideas can start from the college dorm and requires little investment and it will eventually pays off in the long run; either through profit or by teaching a lesson. All it requires is creativity and taping on a potential market. Some great ventures started with college students .
Here are a few inspirational examples to get us inspired to pursue our venture idea this summer.
1Microsoft : It was co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen (who were childhood friends). They started the company to specialize at making computer softwares. To establish their business, Gates eventually opted out of Harvard University and pursued his passion for Micro-Soft (called at the time). Their success included licensing out of MS-DOS to IBM.
2 Facebook : Everyone is familiar with the story of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg started his controversial journey as the founder of Facebook while still a Harvard sophomore in 2004. There was also an allegation that the idea was taken from three Harvard seniors for which there was a lawsuit filed.
3 Google: Even the Google search engine started its journey from Stanford University. Sergey Brin was a student at Stanford University when he was assigned to show Larry Page around the campus here he planned on attending graduate school. They eventually started a partnership to work on building a search engine that will organize the varied information available on the worldwide web into a universal accessible format.
4 Zip2 : Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk and Greg Kouri are the co-founders for Zip2. After Musk headed to Stanford University to pursue a Doctorate degree in Energy Physics, he realized the potential of the internet boom and launched his first company Zip2. It was a searchable business directory. However, he sold out and is now pursuing his other amazing ventures including Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and many others.
Realizing the potential of startups, today, there has been a drastic shift in the higher education system. Entrepreneurship is now actively taught and encouraged around college campuses. It is no longer necessary to dropout of college to pursue for startup dream but rather there has been dramatic shift in opportunities created to encourage such “out-of-the box” ideas that can revolutionize the world.
Participate in Venture Competitions
While pursuing my Master’s degree I started taking interest in the Venture Competition . My university offered an opportunity for its students and community members to pitch their business ideas and win an opportunity to fund their venture. It is almost like Shark Tank but does not require any prior sales/revenues but an elevator pitch and business model is required to get the necessary funding. I would say it is an excellent opportunity to network with other fellow entrepreneurs and find mentors in your field of interest.
The embedded link can allow you to learn about my venture journey.
The venture competitions are usually designed for college students that have a startup idea and want to make a difference in their community. They also offer mentor- ship by bringing individuals who have had successful businesses themselves. Most institutions also offer a series of entrepreneurship workshop for free, that can provide all the necessary materials and knowledge you need to kick start off your idea.
Participate in Hackathon
Hackathons are another good opportunity to showcase your skills and built up your network. Although it is mainly related to programming /coding or electronic hardware. However, anybody can participate given they can contribute to their team member’s effort in the project. For instance, a humanitarian major can participate in data collection, liberal arts major can assist in website designing or other relevant skills.
The success of any business depends on the network of team members. It is important that each member is equally enthusiastic about the project. Often times, the failure of a venture is due to conflict between members.
With most colleges now offering online courses, we students can easily spare some time to engage into some interesting projects. Some Hackathons require in-person attendance and others are online. However, at present all the projects are shifted online and anybody from any part of the world can participate. Though this increases the competition but it simultaneously offers a higher opportunity. There are definitely complimentary rewards and the pride of winning the contest. Each Hackathon competition has a specific theme and the designed software/hardware requires to comply with the theme to be nominated.
The embedded link will allow you to learn about my hackathon project that I participated this year and plan on pursuing on other hackathon ventures.
Steve Jobs has always stressed that perseverance is the key.
I definitely recommend that despite failures,people should always pursue their dream and learn from failures. To be successful, you should know when to call it quits and when to keep on grinding.
Pursue your dream but also learn from your failures.
