College/University Entrepreneurs:

How to make the Most of your Education when starting a business

 

Are you in a college or University and still contemplating whether to start a business? Or you are convinced entrepreneurship is not for you – it’s expensive, and you have no time?

Deciding to start a business while at school can pose quite a dilemma, but there is good news it doesn’t have to be one, actually this is the best time to start. In fact starting at school can give you the tools you need to get your start up on the right foundation.

This is how you can get the best of academic world by leveraging on the resources at your college or university to start a business.

Double sword lesions taker

Taking classes related to your start up idea, since you will be working toward the successful completion of your degree, as well take a few classes in a field related to your start up, and trust me this might come at no extra cost maybe time.

So don’t hesitate to use your college start up idea as inspiration for academic projects and papers. That way you’ll keep refreshing and refining your business idea and still receive credit for your degree. And if your idea passes for a group assignment, you just have free labor refining and polishing your business from classmates and discuss the assignment with your tutor/lecturer and you have some free consultancy service.

Get some face to face time.

Higher education is about more than just books, you also have to access a lot of people. Do your home work; yes but also get as much out of your interaction with:

Your classmates and school friends: take advantage of having many easily accessible people while you can, finding these people to help launch your start up gets harder when you are already out of campus.  Let them help you vet your idea, test your product usability and build an initial momentum for online and off line followers and supporters.

Your professors: Professors are an amazing and usually underrated resource for students.  Talk to a few trusted professors on your business model, marketing, pricing and more aspects of your business. They also have connections out they can freely introduce you to n their recommendation to your initial clients may carry more weight than you believe.

Alumni’s:  Nothing softens the heart of an alumnus like a current student of his/her former school asking for advice, one once told me “Wow I feel honored – feels like am a role model now.” He actually ended up teaching a lot about what’s out there, how I can maximize my current state and introduced me to some of my first clients and suppliers.

Take seriously entrepreneurial challenges and competitions

There is never a shortage of entrepreneurial competitions and challenges when you are at the university, many corporate sponsored competitions or those sponsored by social organizations will always come along.  Register for all you can access, practice and Pitch your business, you might land on funding if your idea is good or if you fail the exposure, connections, trainings and media time you will get will never leave you the same.

Be open to those helping you

It’s so important to be transparent when developing your business in a university setting.  Be open with those helping with your idea, chances are they will be happy to work with you for a longer time when they are free and during their holidays giving you access to man-hours you might need to seriously pay for if you were out of school already.

Keep a positive attitude to both your education and your business ideas. If you fail to fund it immediately and first join the job market, you will have a burning reason to make you work harder learn more and save as much as you can – before you know it you might be in position to fund your campus business idea and off you go  and this time with both experience and funds. 

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By Andrew Ekwang. Business writer with Business Solutions

Executing the Business Blueprint

5 Essentials to Start-up Success 

Now before you go jumping head fist into a new business venture, test drive. Test your business idea or product both online and offline to build a proven and workable business model, then execute with all your heart.  Some people are so lucky they just find themselves in the right deals at some point in time, coupled with their preparedness they crave a good business out of it. Bad news is that this is not the norm and not for everyone, for the rest of us some preparation is needed to breed that success, and lack of it may be the best explanation to the high rate of Start-up failure. So how should your blueprint execution program be like?

A business blue print is that detailed description of your business processes and systems

1 Stay Present

Establish your Start-up as a business to watch in your industry at the time of launching your business idea or product. Then get in the local and or national papers, pitch your business and products to industry related media outlets, get bloggers in and ask them to write about you – it’s not a sin provided you don’t control everything they write and keep you social media followers with fresh and engaging content.

Get all the press appearances you can handle, if you create a large enough footprint, it may intimidate your competitors and also if you this kind of person who doesn’t like being outdone (which almost everyone is) you will work hard enough to satisfy the expectations and maintain the momentum.

2 Know your customers

The most often adaptable element of a business start-up is to develop a good idea for what an ideal product is for their ideal customer, and then build this product based on the needs of most knowledgeable customer you have met.  As your clients use your product keep their needs within your sight so that they can grow for you the market base bring in new clients and re-purchase from you.

Give your service or product while testing and get active feedback from the clients.

3 Raise enough Capital 1^st time.

Raising start-up capital is difficult everyone knows that, to know how much you will need to raise first time is also not that easy but a good starting point. You will not want to run out of funds in the middle of developing your start-up product line or service provision and can’t move on from there. This normally sends you to panic and instead of concentrating on the product or service you are diverted to financing and most likely poor results, shoddy work, or defect products follow. The worst result for a start up.

4 Hire the right people

If you believe in your business model hire the people who can execute it to success. If you are in the business of selling a product or service, don’t hire sales reps who are inexperience and not knowledgeable just because they will settle for commissions only.

The right people help you to build the right product, provide the best service and hit the right footing in the market place first time. In the long run you will realize they are cheaper because they waste less time and resources.

5 Go “All-in” or “Full swing”

In the world of start-up, anytime you aren’t focused on your business is wasted time.  After your successful test drive of the idea or product, hit the market with a clear mind.

When entering a new industry either product or service, other entrepreneurs are watching your every move. The established ones want to knock you out, your followers want to learn from you and if you don’t move fast they will beat you at it, and the media review chaps want to comment on your every move to the public. Don’t give them the weapon to knock you off that early.

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