#college startups

[roomscapeu-blog]

Josh Hagler FSU Entrepreneur of RoomScapeU Speaks on College Startups

Josh Hagler FSU Entrepreneur of RoomScapeU Speaks on College Startups

Published on May 8, 2014 Josh Hagler, founder & Chief Executive College Lover of RoomScapeU.com, has a daily routine of helping college students discover awesome things. He runs a thriving e-commerce business that provides quality, innovative lifestyle products…

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College Startups: The 'New Master's Degree'

As a student at University of Indiana’s Kelley School of Business, Derek Pacqué lost his coat at a bar, got angry, and came up with a business plan. He borrowed and saved $500 to purchase racks and hangers to start a coat check business at local hangouts.

CoatChex does not require patrons to keep tickets, which often get lost. Instead, someone at a kiosk photographs clients’ faces and coats with an iPad or smartphone and then uses their phone number and photos for secure pick-up. A paltry original investment eventually had Pacqué negotiating with—and turning down—a $200,000 offer from entrepreneur Mark Cuban on ABC’s Shark Tank for a 33 percent stake in the business. In the last two months, CoatChex earned $100,000.

“You go to school to get a job or an education,” says Pacqué, who graduated in 2011. “I went to college because I wanted to create my own career, to create something of value.”

Pacqué is among a new breed of undergraduate business students. Professors and classmates say they hunger to be their own bosses. More undergraduate business students than ever before are launching startups right after graduation—or sometimes while still at school, say administrators. A query to the top 20 undergraduate business schools asking for contacts with promising startups launched by students, or by very recent graduates, resulted in at least 100 responses.

The popularity of entrepreneurship courses is skyrocketing. For example, at New York University’sStern School of Business, the number of undergraduate entrepreneurship courses has increased from two in 2003-2004, with 62 students enrolled, to seven courses, with 281 students enrolled, in 2012-2013. The school also introduced its academic track in entrepreneurship in 2012.

No doubt the recession has driven undergraduates to embrace entrepreneurship. Charles Sinn, president and co-founder of Guys and Dollies, a storage business for college students in Indiana, says he wasn’t sure whether he should work to grow his startup or get a traditional job when he was about to graduate from the Kelley School in 2009.

“I saw classmates in investment banking who made a lot of money for a year; then they lost their jobs and had no resources,” Sinn says. “It helped me decide to stick with Guys and Dollies moving forward.” Today the company offers summer storage and moving help to more than 1,000 students at Indiana and Purdue universities; it is “income producing,” he says.

A desire to make a difference in the world is also a contributing factor, says Scott Stimpfel, assistant dean of student engagement and innovation at Stern. In fact, many of his students are pursuing social entrepreneurship, or at least getting exposed to it, as early as high school, he says.

Jeffrey White, who graduated from Boston College’sCarroll School of Management in 2012, launched Rightside Shirts, a nonprofit T-shirt company. Kids in public schools in the Boston area create T-shirt designs; Rightside, of which White is chief creativity officer, chooses one design from each school, puts it on shirts, and sells them to the community to fund art programs in the schools. White is not able to support himself with Rightside Shirts alone, and he waits tables twice a week to pay the bills. But the company has taken in $10,000 in revenue so far, he says.

Technology has made entrepreneurship more convenient, especially for a generation that has never lived without the Internet and its offerings. “We’re living in a time when it has never been so easy or cheap to start a business,” says White. “The barriers are so low, thanks to social media. If you have a good idea, you can gain momentum.”

The chances that a new company can withstand the test of time are daunting. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says only half of all new businesses survive for five years, and only a third make it to the 10-year mark—a fact about which many undergrads seem unaware. Many an undergraduate business student wants to be the next Mark Zuckerberg. Ted Zoller, director of entrepreneurship at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School calls it the “Zuck Distortion.”

“He’s created a perception that anyone with a good idea can take off after school and become a billionaire,” says Zoller. “I wish that were true.” While Zoller encourages his students to follow their dreams and give their ideas a decent shot, he tempers their expectations.

Source

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-26/college-startups-the-new-masters-degree

[mikiyaka-blog]

"Business Major" Does Not Equal Entrepreneur

Tons and tons of incoming freshman to various universities around the world have the intention of becoming "business majors." They want to study finance, accounting, marketing, information technology, or even entrepreneurship. They come in with the assumption that business school will make them a business owner. This isn't necessarily true. At all.

Why do I take such a strong standpoint on this? Simple, very few of these "business majors" become CEOs. Very few of them end up owning their own business. This can be a common misconception especially among non-business majors. So if most business majors aren't entrepreneurs, then who actually are the people who become entrepreneurs? The people who are the most ambitious, the overachievers.

These people come from all sorts of disciplines and walks of life. An entrepreneur can be a biology major, an engineer, an artist, or even an english major. In reality, educators are teaching us how to be good employees most of the time. That's what they are too, after all.

To be an entrepreneur, what do you need?

You need drive, passion, self-motivation.

You are the kind of person that wakes up at 6am just to fit a workout into your day.

You are the kind of person that studies while everyone parties.

You know and apply delayed gratification.

You love being productive.

You have to have a purpose or a reason you want to be this so-called "entrepreneur."

It's definitely not for everyone.

So how do you become entrepreneur-minded? Stay tuned to find out.