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3 Tips for Realistically Starting a Business in College

3 Tips for Realistically Starting a Business in College

College students tend to get stereotyped a lot. Those stereotypes include everything from laziness and partying every night to living off of ramen noodles and pizza. While you’ve undoubtedly had a late night or two and your diet might not include five-star dining, many of those stereotypes are overblown.

In fact, you might have a hard time striking a school-life balance when you’re juggling classes and a social life. Yet, that doesn’t mean you don’t have time to start a business in college. One 2019 survey found that 70% of college graduates would prefer to start their own business, rather than work somewhere else. If you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you don’t necessarily need to wait until you graduate to get your business off the ground.

But, how can you make a new business work while maintaining your grades, social connections, and classes? Let’s cover a few helpful tips to start your small business.

1. Turn Your Idea Into a Business Plan

If you’re thinking about starting a business, chances are you already have an idea in mind. However, your first step needs to be making sure that the idea is a viable one. Is it something someone else is already doing? Are you fulfilling a need or want? Should you get started with something else to get your foot in the door of a specific industry?

There are countless startup ideas for college students and recent graduates, so make sure your idea is something unique and useful, or consider tweaking it before you officially launch your business.

Once you’re ready to move forward with your idea, it’s time to build a business plan. That can look different for every small business out there, but there are a few key components that every business plan needs, including:

  • An executive summary
  • Business description
  • Funding/financing options
  • Financial projections
  • Market analysis

Your business plan is crucial for a few reasons. First, it will keep you organized and make your mission clear. Let it serve as a motivational tool for yourself and any employees you choose to bring on.

It’s also a good thing to be able to show potential investors or anyone who might want to support your business. The more people know about who you are and what you’re doing, the more interested they’ll be in helping or getting a piece of the pie.

2. Build Your Brand

When you start your own business, you’ll automatically have to wear many hats. You might be an expert in a certain product or service, but that’s only one component of building a successful brand.

One of the most important things you’ll need to learn is how to market your business. Thankfully, most college-aged students are relatively tech-savvy. You can use what you already know about social media to start building a following and boosting your digital word-of-mouth advertising.

Building your brand might require reaching out to other people or hiring gig workers to get things off the ground. For example, your business will need a logo that helps you stand out. You can create a professional logo by using an image library, your own artistic skills, or by hiring a professional. If you don’t know where to get started, working with a pro is a solid investment.

Yes, working with freelancers to help with marketing can increase your upfront costs. However, if you’ve got financial backers, this is exactly what you should be using them for. Alternatively, you can pay for everything out of pocket by working a side job. There are plenty of online jobs that pay well and will work with your busy schedule. If you need a little boost getting your brand in front of people, it’s worth it to invest in the right people and ad placements.

3. Be Ready to Make Every Decision

When you own a business, no matter how successful it becomes, every decision will eventually fall on your shoulders.

As you grow, you can delegate certain responsibilities to others. However, at the end of the day, you will always have the final say in how your business works. It can be a lot of pressure on one person, and it’s important that you’re ready for it. If you want to feel confident in your decisions, use a few helpful steps to make the process easier:

  1. Identify the decision
  2. Gather your information
  3. Look for any alternative solutions
  4. Weigh the evidence
  5. Choose from alternatives
  6. Take action
  7. Review

Eventually, you’ll become more comfortable with the process and have an easier time trusting your gut when it comes to the choices that impact your business.

Is starting a business in college easy? That depends on how much work you’re willing to put in. Will it take a lot of time and effort? If you want it to be successful, most likely. However, by starting a business now, it could be fully up and running by the time you graduate, setting you up for financial success and independence right away, rather than having to navigate a job search.

So, if you have a great idea, a solid plan, and a strong drive, use these tips to get your business started. You never know if your idea could end up being the next “big” thing.

SEE ALSO: College Dating: 5 Ways to find Love on Campus

Study Reveals Which Education Startups Reached $1B Valuation the Fastest

Study Reveals Which Education Startups Reached $1B Valuation the Fastest

In the startup world, the race to reach that unicorn status of a $1 billion valuation has become the name of the game. But which of today’s education companies reached their $1B+ valuation status the fastest?

Blitzscaling became the name of the game. This method of “high-impact entrepreneurship” involves growing as big as possible as fast as possible to squash out the competition. With low overheads and a get-big-fast strategy, digital start-ups began hitting billion-dollar valuations long before it made sense to cash in. And, in 2013, investor Aileen Lee christened these ever more common billion-dollar companies: unicorns.

A unicorn birth is when the company hits $1bn rather than when it was founded.

Only the tiniest fraction of start-ups will become unicorns. But today’s unicorns have a lot to teach about “efficiently building a viable company that is designed to attract investors and position you for a solid exit on a timetable that works for you” (according to BOSS Capital CEO Greg Shepard). So, ZenBusiness has identified the 959 companies classified as unicorns at the start of 2022 and analyzed their growth according to speed, industry, and the gender of the founding team.

Key Findings:

  • The fastest unicorn in our study is AI firm Avant, which was founded in November 2012 and got a billion-dollar valuation in just one month and 16 days.
  • French e-commerce start-up Veepee is the eldest continuing unicorn, reaching a billion-dollar valuation in July 2007.
  • Germany is the country with the quickest average period from foundation to billion-dollar valuation (6years, 0months, 9days; not including countries with<2unicorns).
  • Auto & Transportation is the sector with the fastest unicorn births: 5.25 years.
  • In the U.S., the average time from founding to becoming a unicorn is 7 years, 3 months, and 13 days.
Study Reveals Which Education Startups Reached $1B Valuation the Fastest
ZenBusiness
Study Reveals Which Education Startups Reached $1B Valuation the Fastest
ZenBusiness

All the data compiled by ZenBusiness can be found here.

SEE ALSO: 5 DOs and DON’Ts for Landing Your First Job After College

Which Colleges are Best for Business

Which Colleges are Best for Business Studies?

The world of business continues to grow day-by-day and is one of the most popular fields of study across the world in the 21st century. If you are an aspiring entrepreneurs or business leader, keep reading because this article looks into what studying this field is all about as well as list which colleges are best for business studies.

What is Business Studies?

Studying business incorporates a number of different fields making it one of the broadest areas of study. This includes specialties within accountancy, organization, finance, marketing and resources management making it especially useful for gaining skills needed to be successful in the workplace. As a result, due to the broadest, it has become of the most sought-after fields to study. According to Indeed.com, Business is the most popular major to study in the United States.

Jobs

Job prospects after completing a business major includes opportunities as an accountant, human resources specialist, investment banker, business analyst and business development manager.

Ranked

Listed Below are 10 of the best U.S. colleges to study business according to the QS World University Rankings 2021

1: Harvard University

  • The Harvard business school is one of the most prestigious schools within the institution. Founded over a century ago in 1908, the department was home of the world’s first MBA program. It attracts some of the brightest and most motivated students from across the world with it research, education and brand. For more information on their business school, click here.

2: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Known as the MIT Sloan School of Management, the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a world leading research institution. 2020-2021 MBA Career stats show that 95.5% of those studying at the school graduated with full-time offers. This illustrates the success rate the school has making it one of the best places to study business in the world. For more information on their business school, click here.

3: Stanford University

  • The Stanford Graduate School of Business established in 1925 is known as one of the best business school in the United States with the department being at the forefront of management education. Their motto “Change live, change organizations, change the world” shows exactly what they are all about. For more information on their business school, click here.

4: University of Pennsylvania

  • Known as the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania founded in 1881, it is famous for being established as the world’s first collegiate school of business. Since then, the department has gone strength to strength and remains as one of the driving forces in business education. For more information on their business school, click here.

5: University of California – Berkeley

  • Known as the Hass School of Business, it is the second-oldest business school in the United States. Faculty at the department is filled with those involved in the cutting edge of research. These include two Nobel Prize winners. In their own words, Hass embrace four key principles: “Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself.” For more information on their business school, click here.

6: Northwestern University

  • Named the Kellogg School of Management, the Northwestern University business school has been a leading figure in terms of business education. It is also worth noting the success of students receiving jobs following on from studying as 95% of Kellogg’s 2Y Class of 2020 received a job offer within three months after graduating. For more information on their business school, click here.

7: New York University (NYU)

  • Known as the Stern School of Business, the department strives for cutting-edge research and this is evidenced by the school being ranked no. 1 among 1,000 business schools for new downloads of research within the past year by SSRN and also ranked no.2 in the world for its research productivity. For more information on their business school, click here.

8: Yale University

  • The Yale School of Management aim to “educate leaders for business and society”. They offer a wide range of different degree programs to students with faculty filled with high-quality researchers. For more information on their business department, click here.

9: Columbia University

  • The Columbia Business School offer top quality facilities to their students, providing them with groundbreaking research with their commitment of “educating and developing leaders and builders of enterprises who create value for their stakeholders and society at large”. For more information on their business school, click here.

10: University of Chicago

  • Known as the Booth School of Business, one of the standout features of the school is that is boasts campuses in Chicago, London and Hong Kong making them provide students with one of the world’s best business school faculties. For more information on their business school, click here.

Studying business provides you with a variety of skills such as entrepreneurship, communication skills and marketing skills. The subjects also provide a wide array of specializations which colleges across the United States do offer. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that it the one of the most popular areas of study within the US.

SEE ALSO: Which Colleges are Best for Mathematics?