What are the strengths of young founders:[2]
(According to Paul Graham, Co-Founder of Y-Combinator)
–Stamina
College is the perfect time for all-nighters, and crazy work hours.
–Poverty
Being used to poverty aligns you with the markets tendency. You may think $300 is a lot. Pricing a product usually $3000 at $300 makes you super competitive.
–Rootlessness
Move where you need to, change your schedule as needed. You probably don’t have a family to take care of.
–Colleagues
Early essentials that you or someone you know can do:
Logo, wireframe mockups, site/landing page, blog, customer surveys
Probably the largest concentration of potential co-founders you will ever experience.
–Ignorance
Many successful founders say–if they had known the amount of work it would take to succeed, they would have been daunted.
Source: DegreeLibrary.org
What’s Step 1?
Well, before you start…
Do you have an idea? Do you know how to code? Can you fill a room with 100 people?
After your idea is fleshed out, your code is covered and you’ve won your friends over, you can start at step 1.
Step 1:
Reject Books and Entrepreneurship Classes
Build a Prototype.
Talk to Your Bank, Bootstrap or Get Money from Your Parents.
Find an Angel.
Get Accepted to an Incubator.
Build.
Present it to Your Peers.
Revise.
Talk to an Adviser.
Learn.
Launch Beta
Then…
Revise Product.
Public Launch.
Find More Investors.
Learn Some More.
Learn a Whole Lot More.
Mostly, Make Mistakes and Learn.
If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably left school.
Starting a startup is one of the hardest things you’ll do in your life.
But there are reasons why these companies were founded around college environments:
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook.
Citations:
- The Bumpy Rise of a Startup
- Flowing Data, how to start a startup
- Paul Graham “A Student’s Guide To Startups
- How to Launch a Startup for Under $1500
Melissa Stewart is the founder of SheOwnsIt.com. She is a Purveyor of Possibility, Entrepreneur Advocate and Coffee Addict. She believes that behind every successful woman is her story. What’s your story?
One Reply to “How to Start a Startup in College [Infographic]”
Jessica
Interesting…but this infographic assumes that a tech company is the only kind of startup a college student would want to start.
As well, some people learn a lot from entrepreneurship courses or from the business planning process – so you can’t discount that stuff for everyone.
Also important to consider is: who is the ideal customer for this business?