Dharmesh Shah at OnStartUps.com:
Why Students Make Great Entrepreneurs:
1. Starry-Eyed Optimism: Let’s face it, starting a company takes a fair amount of optimism. You have minimal resources, and the odds are severely stacked against you. To overcome this potentially troubling reality, founders must to some degree exercise suspension of disbelief and demonstrate a degree of optimism to take that initial step.
2. Trusted Peer Network: One of the great things about being a student is that you have the opportunity to meet and work with a lot of different people. If you do it right, you can get to know some of these people pretty well by working on projects with them and hanging out with them outside of class.3. Higher Risk Tolerance: Let’s face it, when you’re a student your opportunity cost is likely lower than most other points in your career (even if you’ve been in the workforce for a little while and decided to go back and get that MBA). When you’re sitting there in class and an idea comes to you, it doesn’t really cost all that much to give things a try.
4. Abstract Thinking: In many academic programs (and especially the better ones), students spend a fair amount of time thinking about abstract concepts. This is particularly true in an engineering, computer science or even a business program.
5. Applied Learning: As a student, you’re quite often “drinking from a fire hose†and bringing all sorts of new information into your brain. Some of which “sticks†and some of which doesn’t.If you’re a student or recent graduate, this is a great time to think about starting a company. Keep your mind open. See if you can find patterns in the problems that you’re seeing and try and find unique and compelling ways to solve problems people care about. It often is really that simple.
Found through Business Opportunities Weblog.
I would have to say that yes starting a biz while still in College is a great thing. I know that i did it and it opened up the possibilites to me. Speaking from a guy who is now a few years out of College now i can tell you it was a great time to do it.
Recently i’ve been starting off into different ventures and trying to keep a few things constant in terms of business. I learned about what kind of business person i am and i think that is important. Once you understand how you operate you know which opportunities will suit you best.
I think the last and most important piece of this is that i see plenty of people with grand ideas and it always seems to be people with small simple and workable ideas go the furthest. But thats just what i’ve seen. Cheers and excellent article,
Luc
Student entrepreneurs were a very rare breed in the past but now I can see even children as young as 10 venturing into blogging and Internet Marketing.
Your reasoning may be sound, but I have got one why most student entrepreneurs fail to make it big: they are still supported by parents and have no necessity to burn the bridge, they are not entirely desperate for success, their main motivations may be bling bling gadgets, some money and peer boasting factors. This motivation will wear out sooner or later. Wait till they see the real working world for them to really see the value of money.