Is it Possible to Create a Business Startup Right After College?



business startup

Is it a good idea to create a business startup right after college?

Before you ask this question to an entrepreneur or your mentor, you need to find certain answers yourself. Becoming self-employed is a tough task, wherever you are in life.

It is even more difficult to stay afloat once you start. Statistics say that 9 out of 10 new businesses fail within the first 5 years. Not an encouraging figure, but it is not impossible either. You need to possess the right mindset. Let’s take a look at what you need to ask yourself before you start a business after college.

Determine If It’s Possible to Create a Business Startup

Ask Yourself: What Motivates You to Take Up the Challenge?

If the prospect of self-employment allures you because you think you just need to work for a few hours from a stunning beach sipping on a martini, you are better off being employed by someone else. Let’s take this one step at a time.

Are you motivated by the easy way to get rich premise? If yes, you are in for serious disappointment. The majority of new businesses fail to recover any money invested within a year, let alone make profits. You can only succeed with years of hard work and patience.

Are you motivated by the idea that you need not work for endless hours at an office? Well, a new entrepreneur often needs to put in as much as 10 hours of work every day. True, you can work as per your schedule, but that does not take away the effort you need to put in.

The only way to succeed as a self-employed individual is to make sure that you are willing to solve a problem, need or want of a customer, and do it in a way that beats your competitors. To do this, you need to put in hours of hard work and take care of numerous responsibilities.

Ask Yourself: Do You Love the Idea that Forms the Core of the Business?

A new entrepreneur can attain success; but only when the driving force behind it is love and passion for the business. If you are enthused and excited about the central idea, the chances of your success increase.

Does this mean that anyone who loves haute couture can start off as a fashion designer? It is not that simple. Think about something – have you designed anything for anyone? How well was it received by them? Did it find appreciation among others?

You need to find the ONE thing that fills you with fervor and zeal. Only that idea can work as the core of your new endeavor. It is much easier to start a new business when you can identify your unique selling point.

Ask Yourself: How Do You Plan to Handle the Finances?

Many first-timers start off with the funds they manage to pool in from family and friends. The lack of real experience makes it difficult for them to impress the big investors who find interest only in ‘real’ businesses.

Don’t be disheartened; the Internet gives you the best option to start up a new business right after college and that too at a negligible cost. It just needs to be a service-oriented online business, for the time being.

Another advantage of starting early is that you need not bother about things such as paying off a mortgage or supporting a family. If you are still living with your parents, you can save even more money to invest in the start-up.

If possible, continue to work part-time for someone else while you set up your business. This way you can rely on the amount you earn until your business begins to earn profits. A great thing to do is to work in the same niche in which you have your business.

Ask Yourself: Can You Be a Jack of All Trades and Master Them Too?

There is no secret to success for a new business. If you think that you can earn big and get rich without any effort, you are WRONG. It is possible to succeed only if you are capable of handling the numerous responsibilities that come with your own business.

Remember, it is YOUR business; you will have to be the manager, the marketer, the advertiser, the accountant, the vendor and every other thing, at least initially. There is no way to avoid these responsibilities.

You cannot take on employees, unless you have a huge budget, in a startup. The overhead would be too much for the fledgling endeavor. However, once you start off, you can outsource certain tasks to professionals.

Getting advice and assistance from others can help you focus on the things that matter.

You can create a business startup, not only after college, but wherever you are in life at present. Look at the brothers Shravan (12 years) and Sanjay Kumaran (10 years), the brothers who created mobile phone applications for their company Go Dimensions.

The tech-savvy brothers from India are not yet out of school and they are already making their mark on the business world. At the end, it is the zest and passion you have for the idea and the effort you put in to transform it into reality that matters.

15 Comments ▼

Richard White Richard White works as an editor at Yellow Brick Path. He enjoys varying his work and researching new and different approaches. He shares an interest in career counseling and recruitment.

15 Reactions
  1. Richard,

    I agree – when it comes to entrepreneurship, there’s no limit with regard to how young/how old. As long as you have the drive and talent, you can take off, whether you are college-educated or not.

    My acquaintance, Jacques Blom is 14 when he started out iStyla, an app for Facebook. He is now featured on some major publications and talk in some prestigious events. Respect.

    • Hello Ivan,

      Thanks for the example. I’m sure it’s going to be very inspiring for the young entrepreneurs of today.

      Richard

    • I agree with you Richard. These are very important questions to be asked. I have an intern working with me and we discussed this yesterday. I cautioned him about the importance of learning the operations of a business which can more effectively be learned in the corporate arena. I encouraged him to secure a job with a company that he has researched and agrees with operating strategies. Work for two years while he is planning the launch of his business and to take advantage of the job by speaking with as many department heads as he can to gain information about HR, Finance, Marketing, Legal, IT and of course Operations so he will be better equipped to succeed in his own business.

      • Thanks Charly for sharing this with us! It is great advice, as with this strategy, the intern would have an insight into the different aspects of the business before he/she starts of on their own.

  2. I certainly agree on this. And it’s also true that not everyone has the mindset of starting up a business. They consider it at least, but they end up thinking of other factors needed to run the business. I myself became too focused on the getting immediately rich part when I first started a business, then ended up failing. Now it’s getting a lot easier to start one, with more and more business tips are being shared online, and even financial help could be at reach nowadays. It will all now just depend on one’s mindset if they can go through the challenges that await when starting up. Cheers for the article!

    • Thanks Erik for sharing your experience with us! I agree that online resources are making it easier for people to get the advice and assistance necessary for starting a business nowadays.

  3. Indeed it is and I totally encourage it – I just wrote a post about this myself on Tuesday – great minds, eh?

    • Hi Chris — In fact, you don’t need to even complete college. Think Michael Dell starting a business from his dorm room. 🙂

      – Anita

    • Hi Chris, read your post. You and I do agree on this one! Thanks for sharing it. Richard

  4. While it is possible to start the business right after college or even before finishing ti, there are pros and cons that one needs to keep in mind. On the pros side you have all the time in the world, you are energetic and ready to change the world. On the cons side you lack experience and wisdom that comes after working for some time, you may not have sufficient financial support, etc.

    There are certainly great examples of entrepreneurs starting their busienses before finishing the college – Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and so on. At the same time there are failures that we don’t hear about.

    Asking the questions you mentioend in the article definitely helps.

    • That pretty much sums up the REALLY important points. You need to be aware of the possibilities of success and failure when you start-up a new venture. Thanks for sharing your opinion.





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