10 Reasons You Should Start Your First Company in College

College is a time for growing up, trying new things and learning many of life’s lessons both inside and out of the classroom.  Your plate may already seem full with all your courses and extracurriculars, but it’s really the best time to start your first business.  There are quite a few distinct advantages to doing so, and so I’d like to highlight a few here.

10 Reasons You Should Start Your First Company in College

1) The Support System

One of the most underrated aspects of college is the help you can get while you are there. Professors are there to answer your questions in class and most are willing to help you outside of class.  In addition, they can often point you in the direction of more help, like other professors you may not already know and some of their local friends in industry. There are also many student organizations that can help you with your business.

2) Teammates are Everywhere

With thousands of students at your school, you’re surrounded with tons of potential co-founders.  Need a developer? Head over to the Computer Science department and connect with some students there. Need a marketing student? Sit in on a Marketing club meeting and talk to some of the students there.  You can also test your circle of friends and learn the lesson of how your best friend and Friday night wingman may not be the best person to start a company with (or maybe he is? find out.).

3) Failing Hurts Less

When you’re in college and your company fails, it’s not as big a deal. You may have lost a few bucks and some of your free time, but you still have a clear path well in your sights as you work to complete your degree.  If you’re out of college and your company fails, you’re generally much worse off financially (you’re no longer supported by your family or financial aide) and you’ll be left with a great life question of “now what?” in your life. 

4) Find Out if This is For You

Starting a company is not easy. It takes hard work, sacrifice and a dedication to daily progress and improvement.  If you don’t love your start up, ask yourself why. It’s much better to know now that you actually don’t like the challenges, uncertainty and endless different tasks that come with a startup than to find out down the line (see #3).

If this is something you love, then you can make the commitment to leveraging that support system around you to learn all you can while you’re already paying for an education; you might as well maximize the value and relevancy of it if you know you want to be starting companies.

5) Some Things are Easier as a Student

There’s something about being a student that strikes right at the heart of everyone.  People loves to hear the old, “I’m a student and could use your help…”  Take advantage of this and use it to get introductions, free advice and information from people. You may even be able to swing some free items from people if you frame it under the “it’s for a school project” concept. At the least, you can use all the business “student discounts” to help with bootstrapping expenses. Remember: It never hurts to ask; don’t be afraid to ask for things…the worst that happens is they say no, which is the same as if you didn’t ask at all (and they might say yes).

6) More Resources Available

As a student, not only will you have access to the professors across the school, but you’ll also be able to leverage student groups and competitions at your school.  There’s also the great organization, NCIIA, which provides grants and additional resources and programming for college students starting businesses.

7) You Learn What it Takes

You can study entrepreneurship all you want, write business plans to your heart’s content, but nothing will teach you about startups quite like actually trying to start one.  The key is to recognize what you don’t know and start asking lots of questions about everything.  The more you learn and the more you realize you don’t know, the better off you’ll be. Either find people to complete your team in areas you’re weak, or find ways to improve in those areas.

8) Get Your Rookie Mistakes out of the Way

There are a lot of first time mistakes that happen when you start a business. What you think is really important often turns out not to be and unfortunately, some of these things only seem to sink in after you experience it first hand. For me, it was the concepts of learning it’s ok to tell people what your idea is and the importance of sharing your equity around.  I also learned the important lesson of choosing a project you love and are passionate about versus one you just think will make a lot of money.

9) You'll Get the Bug

Dharmesh Shah put it best in his Startup Bootcamp presentation in October, "Thinking of a startup? You have a genetic defect that's going to make you miserable for the rest of your life.”  Even if you’re first startup doesn’t work out, if this is for you, you’re going to be hooked; you’ll be looking for the next great idea to try to start as a business. This is a very good thing. The sooner you get the bug, the better.

10) It Might Just Work

This whole list has been about learning lessons and leveraging the tools around you, but remember the actual goal of a startup is to make a great, profitable business. The list of successful entrepreneurs who started their business in college is actually quite long.  The founders of Facebook, Microsoft, Blackberry and many of the other largest companies today were started while their founders were still in school.  Don’t hesitate…with hard work and a little luck, you could be the next one.

What are you waiting for? Go start a company!