The mindset in India is surely changing. India is moving more and more towards becoming a startup nation. And the startup buzz is surely catching up with everyone in the country right from college students to senior level professionals. At Techstory, we come across a number of entrepreneurs who already have or are wanting to start something while still in college. A lot of these students have a lot of questions for us. In this article we try and answer some of these questions as to how entrepreneurial college students can best utilize their time in college to help them in their future.
Network Network Network !
Being an entrepreneur myself and having interviewed a number of entrepreneurs till date, I know that Network is one of the most important asset for anyone who thinks of starting their business. Knowing the right person for an advice or help at the right time might be one of the most crucial asset that will be responsible for the success or failure of your company.
College is a great time wherein the program structure allows you to create a huge Network. Utilize this time to get to know students, teachers and other staff from not only within your college but also outside your college. Try and attend a number of events in different colleges to get to know people there. Also try and be a part of organizing committees for college events. Try and get to meet senior members in the industry while organizing these events. Understanding how event sponsorships work might be a valuable lesson for the future !
All in all, make sure that you create and maintain contacts with as many people as possible.
Best Time To Try Out An Idea !
When building any new product, the best way to go about it is to run a pilot with a small group of users and test your idea. When in college you have so many varied groups in the same campus who you can know personally and can always approach to test your product. Also being in college gives you access to a number of industry experts (read professors ) who might also get you in touch with their contacts to help you out. For any kind of technical problems that you might have, you always have a lot of support staff readily available to help you out. Remember that some of the most successful companies of today were started in a college campus.
All the resources that we have available in college are extremely valuable however, we tend to take them for granted when we are there. It is only when you move out of college and have to pay huge amount of money for all these resources is when you understand the value of the gold mine you were sitting on while in college.
Try To Get Sales Experience !
No matter what venture you start, the understanding of how to sell things is most important when it comes to starting a business.Try to get sales experience either by getting into internships that will give you this experience or by trying to sell stuff like printed t shirts for college events.
Learning how to make a sale will be the most important learning you will need to help you in your entrepreneurial journey.
