When I started my web development and design company at 17, I was full of excitement and a hell of a lot of other emotions too. The company was a culmination of the past year reading everything I could find online about entrepreneurship. Whilst I learned a lot from reading all of this content from various sources, I soon reached a point where this information was becoming less and less applicable due to my young age. For this reason, I’ve created this blog (and this article) to help others who were in my position 2 years ago, but also for those who are in my position now as a 19 year old university entrepreneur.
My goal for this blog is to simply share some of my experiences and some of the things I have learned as a young entrepreneur, with the aim of helping others in a similar position to me. Below are some of the things I have learned in my comparatively short time as an entrepreneur.
Learn and Never Stop Learning
As mentioned, my entrepreneurial journey sparked from reading content online. Primarily, this content was from reddit, beginning with /r/personalfinance and slowly moving to /r/entrepreneur and /r/startups . What I particularly found useful was sorting posts in these sub-reddits by top all time posts. By doing this, we instantly see the posts which have been rated the highest by the community.
Notice how the majority of posts talk about an experience of some kind and what they have taken away from the experience. The most important thing for you to be aware of as an entrepreneur, and even more as a young entrepreneur, is that experience is key. The worst part about this is that often the only way to gain experience is through failure. Lots of it. By reading these top rated posts, as well as newer posts, we can learn from these experiences second-hand without having to experience failure ourselves (at least initially). Through doing this, you learn things which have taken smart individuals, often with high capital investment, years to learn.
The more of these posts you read, the more aware you’ll be of common problems, and more importantly the solutions to these problems. You’ll then be able to utilise this ‘experience’ in your own business, saving you time and money. Without doing this, you’ll always be behind entrepreneurs older and more experienced than you.
Furthermore, utilising this wealth of information can give rise to you forming your own business ideas or improving your existing business. In the past 2 years I have learned so much from these sub-reddits and it is something that I advise all people look at irrespective of what stage of your business journey that you are on. It pays dividends from idea generation all the way to selling your business. However, remember that what you learn is only useful when you put it into practise. Keep this in mind when looking at my next point.
Keep it Simple
This is especially important when trying to decide on a business you want to start. It’s easy to get into the nitty gritty details of a business idea and not actually start anything. This is one of the worst things you can do as an entrepreneur and I have seen it many times. It leads to no real progress. You’re just left with a big fat plan along with random other ideas scribbled around the edges. This doesn’t make you an entrepreneur. You know what makes you an entrepreneur? Actually starting something which provides value. Stop. Keep it simple and just start something. Whilst there are obvious benefits to an in-depth plan, don’t get caught up in the small details which, when looking at the business as a whole, do not matter. These issues can be smoothed out once you have actually launched your business.
Keep it Relevant
Nowadays, it seems that every young entrepreneur has a new wonderful, fantastic unbelievable business idea. 90% of the time, these wonderful, fantastic business ideas are in an industry which they have no experience in or the businesses themselves have such high barriers to entry that the idea would not be possible without significant financial backing. It’s not uncommon to hear 20 year olds talk about a factory that they are planning to open. When asked about how they’re going to fund this factory, they proceed to talk about how they will simply find investors. It is no surprise that this investment is often not found, with the exception of the 20 year olds skilled in Jedi mind tricks.
Keep it relevant. Match or adapt business ideas to your own skill-set, experiences, and financial situation. Through doing this, you can start your new business today as opposed to waiting for arbitrary milestones before starting. It’s crazy how quickly life can take over. This is particularly true for those at university who soon face the decision whether to start climbing the corporate ladder or begin their own business.
Freedom to Fail
As a young entrepreneur, the greatest asset you have is the freedom to fail. Often, the fear of failure slows, or puts a complete stop to innovation. This fear only increases as you get older, particularly in terms of your personal finances. A mortgage and a secure job is the biggest enemy of innovative entrepreneurship. All of a sudden you have the potential to lose a lot financially. As a University student you have none of this. This gives you the freedom to pursue more ‘risky’ ventures as you have nothing to lose. Ground breaking companies such as Facebook and Microsoft were all formed by University students partly due to this. The riskier the venture, the less competition, thus putting University students at the centre of business innovation.
Honestly, the freedom to fail was something that took me a while to come to terms with. After all, this business that I was making would be representative of me as a person and so naturally I believed that failure simply wasn’t an option. What I soon realised however is that just by starting a business at such a young age, I was already ahead of the curve. This is something that many young entrepreneurs fail to take into account. The worst case scenario of starting your own business at a young age is a significantly improved CV. The best case scenario? A successful, financially thriving business. It’s a no-brainer.
Take advantage of opportunity
University is abundant with opportunity, particularly in regards to expanding your skillset and being able to act upon your entrepreneurial desires. Lots of these opportunities exist, but you may have to do some digging to find them in your university.
One massive opportunity for entrepreneurs is Young Enterprise. Young Enterprise allows for students to form their own companies with other students. You don’t need an idea to join and you don’t even need a group of friends to join. I actually did this my first year of University and ended up reaching the national finals along with my team.
Whilst taking up a significant portion of my first year, I learned an incredible amount about team management, time management, delegation, idea generation and lots of other things which simply cannot be learnt in lectures. A few teams even end up forming their own fully fledged company after Young Enterprise has finished, allowing them to continue with the hard work that they have put in.
Another opportunity that a lot of university students are not aware of is the Institute of Directors which offers a discounted rate of £75 per year for students. Some universities, depending on how good their entrepreneurship department is, may subsidise or fully pay this fee, which, as a student, allows you to spend more money on instant noodles. Whilst the fee may seem a lot initially, put that student finance to good use and invest in yourself.
However, I’m not going to sit here and sugar-coat the organisation. The one I attended was full of owners of older, more traditional companies such as accountancy firms and law offices. This is certainly reflected in the demographics of its members (I.e full of old people). I’m not joking when I say you’ll be the youngest person there by 20 years.
That being said, there is a wealth of experience in the room. Take advantage of it. Mingle. You’ll no doubt learn a few things far exceeding the £75 joining fee. Using your age to your benefit works well here. As long as you come across well, a lot of the members will be happy to answer any questions you may have about anything. The first time I visited I actually spoke with one of the members for an hour after the IOD meeting had finished. If I was 40, I doubt this would have happened. I’ve written an article here explaining more about how you can use your age to your benefit.
Become involved with your university’s entrepreneurship department (or business department). Get to know the people that work here in whatever way you can, although taking part in Young Enterprise within your university is a great way to do this. The staff that work in this department will likely organise, or at least be in the know, about all upcoming entrepreneurship events. Some of these will be useless depending on where you are on your entrepreneurial journey, but there are definitely great events that allow you to meet people who you may not have been able to meet otherwise and learn a thing or two from them.