Listen to “Professor You” — Your Number One Teacher

Monday, October 29 by David Askaripour in School | 4 Comments

Listen to Professor You

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education”

– Mark Twain

It’s school time for many of you Mindpetalers out there, so it’s time for a reminder of how not to let school take full control of your mind. Meaning: don’t let your professors’ every word affect how you are going to live your life.

It’s so easy to sit back and just listen to your professor go off about “make sure to get a good job” … “are you ready to join the workforce?” … “is your resume prepared?” … “don’t even think about starting a business until you have some experience” … “work hard for your boss and you’ll be rewarded with a nice raise.” And the list goes on.

preach! preach! preach!It’s like, everything that your teacher is saying is a “must” and is “right.” But, just as the preacher stands on the alter and gives you his “interpretation” of the holy book and demands that you live your life based upon his “interpretations” of said book, the professor is sharing his “interpretations” from what he has learned and is now passing on to you.

So beware. Beware of not falling into the trap of wholeheartedly listing to all of your professor’s proselytizing and educational sermons. Be careful not to take every word for “truth” and “right” when your teacher is giving you an opinion masked as an absolute truth.

I believe that your true education comes from “your” experiences — from what you learn as you journey through life. That’s the most important education that one can ever receive, the education of yourself.

Self-mastery, self-discovery, deep introspection of who you are as a person and the unlocking of your infinite abilities. This education, my friends, is priceless. It’s free. You don’t pay $50K a year for it. It’s not obtained by reading stacks of books and listening to lectures.

Your number one professor should be YOU. He’s called “professor YOU”. Get to know him/her well. Consult with him daily. And trust him to guide you as you journey along life, especially, for you college seniors who will soon be in that shaky transition period between graduating and getting a job.

Go with your gut. If getting a job feels right for you, then do that. If your heart is telling you to start a project and give something else a chance, then go down that route. If you’d like to travel, then hop on a plane. If you want to relax and read books for a year, then get at it. Because there is no wrong and right decision here. Just as long as YOU are making those decisions.

Not Mommy and Daddy. Not Professor Milken. Not your guidance counselor. Not your friends. Not your girlfriend. Not Grandma.

Only Professor YOU.

How Important is Education for Entrepreneurial Success?

Tuesday, September 11 by Sabah Karimi in School | 12 Comments

With the increasing numbers of young and successful entrepreneurs in the self-employed sector, it makes us wonder how much of their success can be attributed to educational background and knowledge. Elite universities might offer a solid education, a social network, and access to resources that complement your studies, but how much can you take out into the ‘real world’ to apply on your own?

Many elite colleges take pride in job placement either during school as an internship, or immediately after college graduation. The corporate world is seemingly attractive to many fresh-out-of-college applicants, a place to get started on a lifelong career and climb the proverbial corporate ladder to get ahead. The idea of earning an MBA and then being offered a higher-paying job is also attractive to many; it’s usually the reason for pursuing graduate school in the first place.

Still, many graduates find great value in turning entrepreneurship and self employment instead. Learning to build and grow a business can be just as satisfying, (if not more in some cases) than working for a company or organization. It takes time, effort, and a strong work ethic, but the rewards often go well beyond a simple paycheck.

Not every entrepreneur is interested in working alone either; building a brand new company also involves creating jobs, training others to become leaders, and building an enterprise that provides value for the social community. Can this be learned in the classroom? Not necessarily, although many colleges and universities now offer entrepreneurship and ‘creative business development’ classes as part of their business curriculum.

While thousands of college-bound students complete a degree in hopes of landing their ‘dream job,’ others are turning to the lifestyle of entrepreneurship and growing businesses independently instead. Budding entrepreneurs have found their niche through simple trial and error, pursuing their passion and then finding out how to build a business around it. Others have an idea of building a company of their own—perhaps during college–and proceed by applying fundamental business skills learned in school to support their venture. Even without formal education, a smart and savvy entrepreneur can choose to take classes offered at community colleges or vocational schools and start to apply the skills directly.

Formal education may not be the cornerstone of entrepreneurship after all; it may even create risk aversion, as outlined in this Business Week article titled ‘Who Needs the Ivies?’. If you think you need a 4-year degree or 6-year education program before ‘making it’ as an entrepreneur or business leader, you’re missing out on an opportunity to simply get started, NOW!

Support for education, growth, and ongoing learning is available through many local and community organizations; the Small Business Administration, SCORE, and even programs funded by corporations make it easier than ever to launch that dream business with a strong foundation of resources. You can start online by exploring entrepreneur blogs, websites, and other free resources—college degree or not!

Institute For Entrepreneurship College

Monday, April 23 by David Askaripour in School | 4 Comments

Institute for Entrepreneurship
You all know how much I hate the fact that colleges are ignoring young entrepreneurs by not offering courses in entrepreneurship, you know how I bash the traditional / theoretical teachings that most business classes use in their courses, and you know that I’m disgusted by the amount of non-entrepreneur professors who end up teaching business classes throughout our university systems.

Well, today, just a few hours ago, I learned of a new program called the Institute for Entrepreneurs at Grand Canyon University. I sat down with Danny Kessler, one of the founding students of the program, and discussed what he’s been up to over at the institution.

the approach

I have to tell you, from what I hear about the program, I’m definitely breathing a bit easier and am so delighted to hear that such a school was created.

I won’t go into the history of the institution, you can learn that from the site, but what I’d like to discuss is how the actual classes are conducted — this is what’s really interesting.

I asked Danny to describe a typical class for me and I’ve summarized/paraphrased his responses below:

Classes offered

So, tell me about the professors. What’s their background?


All the professors are entrepreneurs with real experience. I’m currently taking a PR/Marketing class and the professor ran a multi-million dollar PR company that she recently sold to Intel. All of the professors are quality and have real experience.

What do you actually do in class?

Class is like one big open discussion. We all throw around ideas, discuss concepts, and help one another out by offering suggestions for their business. We also spend a lot of time reading blogs and other websites. For instance, if we are learning about PR we may all go to prweb.com and discuss different strategies from that site. We don’t use books and cover theory, we actually “do” things and engage in real conversations about entrepreneurship.

Each class we have a speaker come and talk to us about a particular entrepreneurial subject. We have CEOs, consultants, networking gurus, etc. come and talk to us and answer our questions. They provide valuable suggestions and solutions for us to implement into our own businesses.

How long is the program?

Since it’s incorporated into the Grand Canyon curriculum, you still have to take liberal arts courses to satisfy your full degree. However, for the entrepreneurship program, you meet once a week for 4 hours. Each course is given 8 weeks, 2 course per semester.

Do the professors ask for your input of how the class should be run?

Absolutely! They constantly ask “what do you think about the way I am running the class? What can we improve? What can we add/modify/cut?” The professors are basically running the classes based upon what the “students” want to learn, not the other way around.

Any homework?

Homework consists of things like pitching your business idea to the class and trying to sell them on your idea. We don’t get traditional homework like something you’d get in a business class. Our homework is hands-on, not questions that we study out of a book.

So, as you can see, this entrepreneurship program is quite disruptive. I love what these guys are doing. It’s great to know that we are heading in the right direction when I see programs like this popping up. I wish the Institute for Entrepreneurship the best and look forward to seeing them grow.

Rock on!


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Are Colleges Starting to Appreciate The Young Entrepreneur?

Monday, March 19 by David Askaripour in School | 3 Comments

Wall Street Journal published an interesting article today called Entrepreneurship 101. Mind Petals advisor, Dan Putt, sent the article my way and boy was I glad to read it… it made my day to hear that colleges are actually starting to wakeup and come to terms that entrepreneurship can’t be ignored. They are starting to see the light, little by little.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

Small business is becoming a big deal on college campuses these days. The Arizona State program hands out $200,000 to student ventures annually, accepting about 15 to 20 of the roughly 100 submissions that are made each year. And hundreds of other U.S. colleges and universities also have awakened to the fact that many of their graduates are likely to work for themselves someday. Many are bolstering their courses and extracurricular activities for aspiring entrepreneurs and helping students create businesses before graduation.

Kudos to Arizona State! Now this is a college that appreciates young entrepreneurs and I hope that other colleges around the country will follow in their footsteps and start setting up similar funds.

So many of us have excellent, excellent ideas but don’t have a dime to invest into the business. Sure, bootstrapping is great but if you can attain the support of your college and get some financial help, then even better.

It’s a far cry from just a decade ago, when most colleges ignored students’ entrepreneurial ambitions, or just offered basic business-planning courses in the business school. Now, many schools are adding entrepreneurship majors and minors, holding business-plan competitions for cash prizes and teaming students up with local entrepreneurs. And many campuses are teaching entrepreneurship beyond the business school, to get students in other disciplines interested in business development.

Duh… yes, “many of us are likely” to work for ourselves one day. I’m still so shocked to see that universities are just realizing this fact now. Why couldn’t you see that 5 years ago? Ok, so it’s time to play catch-up. We’ll forgive your ignorance by starting some funds for our startups.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison, which launched an undergraduate entrepreneurship major last fall, wants to encourage its students to learn from one another. It plans to designate dorm rooms by the academic year 2008 so that students who have an interest in entrepreneurship can live together and network.

Right on! Stop wasting those dorm rooms for regular living – turn some of those babies into incubator rooms. This is exactly what colleges should be doing – providing housing specifically for teams of young entrepreneurs.

Why aren’t all colleges doing this? Believe me, I highly doubt money is an issues, especially with the rising costs of tuition. Each and every college should have a living wing for entrepreneurs who want to live together – no excuses.

If your college currently doesn’t offer this type of dorming, you should do something about it! You should rebel.

Overall, about 2,140 two-year and four-year colleges now offer entrepreneurship courses, up from about 1,400 in 1998 and fewer than 300 in 1980, according to research from the Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo., resource center for entrepreneurs.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Let’s keep it going. Now that colleges are jumping onboard, let’s hope – no, let’s demand – that the momentum keeps up.

Some skeptics might question the value of teaching entrepreneurship in the classroom. After all, some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs — including legends like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates — dropped out of college or never attended at all, and learned their business through trial and error.

But supporters and academics counter that while the drive and high risk tolerance natural to most successful entrepreneurs indeed can’t be learned, there are helpful skills that can be taught. Entrepreneurial curricula include courses on identifying good opportunities, cash-flow management, handling growth, intellectual-property law, venture capital and marketing. And many courses are now geared toward entrepreneurship in particular fields, such as engineering, science and technology.

Well you can’t teach us to be innovative, creative, and hungry to succeed – that’s for sure. But you can provide us the necessary tools to succeed. You can teach us laws, intellectual property, how to get funding, etc…

Young entrepreneurs, this is great news! We are bringing about change and the world can no longer ignore us. This is just the beginning and we’ll soon see more and more universities stop playing dumb and wakeup from their long naps. Kudos to us!

Update: Here’s a video from Robert Shedd’s blog:

Questioning the Professor-Entrepreneur

Friday, March 16 by Brian Lash in School | 5 Comments

A friend of mine needed to interview an entrepreneur to fulfill a requirement for his Strategic Management class. His professor — a self-proclaimed entrepreneur — requires as much.

I agreed to the interview on the grounds that I would be helping a buddy. Anyway, I was curious.

I mean, what’s an entrepreneur-professor?

With few exceptions (a la the successful entrepreneur who becomes a Professor of Entrepreneurship late in life because he can no longer live the entrepreneurial lifestyle), aren’t professors the antithesis of entrepreneurs? The ones who ready us for — ugh — “real jobs?” For the corporate ladder and cubicles and pensions and 401k’s?

My friend had four pages of questions for me. They were dull. They were academic.

Here’s one of my favorites:

“What were the gaps? Did you anticipate them? How did you fill those gaps? Were your remedies effective?”

What’s he mean by “gaps?” Opportunity gaps? Or sensitive points in the business model that required extra attention? In either case, why not say as much?

The other questions were equally dull: “What was your greatest strength when you started? What’s your greatest strength today? What was your greatest weakness? Your greatest weakness today?”

As we proceeded through the Q&A session I began to think of the other entrepreneurs who were answering these questions. What did they think of the interview? And of the professor who developed such “textbook” questions?
I don’t mean to pick on this guy; After all, there’s a good chance I don’t understand his motivations. Perhaps he’s going to “wow” his students when he explains that the point of the exercise was to show them that entrepreneurship can’t be captured in the responses to a series of one-dimensional questions.

…right.

I criticize the academic’s approach because it’s so, well… academic. I felt like I was answering questions for a survey. Questions that were of little consequence to the broader picture of the entrepreneurial experience.

But maybe I’m biased — I’m certainly predisposed to question the professor-entrepreneur.

But that’s because I (like most entrepreneurs I know) have adopted the philosophy that unless you’ve started a business, unless you’ve developed an uncommon way — by virtue of your hard work, innovation, and thoughtful execution — to solve some problem, you’re not an entrepreneur. And if that’s the case, what business do you have teaching it?


Brian Lash is founder of The Tipping Blog and writes about the entrepreneurial experience at BrianLash.com

College Isn’t Cutting it — Let’s Go to Mind Petals University!

Monday, March 5 by David Askaripour in School | 11 Comments

Beep!…Beep!…Beep!… Beep!…. Yup, that your alarm going off in your room. But guess what, the time isn’t 7am, it’s 10am – the time that “you” wanted to wake up. You arise from your bed and take a few steps to your office to start working on your startup. Your roommates/partners, who live in the suite as well, stumble into the office after a long night of partying. For the rest of the day there are no insane classes, there are no professors teaching you theory, there are no boring homework assignments, and no textbooks to read.

Sound like a dream? Well it doesn’t have to be. How many young entrepreneurs out there would rather go to a university that was specifically founded just for them? A university that you can come to not only learn about entrepreneurship, but to also start a company and have the full support of the university to help you get your company off the ground.

A university that basically let’s you do whatever you want – be the creative person that you are without any limiting schedules, without any history, math, English, or biology classes. A university that let’s you unleash yourself and helps coax your innovative skills to their fullest expression.

Wouldn’t it be great if you can choose what classes you wanted to go to on a daily basis – not by semester. Say, for instance, you were in a marketing mood that morning, well then you would go to a branding class taught by a “real” entrepreneur who has run a successful marketing company – not some adjunct — pissed off and underpaid — professor who really doesn’t know a thing about marketing a part from reading the marketing textbook.

You may be reading this article and asking yourself “what the hell is he talking about?” Well, I’m sharing my vision with you – my dream of one day creating a university that is about one thing and one thing only: Entrepreneurship.

I truly think that the world needs such a university. A university built by young entrepreneurs, ran by young entrepreneurs, and built just for young entrepreneurs.

It may seem like an impractical or impossible feat to accomplish for those of you who believe in a strict university education filled with all the liberal arts yaddah…yaddah…and traditional route of having to major in a particular subject; but, for me, this university seems more feasible now than ever before. We need it!

I mean, why not? No, really, why not? If young entrepreneurs are the future of all business and innovation to come, then why not create an environment that will bring out the best in those young entrepreneurs. A university flooded with all sorts of diverse young entrepreneurs to network, brainstorm, innovate, and, let’s not forget… party with!

Such a university would, of course, disrupt the entire education system. Good. That’s exactly what we want! And I’m not just talking about creating “incubators” in a college setting or entrepreneurship camps – yes, those exists. What I am talking about here is a real university for to-be young entrepreneurs and current young entrepreneurs.

How would people be approved? Well, your admission would have to include the idea that you plan to create your company with or your current business. Your entire curriculum would be based around your company and the things that you want to learn to help improve your company.

I think that it’s time to take things into our own hands and create the university that we’ve always dreamed about. No more waiting for the college board “suite and ties” to bring about change. Nah…

For all the young entrepreneurs out there who are absolutely tired of taking those unnecessary classes, taking exams that aren’t teaching you a thing, and are spending your days thinking about your startup instead of attending to your school work and hearing your professor continue to preach theory to prepare you to become a “good employee”, then join me to make such a university a reality.

I’m confident that such a university can be created, even if it starts out in some small office somewhere…. but it can happen! Anyone interested in helping out, then share your ideas, ways that you can contribute, connections that you can share, funding that you can access, etc… I’d like to launch this university sooner than later. Who’s with me?

Asking All Young Entrepreneurs: Are You Absolutely Sick of College Yet?

Wednesday, February 28 by David Askaripour in School | 26 Comments

I’m writing this article to share the experiences that I encountered in college while running a startup. Though I have completed college and now hold a degree in English, my latter years of college were quite interesting.

Ok, so my first 2 years of college — in terms of academics and having the school spirit — were great. I had a whole different state of mind then. Determined to become a history Ph. D, Computer Engineer and/or Naturopathic Doctor.

I was the typical over-achiever, straight A, teacher’s pet, student who wanted nothing more than to get the good grades and sail off to that dream job of mine. But everything change starting my 3rd year of college when I rekindled my love affair with entrepreneurship and started to focus more and more on creating a startup and less on my studies.

It all happened so abruptly: one day my life was revolving around my school work and another day my life was deep into the world of entrepreneurship. Everything was changing and my energies were now focused on my business.

Instead of maintaining a strict attendance in my classes, I skipped to attend business meetings. Instead of reading the assignments, I spent time creating business plans and writing down ideas. Instead of studying, I found myself spending most of my time overseeing the development of my online Internet venture.

After a full year of running my business and simultaneously taking 18 credits per semester, I began developing a hatred for school. School was becoming a weight on my shoulders and I felt that it was holding me back from really pushing forward with my venture.

Sure, I stilled loved the social aspect of college as I always have, but the thought of spending 3 hours studying for a test on British Literature instead of running my company became so depressing. At one point, It got so bad that I even considered leaving school.

But I don’t think that would have been the smartest move since I was almost done with my degree. However, that same school spirit and desire to excel academically was quickly fading as I got deeper and deeper into my startup.

My straight A’s started to turn into B’s, C’s and a few A’s here and there. It wasn’t that the work was hard – quite the opposite. It’s just that everything became so trivial to me and I would continue to ask myself “how in the world is this going to help me become a successful entrepreneur?”

I started to see that 90% of the things that I learned from school couldn’t really help me become a successful entrepreneur in any way, shape, or form. My professors would constantly speak about “getting jobs” but never once mentioning anything about self-employment.

As a student, I was being groomed to become a hard working “employee” who would be destined to take orders for the rest of my life. And, of course, that didn’t sit well with me at all.

I knew that my college career would never be the same for the remaining time that I had until graduation. There was no looking back for me and though I did successfully complete college – and with decent grades, btw – my last 2 years were awfully painful and I was in a constant state of anxiety trying to graduate as soon as possible by taking the maximum amount of credits allowed per semester/summer classes.

This article was written to make young entrepreneurs hate college or want to stop doing their school work to focus more on their business. I simply wanted to share my experiences.

So the question is: have any of you young entrepreneurs that are still in college going through a similar experience? If so, how are you coping with it?

Scholarships Around The US

Tuesday, December 12 by David Askaripour in School | Leave a Comment

Scholarships Around The US is an informative blog geared towards educating students on how to go about obtaining a scholarship for college and discusses various student-related topics.

One article that caught my eye was on a college student who was caught hacking into the computer system to change grades for fellow students.

This student is obviously a smart kid with a lot of potential. If he only used that energy for something positive, he could turn his hacking skills into a thriving business. Many students have the skills and acumen to become entrepreneurs and they don’t even know it.

If he were to give it some thought and spend some time planning, this student could construct a business around improving the security of websites and servers. Now that would make for an excellent business.

If you’re headed to college or are already there but still in need of a scholarship, check out Scholarships Around The US – you may be able to get some money to help you out with school. In fact, you may even be able to get some funding for your business.

I know quite a few young entrepreneurs who have used some of their scholarship funds to invest in their startups. Don’t ask me how, but it can be done.

**[Scholarships Around The US is a paid sponsor of Mind Petals]

Do I Bombard The Professors or The Students with My Service?

Tuesday, December 5 by David Askaripour in School | Leave a Comment

Here’s the situation:

You’ve been working on an awesome business that is specifically tailored for college students and how they receive their assignments from their professors. Your company is going to blow blackboard.com out of the water.

The question:

Do you market your service to the professors of your college? The students? Or both?

I think that answer to that question will rely on exactly what type of service you’re dealing with. If it’s more of a proprietary service that requires a college to license it, then you better be setting up meetings with the dean and speaking to all the professors that you possibly can.

In order to gain the trust of your college officials, you’ll have to convince them that your product is truly going to help the school. Yeah, easier said than done. But it’s doable. Start by reaching out to those professors who you have become “buddy-buddy” with over the years.

If you can evangelize these professors with your service, then they will become your biggest supporters. These will be the people who start chatting about your service to other professors during lunch or school meetings with the dean.

Do whatever you have to do: stay after class and show demos, ask your business professors if you gave give a power point presentation to the class to show the students what you’re working on, and send emails to all the deans in your school to tell them about your service. You’ll have to become a guerrilla marketer.

Now, if you’re going the route of building a service that relies more on student adoption that professor adoption, then your marketing strategy will be quite different. You’ll have to now gain the support from a critical mass of students who will eventually standardize your service within your college if it’s really that good.

When I first launch my student-focused service back in 2004, I became the biggest guerrilla marketer that you can imagine. Every day I loaded up my backpack with thousands of flyers and personally went from room to room throughout the dorms and handed out information about the website.

You really have to get “inside” of the dorms of the students. I literally mean inside. You can do that by spreading your flyers in the dorms, advertising on facebook, posting flyers around the kitchens of the dorms (students have to eat, right?), and making sure that the students who are club leaders have plenty of flyers to distribute to their respective organizations.

Remember, students are fickle-minded people, so your marketing approach can’t be simple. It must be creative. Do something crazy if you have to. Dress up in a chicken suit and run around your campus handing out information on your service – I guarantee you that you’ll get more people to actually visit your site that way.

Pull a stunt (try and make it legal) that’ll get you into the college papers. I’ll always remember the story of the founder of half.com who tried to convince his town in Oregon to change its name to half.com.

“It’s a great opportunity for both sides,” said Joshua Kopelman, CEO of Half.com, an e-commerce startup set to launch in mid-January. “We want to boost their tourism (and) we get a level of attention and publicity and recognition as ‘out-of-the-box’ thinkers.”

It created so much attention that ebay scooped up the company not long after for millions.

When marketing to students you need to attack the parts of their minds that make them laugh, smile, and feel happy. If you don’t stimulate these emotions, then don’t expect them to give your service a chance – they have better things to do — party, study, and…ah… party! — than to take a risk on your service. If you think students are patient people, then think again.

If you conquer the minds of the students, you conquer ALL.

Students Need Extra Cash – Who’s Going to Step Up with A Service?

Monday, December 4 by David Askaripour in School | 5 Comments

stack of moneyWe all know that college students love money. I mean, who doesn’t? But the party hopping, big spending, college student really, really loves cash more than anything. It’s a shame that we young entrepreneurs — many of whom are still in college — haven’t built ventures around this simple fact.

Sure, we have facebook, zooomr, dormitem, ect… all businesses that were creating by young entrepreneurs. All these service are excellent, but it seems like we’re all going in the same direction nowadays.

Social networking this and college classifieds that, it almost seems as though we’re becoming locked into specific categories of business. Why aren’t we focusing on businesses that will allow students to get involved with a service that will make them cash?

I attempted doing just that when I created my first company, cashcampus, but only saw modest success. It was a service that allowed students to sell their class notes and study material to other students over the net. It wasn’t a brilliant idea, but I think that I was heading in the right direction by trying to put cash in the hands of students.

I strongly believe that the young entrepreneur who thinks of a way to help students pay their tuition, buy beer in the bar, or perhaps help offset the price of expensive college books by creating a service that allows them to make residual income, will become one of the most powerful young entrepreneurs in existence.

The opportunity for an entrepreneur to create such a company is up for the taking because it simply hasn’t been done before. At least not on a large scale. Do you know of any service?

Think about, what college student do you know that couldn’t use a few extra bucks? Tuition is increasing, books are becoming more expensive, and the cost of living has never been higher before. With that in mind, students would jump on the opportunity to make some additional mullah if the proper service.

Though I don’t think that anyone has created such a venture yet, I do see things happening in colleges around the country that leads me to believe that there is such a market forming, but it’s just fragmented and someone needs to pull it all together.

This is what I see:

  • Students are gladly paying other students upwards of $20 per page to write papers for them
  • Students are paying students to help them with their homework and to even take notes for them in classes
  • Students are paying their friends finder fees when they refer business to them. Business such as small programming and designing jobs. I’ve even seen student artists pay people to help them find clients to paint portraits of
  • I see students lending money to their friends for a small commission

Do you see what’s happening? Students are doing things to make extra cash. Imagine there was a portal thank organized this and even broke it down by college, ages, feedback, recommendations, etc…

Such a well thought-out and organized service would be golden for students around the world who are constantly seeking ways to make that extra buck. And as I hinted in that above list, such as system could even be beneficial for the affluent students who may not need extra cash. Their extra cash could be used to lend money out specifically to other students in need of cash.

Sure, that may be tricky because students don’t exactly have the best of credit (many don’t even have credit), but that risk could easily be absorbed if they had someone co-sign the loan with them, i.e., a parent, uncle, or even a trusting professor.

The sky is the limit for such a marketplace and I’m rooting for the next young entrepreneur to create such a service. A service that has the potential to disrupt the way students make a buck!

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"Young and Hungry: The New Entrepreneur" will take you on a journey of two young entrepreneurs who share their thoughts, experiences, and lessoned learned while in the process to finding success. Everything from discussing entrepreneurship with your parents to building a business team -- it's covered in this book. Read now »