March 5, 2022
The Student Startup Guide:
Real-World Advice for Launching Your Company in College
Courtney Gras
Aviva Publishing (2022)
ISBN: 978-1-63618-085-4
New Book Offers Advice to Would-Be College Student Entrepreneurs
Today, more than 60 percent of college students are interested in starting their own companies. Fortunately for them, Courtney Gras has written The Student Startup Guide: Real-World Advice for Launching Your Company in College. In this guide, Courtney has assembled a plethora of advice from actual student company founders. They share their expertise, success and failures, what motivated them to begin their companies, and best lessons learned to make it easier for future student entrepreneurs to follow in their footsteps.
While some may be surprised by the thought of starting your own business while still in college, as entrepreneur Brad Feld states in the foreword:
“Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about what makes an entrepreneur successful. It has nothing to do with age, where you went to school, or what you studied. It has everything to do with your character, what you are obsessed about, and your willingness to focus a lot of energy on creating a new business where one didn’t previously exist.”
Feld adds that you must follow one key lesson to be successful: “Create something people will buy from you.” The rest of the book tells you not only how to do that, but how to get funding for your business, how to find the right business partners if you need them, when to hire people to help you, and how to balance school and your business.
The Student Startup Guide is divided into four sections detailing whether to start a company while in school, how to start it, how to get help from your university, and what to do once your company is established. Each section then has a series of short essays by various student founders from around the globe who share their stories about everything from hiring, team management, and finding mentors to dealing with ageism and sexism, taking entrepreneurship classes, finding customers, deciding whether to stay in school or focus on your startup, pitching your product to investors, and legal issues you need to be aware of.
Throughout the book, Courtney Gras introduces the different essays and sections, while also sharing her own story of student entrepreneurship, including how and why her startup failed, and why that was okay because it led her to a career helping other students with their startups so they could succeed. Courtney states:
“Through failure, I found both my passion and a fulfilling career where I can help other students (and maybe help them avoid the mistakes I made). For the past eight years, I’ve worked on supporting founders. I worked locally in our startup community in Ohio, then found a home at Techstars—the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. At Techstars, I served as launchpad director and developed programs and systems to support student-entrepreneurs across the globe. I worked with thirty-plus universities and thousands of student-founders from different geographies, backgrounds, and types of universities.”
Because of Courtney’s work, she was able to assemble this amazing group of student entrepreneurs to contribute to the book. Each individual student story includes how they got started, one or more key problems or struggles they faced on their journey, how they overcame those challenges, and their top takeaways and number-one lesson learned.
I can’t discuss all the great advice here, but I’ll give a few nuggets. Some ideas may seem obvious and yet you might not think of them until you read them, such as how you can survey people about your ideas using Facebook for feedback. Others are about doing your do diligence, such as thinking through whom you decide to go into business with. One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is understanding the difference between motivation and discipline. One entrepreneur stated they were only motivated about 20 percent of the time, but the rest of the time they had to be disciplined to put the work in every day. Emotional components of entrepreneurship are discussed in relation to that discipline such as coping with people who won’t understand how much extra work running a startup is, and when to know if you should stay in school, take less classes to stretch out earning your degree, or devote yourself fully to your startup. Many people understand that student athletes need to dedicate themselves to their sport, so explaining to others the importance of time management for an entrepreneur using a sports metaphor can be helpful. As one student-founder, Valtteri Salomaki, states:
“Entrepreneurship is not a profession; it is a lifestyle and a journey you must embrace. It will be difficult at times. You will feel lonely, and you will have to make hard decisions. But to get started on this journey, all it takes is the courage to do one single action to move an idea forward, such as join a pitch competition, write a business plan, buy a domain name, etc. You will be amazed by all the new opportunities that will arise and all the support you will get from entrepreneurial networks. And you will feel great personal gratification when you no longer just talk about your ideas but see them become a reality.”
Finally, it’s important to realize that most businesses fail in their early years, but that should not discourage you. Being a student-founder is an incredible learning opportunity that will pay off in other ways, as Courtney herself knows. Scott Issen, Co-Founder & CEO of Future Founders, states:
“Worst-case scenario, you can return to school, pivot, or even shut down your business. Those are not bad things at all. It takes most founders multiple tries at entrepreneurship to succeed. And the network you’ve built and the experiences you’ve had as a founder will make you more marketable to other startups or employers should you decide to get a job. So don’t worry—by pursuing your startup, you are already developing your ‘Plan B.’”
Altogether, The Student Startup Guide is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to start their own business while still in college. Even seasoned entrepreneurs will find information of value in these pages. I was personally surprised by all the resources that universities offer student founders today that did not exist in previous decades. There are countless ways to begin a business while in school and find help for doing so, and The Student Startup Guide is the perfect resource for pursuing that opportunity.
For more information about Courtney Gras and The Student Startup Guide, visit www.students-start.com.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and award-winning author of The Nomad Editor: Living the Lifestyle You Want, Doing Work You Love
