I’ve always found it encouraging to see other young entrepreneurs become successful. I don’t feel like I’m in competition with other people’s successes. Rather, seeing other people be successful gives me ideas for how I can become more successful. It motivates me to try harder. To reach for the heavens.

I find that after reading about someone else’s success story, I dig deeper, fight harder, and drive faster towards my own goals.

Below is an infographic showing the top 10 young entrepreneurs of 2011 under 30 from Business MBA. If you look in their eyes, you will see people who have lived with passion and intensity and drive. That’s what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

From: BusinessMBA.org

Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs of 2011

Matt Mickiewicz, 99designs Co-Founder—27 Years Old
Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowski, Dropbox Founders, 28 and 25 Years Old
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, Instagram Founders—25 and 27 Years Old
Hussein Fazal and Kristaps Ronka, AdParlor Founders—29 and 24 Years Old
Alexa Andrzejewski, Soraya Darabi, and Ted Grubb, Foodspotting Founders—27, 27, and 29 Years Old
Jason Baptiste and Andres Barreto, Onswipe Founders, 25 and 24 Years Old
Siamak Taghaddos and David Hauser, Grasshopper Founders—Both 29 Years Old
Matthew Corrin, Freshii Founder—29 Years Old
Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp, Birchbox Founders—27 and 28 Years Old
Daniel Gomez Iniguez, Solben Co-Founder—20 Years Old

In other words: I will provide you with free education and the potential for profit if you provide me with free work.

It’s an internship. You’ll be responsible for building out the best, most useful, most respectable web hosting review site on the planet. If you are successful, and meet pre-set goals, this could turn into a full time job as I will give you the first $5,000 per month, each month, in revenue (please note, the site currently makes nothing… it hasn’t been developed). Let me know if this opportunity excites you, both the topic and revenue potential (the education too;) and prove to me that you have a good research ethic and work habits -> ryan@college-startup.com

Flash forward to a year ago: There are a million blogs on every subject. Look at your own efforts, and you’ll probably realize there’s a good chance nobody gives a shit about your self-hosted WordPress blog. Suddenly, a lack of amazing content, real work, and a great brand actually prohibit people from finding success. (Believe me, if you were involved with the early blog gold rush, you would find this odd too).

Fact: It’s become a lot harder to make a real career out of blogging from advertising revenue. Nearly every big profitable niche is already dominated, and the top brands (TechCrunch, LifeHacker, Engadget, HuffingtonPost,etc, etc, etc) which are becoming even more sophisticated and powerful. Ipso facto, your gadget blog probably isn’t going anywhere fast.

What next? well, good question. Right now, we have….. [DrumRoll]……. Products!

Blogging and Products

Products are on fire right now. All the blogging gurus (Darren, Chow, etc) are talking about them constantly, causing every other business blogger to blog about them. Lucky for you, I don’t think you’re too late to the party. The product formula isn’t complicated, yet it’s a lot bigger pain in the ass than the old approach to making money blogging. There’s definitely still something in this idea though, and get on your high horse before this passes you too.

The formula

• Make a blog. Blog a lot, blog well. Be kick ass. Social network. Twitter. Blog often. Be original.
• All this hard work above, give it away for free for 6 months. Don’t bombard readers with ads. Hope your savings and motivation doesn’t run out.
• Once established, make products, and sell them. Keep blogging a bit, but not as much. Leave readers hanging. Sell products. Focus on promotion.

So essentially, the new “Products” are either paid memberships or e-books that have the most niche, valuable content. Sound like a lot of work? well, it is. But this is how people are getting big now, so if you want to get big, I think this is it.

The Role Models

Art of Non Conformity‘s Chris Guillebeau has simply put on a clinic (expression) as to how to own the internet with his products approach. On paper, I would never have guessed he would’ve found success beforehand, but the guy is on fire and has a wealth of info on his blog. Chris focuses on products on traveling and making money unconventionally.

Tim Sykes

Tim Sykes is the perfect example of the membership approach with a slightly more formal, academic niche – stock trading. Before he kills me for grouping him with other financial traders and analysts he despises, he’s anything but conventional which has led to his great brand. His personality, outstanding trading performance (actual objectively great content), and pretty website make the foundation of his success. If you know nothing about him, watch his video via John Chow on making $100,000/month from memberships.

Other Niches

I’ve found some other niches that could still be up for grabs (which I won’t share, naturally). If you’re serious and up for making a career online outside of content based ad revenue, partake in some due diligence and grab a niche and maybe 6 months from now you’ll be pulling some serious cash that trumps your old $100/month Adsense revenue.

For a really good overview of the things you need to be a great entrepreneur, check out this article, 25 Skills and Classes Necessary to Become a Great Entrepreneur, which makes the case that the best entrepreneurs know what they are good at and then delegate the rest.

Pertaining to College Startup readers, the internet and online business is this ‘unconventional evil’ that is subject to cries of illegitimacy.  These thoughts stem mainly from the easyness that lies in starting a web business. A domain costs $10, hosting can be had for pocket change, and sufficient design is shifting toward a commodity with blogs. What other business has such low barriers of entry that create the illusion that ‘Anybody can do it’?

None.

But these same low barriers of entry hinder most people from succeeding since if you just walk away from the business, you lose a night’s bar tab. Big deal.

While these thoughts are kind of rambling, I’m trying to get to the point that a life of nonconformity in a business and career sense is easy to get started with, but hard to maintain and stick with.  If you do get serious, a life of nonconformity is a serious possibility if you’re interested.

Nonconformity living in action

For example, this post (and it’s obvious keyword of nonconformity) was partially inspired by Chris Guillebeau who runs his own successful and relatively young blog The Art of Nonconformity. From his constant travel and successful online monetization practices, Chris is living the life doing what he wants, when he wants.  He’s essentially making as much money as he wants to by working when he wants, and the strength of his brand is unreal allowing him to do so. The best part about Chris is that his site is so young (Feb 2008), which shows how it’s possible to leapfrog the competition and grow your business at a ridiculously fast rate with some real dedication.

I highly recommend reading a good portion of his site – especially his manifestos which are both inspiring and offer practical online business tips – to get a good iea of how nonconventional living from online business is possible and thriving.

Other Nonconformist internet entrepreneurs

There are tons of great online entrepreneurs out there, but they’ve been around for quite some time (funny how 3-5 years seems like a long time now for the internet). Amongst these are John Chow (his youtube video sums it up), Problogger, and college startup’s own Ryan Caldwell to name just a few.

Point in fact is that as Chris Guillebeau shows us at the Art of Nonconformity, it’s not too late to start an “unconventional” online business to support a fulfilling life spent living most of the time rather than working. Work to live, don’t live to work.

In the interview, he said that he thought “comfort is the enemy of achievement”. He talked about being born in a poor family with a dad who was an activist and a hardworking mom that suffered from a heart ailment. So early on, he realized that he had to do something to help support their family and make their lives better. I think he did pretty well against the odds, especially since very few people believed he could reach this level of success.

When he was seven, he declared to his teacher that he was going to be a millionaire entrepreneur one day. Incredulous, she looked at him and said, “No, you’re not. You’re poor and your family’s poor. You better go look for somebody to work for.” Then she pointed at a nearby McDonald’s. Farrah went home and told his grandma what happened. She said, “No matter what anyone says to you, wake up every morning, honey, and ask, ‘Why not me?’”

Taking that advice to heart, he’s now a multi-millionaire at 24, a best-selling author, motivational speaker, and gives back by being an avid supporter of various charity organizations.

So the natural question arises: What if you tried this hard all the time?  Well, try this holiday break since it gives you a good controlled, experiment to see the results that can arise from focus and productivity. The holiday break for most university students is a forever long period of couch, TV, drinking, eating, and repeating.  While relaxing, is it really desirable?

My answer is no, so I’m planning on bringing some of my finals week productivity to the holiday to get ahead – novel concept indeed.  Working hard and playing hard will be my motto this break and it can be yours too, and if you’re not satisfied at the end forget this post.

So what can you do to actually be productive?  A lot –>

• Plan or start a business
• Start reading for upcoming classes
• Work
• Plan your future career/study abroad
• Apply for scholarships
• Make summer plans
• Find Summer internships if applicable

While it’s easier to just ignore this post and repress all your work until later, I promise you that there is enough free time during break to get some real work done 5+ hours a day while still partying it up with your friends and family.  Nevertheless, have an enjoyable break, think of some new years’ resolutions, and get a going on a startup since you won’t have any job offers after graduation anyways with the current economy.

28 Tips for Achieving Balance as an Entrepreneur

The balanced entrepreneur knows that success in business is not just about what you plan and do, but also how deal with situations. Here are some tips that collectively suggest a more pragmatic approach to entrepreneuring.

1. Know why. Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? Is it because of the freedom of working for yourself? Maybe it’s the potential for earning far more than with a salaried job? What about the downsides? Are you prepared for that? If you don’t “know why” and don’t have an emotionally powerful reason for success, then obstacles will be hard to get around.

2. Be proud and determined. Don’t be ashamed of your aspirations. Many entrepreneurs are doing what they are because they want to pursue prosperity. There’s nothing wrong with that, despite a belief by some that wealth is bad. It’s great to have noble, charitable goals, too, but you need to have your own emotional motivation to keep going if/when things get difficult, before success comes.

3. Have goals. You can’t get “there” if you don’t know where you’re going. Concrete goals give you something to work towards. While you should have some sort of deadlines, don’t force yourself to “be” something by a certain date. That just sets you up for a feeling of failure if you don’t get there.

4. Be realistic. You can’t possibly know the answer to everything. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Just be sure you’re asking the right people.

5. Be prepared. Have backup plans, operating capital, emergency funds (for personal needs), mentors and “lifeline” advisors.

6. Stay positive. Things can and will go wrong, but focus on the things you can change or improve, not on those you cannot.

7. Be detached. Some business goals need deadlines. They’re small and you know intuitively how to achieve them. It’s the larger goals that require visualization without deadlines – at least until you know how to break them down into smaller goals.

8. Delay gratification. You don’t necessarily have to sacrifice all luxuries in your work or life, but when it comes to big purchasing decisions (business and work), ask yourself if you really need it now.

9. Be pragmatic. In the course of building your business, situations might occur which will bother you. If you can do something, do so. If you cannot, do whatever you can do and then move on, let it sort itself out.

10. See the big picture. Don’t judge your progress by how much money you made in a particular day. Give yourself a bit more leeway in terms of a daily average over a week. This will still give you motivation without getting stressed out, and makes it easier to see trends in your performance, as well as come up with an adjusted action plan.

11. Track sales trends. However your business earns revenue, don’t gauge your success by day to day sales. A daily average based on the preceding week or month might be a better way, and will be less stressful. Track trends over short- and long-term periods to see how your average has changed. That will give you a far better sense of the relative success of your business.

12. Pay attention. Pay attention to what your clients/ customers want. They won’t necessarily spell it out for you, and not even directly to you. They might be commenting on other websites about you, or even writing negative things on their own website. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is not necessity for every business, though sometimes you cannot get by without it. At the least, take opportunities to interact with your end users.

13. Be adaptive. It’s not enough to pay attention to trends and customer desires. Can you adapt to this feedback? Can you do it fast enough to matter, or will you be left behind by your competition?

14. Consider the Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle is is also known as the 70/30 or 80/20 rule and can be interpreted in a number of ways. One very general interpretation is that 70% of your income will come from 30% of sources. However, you do need those other sources to balance things out. They may later transform into something more promising, which is valuable if another source ceases to be. A “source” could be a project, a product, a customer/ client.

15. Step out of your comfort zones. Or at least part way. Risks are necessary to step out of static, unchanging situations. However, no one ever said the risks had to be large and taken in a great big leap.

16. Take one step at a time. Big problems become little ones when you break them down into smaller steps. Smaller steps are both logically and emotionally easier to complete.

17. Review your progress. It’s important to review, on a regular basis, how any element of your original business plan is progressing – especially if you are building your business with OPM (Other People’s Money). Whether you do this weekly or monthly is up to. Don’t take longer than that, as it’s too easy to fall out of the habit.

18. Reassess your goals. When you review your progress, you might come across goals that either no longer interest you, do not apply, or you’ve already achieved. Whatever the case, come up with new goals and remove those which are outdated.

19. Keep a mindset of learning. Sure, there have been incredibly successful entrepreneurs who didn’t finish college, but they probably kept learning. Apply the ancient wisdom of emptying your “cup” of knowledge. Learn from others, and consider that they might be sharing their experience with you rather than criticizing you. It may even be fun to audit a class or two at a local college to encourage new lines of thought for your business.

20. Bootstrap. Don’t have money for something? VC funds are unlikely for the average startup, especially in the early stages. So adopt a bootstrapping mindset. This includes being a frugal entrpreneur as well as reinvesting your profits.

21. Have a toolkit. There’s a plethora of free software available, much of it web browser-based. Try out new software regularly and learn what works for you. Put those tools you can’t live without into your entrepreneurial toolbox.

22. Leverage an online presence. In addition to a web site and/or blog, consider networking services such as LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as microblogging sites such as Twitter and Plurk.

23. Network offline. So many of us have gotten used to networking online that we forget that the old way is often effective as well. There are many entrepreneur networks, some with local chapters in larger cities. There are also online forums where you might supportive people in your niche.

24. Be persistent. You probably already know that Thomas Edison took about 10,000 tries before inventing the lightbulb. He looked at the preceding 9,999 ways as a lesson of how not to create a lightbulb. In a similar vein, there’s a bit of wisdom that success in life comes from being knocked down seven times and getting up eight times.

25. Spend less time. Persistence does not mean never relaxing. If spending more time working on something is not producing results, try spending less time on it. You can decide whether to work on something else in the meantime, or just relax for a while.

26. Meditate. Whether you need temporary relief from stress or need to calm yourself about troubling situations that you can’t do anything about, try meditation. It can be as simple as just deep breathing exercises, or more advanced “reflection”.

27. Have mastermind mentors. A variation of meditation is to quietly imagine figures from past or present history as your mentors. Given a certain situation, ask what would they do? Then answer based on what you know about them, their legacy and point of view. Compare to your own approach.

28. Relax, live now. Spend time for yourself, friends and family. This should be part of your schedule, not your goals. The mind thinks more clearly when it has a change of pace, a chance to relax and process what you’ve recently absorbed.

But his real breakthrough came when he, along with his friend Mike Stahl, founded a startup company called GoFerretGo.com while they were still in high school. They initially used their combined savings of $1,000, and Ephren himself created the website. A gifted programmer and a hard worker, he already had six programming certifications under his belt at the time. GoFerretGo.com was built as a site that “offers a job search engine for high school and college students as well as a career development center that focuses on resume building and proper job interview etiquette.” They were able to raise hundreds of dollars from angel investors, and at age 16, Ephren became a millionaire.

In 2006, he became the youngest African-American CEO of a publicly-traded company in America: City Capital Corporation. Among his many projects is the Goshen Energy initiative, which aims to support sustainable energy sources and currently specializes in biofuels development. Others include starting investment clubs at schools nationwide and developing a national business plan competition for college students. Now 26, he’s a certified best-selling author and very successful businessman, overseeing over 250 million in assets. Not bad for someone who was born in a small town and raised in a house with a tin roof.

Complete information can be found online at the Young Entrepreneur Award’s website. The Deadline is December 15.

This scholarship is intended for entrepreneur minded people, regardless if you actually own a business. Through the large, awesome facebook group of winners from previous years, there are many entrepreneurs and many bright students that just show promise that win the award. I personally know winners from both categories of people. So nobody reading this blog has an excuse not to apply for this scholarship if you meet the requirements, since all you need is the entrepreneurial spirit.

Most importantly, do not be timid to apply, especially if you have an online based business or a venture that doesn’t seem ‘serious enough’ – like lawn mowing or a tiny freelance computer repair business. I think 75% of winners have such businesses, so you’ll have a good chance with a well written paper and good application.

After reading about the award a couple years ago, I too thought there’s no way in chance of getting it since my business was hardly a business, and it would be easier not to seek out a reference.  Then I applied, then I won, and then I received a national NFIB award.

So if I haven’t got my point across, apply for NFIB if you can, or inform business minded students to do so. NFIB has a large bankroll that it’s dying to disperse to entre candidates. So December 15 get your app in, and comment thanking me when you win.