Essential gadgets for the college entrepreneur
If you’re a student running a business, chances are your base of operations is either your dorm room, a small apartment, or a garage. Hey, a lot of those Silicon Valley guys started that way. Nowadays, that’s OK, since we can always put up a site and make our businesses look bigger than they really are. However, we still need some equipment to run our start-up efficiently. I know this varies from person-to-person, and from business-to-business, but this is how my “office” setup looks like.
I still usemy old desktop computer for daily routines like checking email, making spreadsheets, writing articles, and the occasional graphic design projects. Some of the parts needed to be upgraded as time went by, but all-in-all it’s been a dependable machine.
Fairly recently, I needed the portability for those times when I travel (I anticipate this to become more frequent) so I bought a mini-laptop, or netbook, as they call them these days. The MSI Wind is light at around 1kg so it doesn’t break my back, and it works well, which makes me quite happy.
I’ve thought about getting a smartphone, particularly one with 3G, but at this point it seems like overkill to replace my perfectly funtional Motorola RAZR. Instead, I settled on using a dedicated USB 3G adapter for my Wind, which I’ll be getting for a relatively cheap price.
I work with a partner in the house so we have to share the DSL connection with a wireless router (I hate cluttered wires, so I go wireless whenever I can). I also have the requisite printer, though I actually don’t use it that much these days. Still, it’s handy when I need it. There’s also a discrete scanner that’s useful for some graphics work. In the near future I plan to add external hard drives for backup and a Wacom tablet for digital drawings.
That’s it. Probably every student have these and more, so it’s really not that hard to set up shop in your dorm room. But how about you? How do you run your business? What equipment can’t you live without? Do you have traditional office equipments like fax and a copier, or are they unnecessary? Are there any gadgets that help you work more efficiently? Please share in the comments below.
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