Trailblazers: Dorm-room businesses that made it big
Your laptop is your shop. You store your inventory in your dorm room. You cooked up your idea in your backyard. Or the basement.
It’s a tiny endeavor, yes. You may not know where it’ll end up when college is done. Not for sure, anyway.
But students like you became Silicon Valley’s most unassailable businessmen.
Microsoft, Apple, Netscape and even FedEx were conceived by people who were pretty much your age.
Pursuing business during college is easier now than it was before. Blame it on the internet! Young people like yourself can start a business with your own savings or by borrowing from your parents and relatives. Resources online give you access to information about setting up your own enterprise; they link you to other entrepreneurs who can teach you, or who can expand your business through partnerships.
You can see the biggest impact of the internet on sites such as Facebook.
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg as a student in Harvard, Facebook was first restricted to students of the university. It quickly adapted to demand and has since expanded its base to anybody who is above 13 years old. Nifty and customizable applications were added later on. So far, it has a purported value of $15 billion and is the second largest social network on the internet.
Cookie makers undertook a humbler endeavor. Do you ever get hungry at the most unholy of hours? Especially when you’re studying? A few undergraduates decided to answer midnight snackers’ needs. Aptly called Insomnia Cookies, these students have been delivering fresh cookies and milk at any time their customers needed them.
Your business can also help you pay for college. There was Alex Tew’s ambitious venture, the Million Dollar Homepage. He sold a pixel of his webpage for $1 each, with a minimum purchase of 10 x 10 blocks. He has sold every pixel on his page and has earned more than a million dollars in the process.
But check this: Alex eventually had to drop out due to pressures from the media. He also tried to create a similar project but failed.
In any business, you’ll have to know what you really want, and learn how to stick to a plan. These people were successful for a reason –even if in the end, one was stuck with money and no degree. So invest in your future and remember: Use business. Don’t let it use you.
Here’s one: It’s called “De-Crap It.” All subscribers pay a fee to one person in the dorm. In turn, all their magazine subscriptions are sent to that person, who removes all the subscription cards, cologne ads, special advertising sections, foldouts, anything that is not the same size and weight of a standard editorial page and/or does not contain editorial material is stripped out of the magazine, resulting in a lighter product that is easier to read and stays open when you take it to the gym and lay it on the treadmill.