With the stress of summer internships for upperclassmen and the looming fear of the job market for new grads, now is the time to consider your work options. However, given that corporations are barely hanging on by a thread and employers are dropping commitments to recruiting left and right this year, most students have no idea what to do. Under the crippling fear of another depression stands an even greater fear for graduates: UNEMPLOYMENT.
The lack of security in most of the country’s large corporations has some students rethinking their post-graduation ambitions. Rather than going to work for a company that could crumble any second, this may be just the right time to pursue your own interests and start a small business doing what you’re passionate about.
Young entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and Drew Houston have made headlines (and millions) mixing their passion with their business-savvy. Zuckerberg’s wildly popular Facebook has evolved from a small college-oriented social networking site to a global phenomenon that boasts the largest global network and is an advertiser’s dream.
Houston’s Dropbox, an application that allows you to save items to a special folder that is instantly available on any computer via the Internet, has already received over $15,000 in seed capital, even though the program is still in its beta testing stage. However, a word of warning: don’t let these young moguls’ success lure you into a sense of false hope. An estimated 50%-90% of start-ups never make it past the brainstorming stage.
“Reaching out and actively seeking for help and resources helped me create my company and polish my ideas. I tried to listen to what others had to say and they often contributed to my creative process. That’s when I began making progress. In many ways, I was lucky to have found a reliable business manager who oversees the legal aspect of the business and provided me great help in figuring out the logistics, from setting up a merchant account for an online retail business to registering my company at the City Hall,” says Helena Go, founder of S.G. Couterie (to be launched Spring 2009). “Along the way, I met industry insiders - fashion photographers, magazine editors, socialites, fashion designers who believed in my vision and encouraged me to continue my work in this niche market. Meeting the right kind of people allowed me to see critical parts of the business that I could have easily overlooked.”
A part of starting any small business is pure luck. However, if your concept is solid and you have the dedication, there are plenty of resources to help you along the way.
Don’t know where to begin? Try Gaebler.com, a one-stop-guide to all of your entrepreneurial questions, covering the basics of everything from how to write a business plan to how to find investors. Finding the right investors may be the hardest part of starting a small business. Even though some people are weary of investing in this economy, many see this time as a chance to pull out of large stagnant corporations and support smaller companies that seem to be sustainable and are actually making a difference.
In the search for investors, the best way to go is networking. BusinessPartners.com is a specialized networking site where entrepreneurs can post their business plan for consideration by a diverse group of investors. Although it’s no guarantee that someone will want to back you up, it is a start. And, like any networking site, it offers the potential to get connected to someone several degrees away via mutual contacts.
The major obstacle for young (broke) entrepreneurs wanting to use this site is the somewhat hefty posting and membership fees. Cheaper alternatives to this do include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like, but BusinessPartners.com seems to have an upper hand in directly connecting your business to investors. So if you have the change to spare and don’t have the time to search for investors yourself, having the help of the site may be a worthwhile venture.
While BusinessPartners.com may be a bit pricey, another free resource to be taken advantage of is Entrepreneurship.org. This site, a joint-venture between The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration, focuses more on the entrepreneur’s role in reviving the global economy. The site devotes a large section to how-tos for startups – most of which are packaged in handy steps or lists – but also provides an updated database of new research & policy that directly affects startups.
Besides sites especially dedicated to entrepreneurs, many general business publications have sound advice to give. BusinessWeek publishes articles regularly about up-and-coming entrepreneurs’ keys to success, as does Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Several of these publications also have blogs geared specifically toward small businesses:
BusinessWeek Small Business Blog
Wall Street Journal Small Business Guides
Podcasts from Successful Entrepreneurs
Rieva Lesonsky’s Small Business Blog
With industry giants disintegrating, focus in the media has started to shift toward small companies that are gaining business momentum, providing even more insight into how to be a successful entrepreneur.
Starting a small business may not the first thing new college grads think of when considering their immediate future. However, with the economy in its current state, it may not be such a bad idea to stay away from the crumbling world of mega-corporations and start a company doing what you love.
Ariela:
January 29th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Nice article! My boyfriend is looking to start his own small business, I’ll definitely direct him to the sites you shared here!
Francesco Marincola:
January 30th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Very well written article! Very importand for your teens and as well as undergrads to read. I have three of them in my house household and I know exactly what they are going through and such a clever summary could help them and many others.
The article should be divulged as broadly as possible!
Ena Wang:
January 30th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I enjoyed reading this article. It not only summarizes possible future options for student but more important give suggestions and motivating students of thinking other alternatives. I am a mother of two and have being constantly involved in discussion with friends who also have college students facing the same challenge. Most of students are frustrated by job less situation and are seeking positions over sea, especially in Asian. It could only make the economy worse and job opportunity fewer if educated people flew out of the country.