In this video, Evan Carmichael answers a viewer’s question about how college students can pursue entrepreneurship while still in school. He shares three core pieces of advice: (1) combine passion with value creation – the formula "Passion + Value = Money" – emphasizing that love for the work must translate into tangible benefits for others to generate revenue; (2) exploit university resources, such as taking relevant courses, using the business as a class case study, designing custom courses with supportive professors, and leveraging the institution’s credibility to access customers and conduct research; (3) simply start and iterate, avoiding the trap of waiting for a perfect plan, testing ideas quickly, gathering feedback, and adjusting as needed. Throughout, he cites his own experience launching a software company at the University of Toronto, provides concrete examples, and encourages viewers to take immediate action. The video ends with a call for comments and a brief plug for his newsletter by Raquel English.
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How to become a college entrepreneur. So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, love you guys, Nahom, who wrote in to say, hey Evan, could you please do a video on what can I do right now in college in order to pursue my dreams to become an entrepreneur? What can I do as a college student to get closer to my dream? This is a great question, one I can relate to being a university entrepreneur myself. I turned down high-paying jobs that were paying $80,000 to $100,000 starting salary, flying me around the world on these awesome projects projects. I said no to that so I could start my own business. And I have 3 bits of advice that will hopefully help you launch your company as well. Number 1: Passion plus value equals money. You have to start a business around something you're passionate about. If you've watched any of the videos on my channel, you'll know that this is a consistent theme. And if you look at any successful entrepreneur, any famous entrepreneur that you look up to, look at how they started. They were deeply passionate about their business. You have to love what your business is all about. The concept there then becomes when you're providing value, that's how you make money. So when you love what you do and you're providing value to people, that's how you make a lot of money. You could be passionate as much as you want about something, but if it's not giving value to other people, you're not going to make a lot of money. Money comes from providing value. You want to make a lot of money? Provide a lot of value. You want to make quick money? Provide quick value. That's the equation. So you have to find opportunities that you love doing, things that you can get lost in, spend all day on, can't get enough of it, and that helps people in some way, that solves a problem. When you can marry those things, then you can make a lot of money, and you have the idea of a start for a business. I have a ZUGA guide, ZUGA 101: Find Your Passion, that goes through all that in a lot of detail that you can check out if you're interested, if you're really serious about it. But that's, that's the start. Something that you love doing plus something that adds a lot of value to people's lives. You merge those two together, and you have the start of a really successful business. Number 2 is use school resources. And this is something that is unique to you being a college entrepreneur versus everybody else who's trying to start up on their own. I started my business at the University of Toronto, and I'm so grateful that I did because I was able to use the resources of the school to help my business grow where I didn't have resources before. So a couple examples: 1, I would take courses that applied to my business somehow and use my business as the case study, right? In any course that you take, you you have projects, and I would always take the projects and apply it to my business somehow. So in the small business course, I used my business as the example, where most people are saying, "Oh, I'm gonna set up a coffee shop," or, "I'm gonna launch a website company." I was actually using my business as the case study and was able to use school resources to help me make my business better. I took a marketing course that talked about pricing, and again, the product I used was my own company, and I can use school resources to help me. I went so far as to design my own course with one of my university professors. And this is something, a little trick that you can do that I found out from one of my classmates. You can completely skip a course, design your own course, if the professor is willing to back you. And so I met with one of the marketing professors and he agreed, and we set up a course around my company. And basically I have to meet with him once a week to talk about the program. And I sold to universities as part of my market. I was selling scientific software, and there's a lot of scientists at universities. And it not only gave me time to work on my business and one less course to have to worry about, but I could go in and start talking to those scientists who were my potential customers and do surveys with them and say, hey, I'm doing this research project from the university as part of this course that I've set up. Can I please talk to you? And they're way more receptive to want to help you than if I went in and said, hey, I have this startup company that I'm trying to get off the ground can I sell you something? Right, so I was able to leverage the school name and resources to help me save time in school and also make my business better. So use school resources whenever possible. And number 3 is start. If you have an idea, if you want to do something, just start. It's not perfect, don't worry about having the perfect plan. You know, the plan that I came up with for my, my software company changed before it became successful, and yours will change as well. Don't just sit on a million ideas because you're worried that's not going to work out, because it's not the perfect idea, because you haven't figured it all out yet. You'll never figure it all out on paper at the start, so just get out there and start. See if you love it. See if you get lost in it. See if you're getting feedback and traction and momentum and people want to buy from you. See if you still want to keep doing this. You know, there's some things that you'll jump in on and you love for a month and then your interest fades. That's not going to be the business for you. Jump into something and just You want to, you want to feel like it makes you come alive, that you can't wait to wake up and continue to go and do that. And when you find that, then you'll figure out your path. So don't worry so much about having the perfect thing at the start, just start. So in summary, advice for how to become a college entrepreneur: Number 1, remember that passion plus value equals money. Number 2, use school resources. Number 3, start and believe. For those of you watching, you like the video, you can subscribe to the channel to see more just like it. If you started your business in college or university? I'd love for you to share your story. Leave a comment below to help inspire other would-be entrepreneurs. Thank you guys so much for watching. I'll see you soon.
Hi, Raquel English here with Mermaid Junkie TV. Are you on Evan Carmichael's newsletter subscription? If not, you should be. I read every single one, and you should too. Ciao!
