You may fancy yourself as the next Mark Zuckerberg and be itching to get your student startup off the ground. But before you do, you will want to know about the things that you shouldn’t be doing, so you can avoid them and save yourself as much time, money, and effort as possible. So read on to find out the cardinal sins of student startups and what you can do to make sure that they don’t happen to you.
Overstretch yourself
The younger we are, the more idealistic and optimistic we tend to be. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, far from it. But it does come with its own set of pitfalls that you have to watch out for.
One in particular that can cause you a lot of problems is overreaching yourself. Both in terms of what one person can do, and your finances.
Firstly, if you are going for a dorm room startup, it’s vital to realize that you have college work to attend to as well. Plus your social life, and mental and physical health.
A solution to this is to pay people to do some of the work for you, but that is likely to eat into your profits at this early stage, so you need to think about it carefully before you jump in with both feet.
Also, it’s important not to overstretch yourself financially in this stage. Yes, you probably do have an amazing idea for a business, but that is not a guarantee of a return on your money.
Remember too that when you are in college, getting loans, and other sources of money seem very accessible. But it is important to realize that you have little experience of how much grunt work that sort of money takes to pay off in the real world. Which would likely to temper the risks that you take.
Not adhering to the rules
Another cardinal sin for student startups is not sticking to the rules, or laws that are already in place. Remember that there are many laws governing business practices in different areas and it is your responsibility to know and stick to them.
For example, there are particular rules to follow when working with things like waste, and these cannot be changed. That is why it’s best to work with, and account for in your budget, a professional industrial waste management company. Who will ensure that you don’t get into any legal trouble.
Not doing your research
You may think that college is teaching you everything that you need to know about the area that you want to go into. But the stark reality is that the real world is often very different than what was written about in textbooks.
Of course, that means that there is an advantage to getting your feet wet early on, with your business. But it must be done in the correct way.
That means doing your research not only on the type of business you want to open but also on the market and whether it will support such a venture at this time.
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