Balancing Business and College
If you’re in college and have thought about pursuing entrepreneurship, you will want to read this post! When you think of the term “entrepreneurship”, most likely what comes to your head is constant streams of money, attention, and flexible hours. However, it’s not as glamorous as you may believe, especially while in college. To see the truth behind what it’s like blending the college experience and entrepreneurship, we interviewed the RDM Team, a group of undergraduate students who specializes in working with you to develop product ideas:
“What is your role within the business and what types of business activities do you mainly do with your role?”
Domenic: “My main role within the business is to manage our ongoing projects, and continue the supply of client consultations for our team. As CEO of RDM, as with any startup, my tasks change every day. However, there are some consistencies with product development, and within RDM, such as client communications for development checkpoints, project updates, and meeting scheduling for our engineering team.”
Elezar: “My main role within the business is to oversee daily operations, manage the client projects in our pipeline, and serve as the lead engineer for our team. These are just a few of the responsibilities, as every day brings a new set of challenges and tasks that need to be accomplished. In a startup its always all hands-on deck.”
Jacob: “My role as the CFO is keeping up with all financial aspects of the company. Some of the tasks that are included in this are recording all of the companies financial transactions, creating all of our costing calculations and projecting future cash flows to ensure that the company will continue to be profitable in the future.”
“What is your least favorite thing when it comes to running your business?”
Domenic: “My least favorite task with respect to RDM is order fulfillment. We have been working on automating our order fulfillment process, but currently there is a lot of manual labor required to create the saleable products to the standard that RDM produces to. Every hour I am fulfilling orders is and hour I am unavailable to clients and the needs of our team.”
Elezar: “Graphic design. This is the hardest thing for me to be efficient and effective at accomplishing as I’ve never taken courses on the topic. Since we don’t have an in-house graphic designer, we often create our own material for events that can be time intensive.”
Jacob: “Book keeping is probably my least favorite task that I perform every week. Record keeping in and of itself isn’t a very exciting task but it is necessary to know how the company is doing financially.”
“What is your favorite thing when it comes to running your business?”
Domenic: “As simple as this sounds, I cherish my ability to think. Whether it be in a design meeting, on a conference call, or in reflection after a hard day’s work, the best part about my job is the freedom to think about different possibilities and the impact it could have on our business. Few positions in the real world allow us to think of ways to do something, and then go ahead and try to implement them. It’s hard not to think that my favorite part isn’t the passionate pitch from an inventor, small business, or project manager – when they come into our office to discuss their uniquely revolutionary idea, the energy is infection and a great reason to keep growing our company.”
Elezar: “The volatility. To many that response may be unsettling, but for me it is motivating. It is a challenge to manage multiple responsibilities at once, but in the long run, I see the value it will have in helping me become a better leader and to grow RDM.”
Jacob: “My favorite thing to do is to compare our projections with the actual performance of the company. When making these comparisons at the end of each month we are able to see how we did and strategize how to pivot in order to be more effective in the future.”
“How much time a week would you approximate you spend working on your business (while taking a full load of college courses)?”
Domenic: “It’s no secret that startups take a lot of time from the founders, but it’s something we do gladly. As we’ve been in business for the past five years, my time commitments have changed from the beginning to now. I’d estimate that I work on average 4 hours a day.”
Elezar: “On average, I spend about 4-5 hours a day working on the business, whether it be client work, order fulfillment, or internal process improvements.”
Jacob: “I generally spend 20 hours per week working on the business. However, this is highly variable depending on what activities the business is partaking in and if there is any reports due to my partners investors or to various government bodies.”
“What are the trade-offs to having a business while in college?”
Domenic: “The biggest trade off that I’ve experienced in college is the toll that running a company has on the “college experience”. Some nights that your friends are out drinking, you end up studying for an exam you’re under prepared for because of the week’s demands of the business. Sometimes your family will want to take a trip and you have a big meeting to go to or prepare for. Also… sleep. “
Elezar: “The biggest trade-off is accepting that your time will be limited and that sacrifices will need to be made in order to succeed both in college and grow a business. It hard to accept that at first but, if you look at the glass being half full, embarking on this entrepreneurial endeavor has taught me how to be very good at time management to where I can still spend time with family and friends.”
Jacob: “The major trade off is the opportunity cost of the time and stress that goes into running a business. There will be days when my classmates have time off that I do not and there are occasions when I would like to be more focused on classwork or exams and I have to be focused on what is going on within the business.”
“What are the biggest pros to having a business while in college?”
Domenic: “Not only being able to apply some of what we learn in the engineering classroom to the engineering job, but also the fact that we will be walking into a full time job that we created for ourselves are the two biggest pros of having a business in college. Of course, a stellar resume is a by product of a successful startup which can be a tool used for the remainder of my career. This can be utilized with the network we’ve made.”
Elezar: “By in large I would say that the biggest pros are autonomy, exposure to real-world experiences, and opportunities to meet influential business figures. As someone who enjoys traveling, running a business has allowed me to travel more frequently for both business and pleasure. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my course work at UF studying mechanical engineering and being able to apply what I learn in class one day to a client project the next is unique. When it comes to networking, the figures I’ve had the opportunity to meet as an entrepreneur I don’t think I would have had if I had not pursued RDM. I’m very thankful for many of these connections the role they have played in guiding and inspiring me to succeed.”
Jacob: “The biggest pro of owning a business while in college has been being able to immediately apply what I’m learning in the classroom. As an accounting student, I’m learning about proper recording and costing methods that I can in return implement to not only make my business better, but also put me in a position where I am better equipped to be successful in the classroom. In a way the business motivates me to do better in my education and my education motivates me to reach a certain level of excellence in my business.”
“What motivates you to keep going?”
Domenic: “There have been too many ideas left on the launchpad that have to do with a lack of organization, cost allocation, or drawn out timelines. Our purpose as a company is to stop those projects from being put on the back-burner for good. No matter how long I work for, I never look at the clock to see when it is time to leave. If there is a career path that I was born for, it’s this one.”
Elezar: “My primary motivation is being able to help others bring their ideas to life. This stems from having a very supportive family and mentors that pushed me to excel and make my own dream, RDM, a reality. That said, I hope to make RDM a support system for others.”
Jacob: “I’m motivated by looking at where we’ve started, seeing how far we’ve come, and knowing what we have the chance to build in the future.”
Key Takeaways for Collegiate Entrepreneurs:
1) The entrepreneurship grind is real! Keep hustling and keep grinding; it’s easier to keep grinding for a business you love and believe in.
2) Time management is huge. Take advantage of every second that you have and make sure to schedule time to fulfill business tasks.
3) You’re still in college. Don’t be afraid to have some fun but just remember what has to get done for your business.