Becoming a student entrepreneur

By Graham Cooper

You’re a student at university and you think you have a great business idea, but you have no idea where to go next to progress the idea. Where do you start? 

For many students, a lack of business knowledge can overwhelm your ideas, proving a barrier that prevents many from moving beyond the ideas phase. 

For my business partners and me, we struggled with knowing where to look for initial investment to get our idea off the ground, and understanding the practical steps we needed to take to become our own bosses. 

So how well can university prepare a student for a career in business? There’s an age-old argument around whether entrepreneurship can be taught or whether it’s a trait that some people simply possess. 

Some universities clearly think it can be an acquired skill, and have begun offering degrees in entrepreneurship. But for those who may be studying unrelated subjects, such as humanities or creative industries, entering the world of business can be a minefield. 

The key lesson we took from our journey from higher education to business was that it’s not just about what university can offer you, it’s about what you glean from the experience. While university can offer you access to great resources that can assist with an initial start-up, they won’t come and find you – being proactive and making yourself aware of opportunities is key. 

According to research by The Prince’s Trust and the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2013, 25 per cent of young people believe they will be their own boss within the next five years, with 27 per cent claiming that they are “increasingly” thinking of starting a business. In 2011, along with two peers (now business partners) who I met through my course, I did just that. 

We initially met through working on a group project together through our degree in Creative Lens Media, through which we realised we had great chemistry as a team. 

The importance of making the most of collaborative opportunities such as these was something that was hugely beneficial. By taking every opportunity to interact with other students – not simply waiting for people to come to you – you never know who you might meet. Collaborating with other people is also a great way to have a sounding board for your ideas. 

As a group, we found it useful to familiarise ourselves with the entrepreneurship scene at university. Many universities hold special events dedicated to careers and future planning, which can be a great resource. For example, at Glyndŵr University, a ‘Creative Futures’ week is held each year. Listening to the expert business-leaders and hearing the experiences of others enthused us and helped us remain committed. Look out for events at the union or those being advertised through your careers office. 

We also found our careers service really helpful, particularly the job shop which helped signpost opportunities to relevant work placements and free courses which were great stepping stones to learn about common business issues, such as managing cash flow and dealing with late payments. 

Whether from placements, work experience, freelancing or part-time work, every bit of experience in the industry will help once you've graduated, not least in terms of giving you a network of useful contacts. 

However, make sure that if you're going to work for free that it’s worth your while. Don’t fall into the trap of accepting anything and everything. The more relevant experience you have the better. 

For us, utilising the huge amount of expertise available to us – not just that contained within our faculty – was also a great help, especially as we weren’t studying business. Try speaking to someone at the university who specialises in entrepreneurship. They may offer you tips on pulling together a business plan and sourcing capital. 

There are also plenty of external online resources and forums that we used for free help and advice, including http://creative-boom.com/. 

Once we graduated we established Minimal Media; a creative video production company. As we’re such a small team we encounter many challenges; including sometimes having to be a jack of all trades and turning our hand to everything from the filming to the finance and HR. If you're thinking of starting your own business, be prepared to get involved with every aspect of running it from the word go. 

But, though we’ve faced challenges along the way, we couldn’t be happier with our decision to enter the world of business and we’ve got exciting plans for the future. 

Other students with similar sparks of enthusiasm for an area of business should give it a go, making the most of people and resources on-hand at university along the way. 

Graham Cooper is Co-Director of Minimal Media, he studied Creative Lens Media at Glyndŵr University