You’ll always find inspirational stories about entrepreneurs who left high school without a great education and founded amazing businesses that made them millionaires. This does happen. However, although you will find those stories and you might be motivated by them, it is still a relatively rare thing. The fact is, people, don’t often write inspirational stories about the entrepreneurs who went to college, gained a degree, and used that to create a hugely successful (or even moderately successful) business. Yet these are the people in the majority.
You could take a chance and start your business with nothing but a dream and tenacity, but in most cases, having a college degree is the best thing to do first. Read on to find out more.
Experience
Going from high school into the world of business is a challenge. The biggest reason this is hard to do is a lack of experience. You won’t have experience in the real business world, and you won’t have experience in the sector you are trying to break into.
Therefore, it makes sense to take a few years of thinking and planning while you’re at college before you start your business. You might even find there is a course that will teach you all you need to know – or at least how to get started. Keep looking for these courses even after you have started college; it’s possible to switch colleges if you find a better fit for you elsewhere, and CampusReel has information to help you with this idea.
The more experience you can gain at college, the more successful you’ll be when you do finally launch your business; it’s worth the wait.
Networking
Most of the time, people don’t go to school to network. They do this to gain a degree in something they are passionate about and to find out more about what they might want to do for a living once they graduate. However, the fact is that college can be an ideal place to network, and this is certainly a bonus if you’re going.Fortunately, with the proliferation of online education, most students can find online courses that enable them to network. They typically offer discussion forums, group projects, and other forms of collaboration that allow them to interact with one another and build connections.
When you are a business owner, networking is vital. It’s the best way to find new customers, suppliers, and even partners or investors. If you can start understanding how to network well early on, you’ll be much more able to do it to your advantage when you need to as a business owner. Not only that, but you might actually meet people who can help you or who will work with you – fantastic partnerships can be formed in college that go on to create successful businesses.
Reputation
People definitely admire those who can build a business from nothing without a college education. However, when it comes to actually trusting them initially and spending money in that business, not having a degree can be problematic.
When you have a degree, you can prove to people that you understand your sector, that you are a hard worker, and that you are serious about learning and being the best. Without a degree, you might come across as someone who is just trying things out and who may not offer the best service.
When there is so much competition in the business world, you need to be able to prove quickly and easily that you are trustworthy and professional. Having a degree is the perfect way to do that, and even if you don’t use the lessons you learned to create your business, it will still help customers trust you more.
