Entrepreneurship as a University Student Issue #2: Ignite Your Entrepreneurial Light.

As a species, we have always been entrepreneurial. When Homo erectus discovered fire, when Christopher Columbus stumbled upon America, or when Orville Wright made the first successful powered flight in history, they all were attempting to explore the unknown in hopes of improving the lives of their own and those around them. That's what entrepreneurship is all about.

The practice of entrepreneurship is a demanding feat full of exciting encounters, personal discoveries, and of course, many failures. But coming up with an idea for a startup is simpler than most people think: all of us are required to employ entrepreneurial skills (lest we forget to recognize them as such) to navigate through various problems in our lives. When most of us think about startups, we think of a multimillion dollar company with hundreds of employees sitting inside cubicles―turning phone calls to money by the minute. While there is some veracity there, the fact that most of our understanding comes from TV shows and movies makes the humble beginnings of startup companies incomprehensible, and puts the process on some pedestal. A select few entrepreneurs get to worry about all of those things down the line, but that's way down the line. At the beginning, a startup is no more than an idea on paper, with a strong vision to alleviate a proverbial "pain" for a group of people, with a few concrete plans and lots of assumptions.

I believe the easiest way to get started as a university student is to treat any project―one that identifies a real problem and proposes a real solution―as a startup. Speaking of problems and solutions, university students are at great advantage. As students, they encounter personal, professional, and social challenges they have to mitigate on a daily basis. In addition, the dynamic and diverse university environment creates abundant opportunities to collaborate with fellow students and faculty members on research and academic projects. That's why universities are considered fertile grounds for innovative and transformative startup ideas. If you're a university student, a simple way to get your creative juices flowing is to periodically get together with a friend or a group of friends to brainstorm ideas. Another great way is to actively participate in various gatherings that are ubiquitous at university campuses―in the form of student interest group meetings, professional networking events, and career fairs. People convene at such events to discuss all sorts of problems, and that’s often how startup ideas come about.

Start with a problem you care about

The old saying that goes start with a problem that you personally care about is still gold. In fact, this is the best way to get introduced to the world of entrepreneurship. Think of a problem that you encountered in the past, or an issue that is a constant source of inconvenience to you (the "pain"). Then think of a friend or a family member you know grapples with the same problem. And voila! You have a potential startup idea (and possibly your first customer, too). Now, if you persevere in the process of creating an actual startup company, you will find that there is a long and hard battle between you creating the company and other people paying you money for it (a major success milestone in your entrepreneurial journey). But it truly is as simple to get started on the idea.

Seek your "partners in entrepreneurship"

Your two most important companions in your quest as a first-time startup founder are your co-founder and your mentor. You may be familiar with the how-it-all-started stories of successful startup companies. Two or more friends get together in a garage and next thing, what they sell everyone wants to buy. There is a good reason for this pattern: the more you surround yourself with people who are entrepreneurial-minded, the likelier you are to cultivate an environment conducive to creativity and innovation. I wish to warn you though, of the forlorn late-night 'brainstorming' sessions with friends, having seen or participated in many that wound up hugely digressing to a debate on the latest football match or political crisis. I suggest taking the initiative to come up with a list of possible startup ideas and then approaching folks to give the process a better chance of success. As for a mentor, a good candidate is a faculty member with academic or industry background (or both) related to the sector of your startup, who can provide guidance especially to help you ask the right questions at the beginning and avoid simple but devastating mistakes (like if a problem is worth creating a startup out of). Guy Kawasaki calls these people your "soulmates" or "first followers" in his book The Art of The Start. In any case, your "partners in entrepreneurship" should be people you know well, you are comfortable and feel safe sharing your thoughts with, and people you trust to have your best interest in their intensions.

Watch out for these common pitfalls

In my experience, I often observe two common pitfalls that hinder the progress of aspiring student entrepreneurs. The first one is creating a startup around an issue of personal passion. While this is but commendable, trouble brews when one ignores the fact that the "pain" that is born out of this passion isn't, after all, worth alleviating for a group of people large enough to build a business out of―this is the commonest pitfall student entrepreneurs fall into. If you are building a company that you want to be a self-sustaining business at some point, you'll have to convince other people to pay you money for it. That's why one of your priorities as an early-stage startup founder should be to learn as much about your startup, as fast as possible from your "future customers". The bottom line: do a reality check (circulating a survey within your friendship circle, for example) before building a product that nobody else except you and your friend want.

The second pitfall is the fear of having an idea stolen by a fellow student entrepreneur or some company in Silicon Valley scouring for loose startup ideas. This issue comes up so often it is now starting to lose its irony for me (the irony being how hard, in fact, you'll have to work to get your startup noticed at all). Here is a slightly bad news and a good news. The bad news is that it's highly unlikely you are the first person ever to encounter the said problem, and think of the same solution (I am relying on mathematical probability here). Meaning, your solution probably already exists. However, you're certainly one of those likely few who cared enough to do something about this said problem (the good news!). So you should―with all might―be encouraged to carry on. In the end, execution aided by the speed and amount of learning you are able to muster will ultimately determine whether or not you win the "race".

In closing, I urge you to listen to the Startup podcast (available on Spotify), which narrates the entrepreneurial journey of two friends who created Gimlet, a podcast startup. Startup will take you through the highs and lows of creating a startup company from the comfort of your couch, or where ever you consume your podcast from. Good luck!