Every Incoming College Freshman Needs To Read This!

A few weeks ago I graduated from the University of South Carolina. Throughout college, I was either starting up a new company or parting ways with a failing idea. After receiving a very unique experience, I am looking to pass along my experiences to incoming college freshman and/or underclassman students. Regardless if you are an incoming freshman or an experienced business executive, this article will give you insight. Explained below are six key insights to keep in mind before entering college.

Incoming freshman, you are about to enter a four year time period that will be extremely fun, rewarding, stressful, and exhilarating. Throw out your misconceptions about how things should be, and just respond to what is happening around you. Times are changing extremely fast and "college advice" is becoming rapidly outdated. 2018 is a new time with completely new issues that no other generation has experienced.

1) Find Mentors. Getting great advice can be extremely hard to come by, so you need to be strategic with finding mentors. It is important that you find mentors that can help you within their area of competence. Fine-tuning your Linkedin profile and elevator pitch will help you connect with mentors from around the world. Being a student, you have access to an extensive university faculty system. Right off the bat, you should visit any and every professor's office hours. Do not just go to their office to talk about what is going to be on the exam. Come prepared with questions about their career, their connection base, and their area of expertise. Memorizing what is going to be on the exam will only take you so far. Building relationships with people who have experience and connections will prove tremendous rewards in future years.

2) Take Action Now. Stop waiting for the perfect moment to take action... you are never going to be 100% prepared. It is far more important that you start attempting to implement that idea, rather than waiting to feel completely ready. For an example, I started a t-shirt company my freshman year. I spent roughly ~$500 on an inventory of these new custom printed graphic t-shirts. A few friends bought, but these were not the sales numbers I anticipated. So a took my entire inventory to an NFL Football game and attempted to sell to fans around the stadium. Throughout the day; I was verbally attacked by other street vendors after attempting to sell in their territory, and nearly confiscated my entire inventory and served a citation by the police for being in the wrong area. Needless to say, that venture was not working out, and it was time to move on. Although from that experience, I accelerated my learning experience within sales, marketing, distribution, operations, and law. The faster you take action, the faster you will learn and validate your idea.

3) Take Risks & Fail Fast. It is important that you use your time in college to take risks. There is no better time in your entire life to start a company, than an 18-22 year-old college student. If you fail, that is perfectly okay, and you will most likely fail hundreds of times before you find a successful business venture. So why not fail now? Instead of failing when you have a family that depends on you and much steeper bills to pay. The classroom setting shuns failure, although failing is such an important part of growing into the powerhouse boss everyone wants to be. That being said, put up with what the classroom makes you do for four years. Being a student does not take up much of your time. If you manage your time effectively, it will only take roughly 3 hours per day of class and homework obligations (depending on your major). With ~7 hours of sleep each night, you will have ~14 hours each day to make things happen. Use your time in college to take risks that will all you to fail fast and forward.

4) Create a Routine. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and college students all have the same amount of time each day. So it is truly up to you to optimize every second of the day. Find a routine that works with your schedule and optimal work hours. For me, I soon started a new company after my failed t-shirt venture. The skills gained from that company strengthened my value proposition for my new company, FanPlan (a travel agency for sport and entertainment fans). I found that fine tuning my morning routine, allowed me to put a lot more energy into my new company while being a full-time student with multiple side-jobs. My morning routine consisted of; waking up around 5:45 AM - 6:00 AM, 6:00 AM - 6:45 AM working out, 6:45 AM - 7:15 read & coffee, 7:15 - 7:30 energy-filled breakfast. Your morning sets the tone for the entire day (and even the rest of the week in some cases). Some people are early birds and others are night owls. Find out the time of the day where you get your best work done, then build your schedule around that.

5) Embrace Difficult Situations. Never be complacent with checking the boxes and doing the bare minimum that the university expects from you. DO NOT view the classroom as the only place to learn. You will learn new information within your chosen field in a classroom. But the real learning takes place outside of the classroom. Starting my travel agency company - FanPlan, put me in situations that the classroom would never have been able to. Some of the best learning lessons came from me being in very difficult situations with my back against the wall. For an example ... One day, someone came to my house (the unofficial headquarters of FanPlan) and served me a lawsuit against my company. In complete shock, I needed to get to the bottom of this 30+ page document. After frantically reading through the document, it came to my attention that FanPlan, LLC was being sued for at least $200,000 and no more than $1,000,000. Luckily, the lawsuit was accidentally filed against my company because of a discrepancy of the company name, FanPlan. Regardless, getting out of this situation was fairly daunting as a 22-year-old that hasn't even graduated yet. After a few stressful weeks, I was able to call someone and easily get out of the situation without paying money. Within two hours, I was able to learn more about business law than an entire four-year education. Even when things are tough and you don't want to work, show out every day regardless.

6) Get Involved. When times get difficult, never put your head down. Because when your head is down, you will miss out on opportunities. Always view everything as situations happening for you, even when they are not the best. Take difficult situations as opportunities to learn, grow, and better yourself. Get yourself involved with as many clubs and organizations as possible. It is important to build a support system of people in similar situations. It is crucial to get to know as many people within your college. You will want to utilize your collegiate network for the rest of your life. You will not be able to get out of many difficult situations solely by yourself.

From the experiences explained above, I may not have sold you to become a student entrepreneur. That is okay because being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. Being an entrepreneur takes a certain pain tolerance. The point I am trying to get across is that if you are a young high school student interested in being an entrepreneur one day. There is no better time to experiment than your time in college. There are very few other college students dealing with high-level situations like this. In the end, if you have the passion to succeed and never give up. Then you will find a way to figure yourself (and your company) out of tricky situations. In the long run, you will have developed a unique problem-solving skillset that will propel you towards tremendous opportunities.

I would be grateful if you can pass along this article to a friend, family member, or a colleague's relative that are about to enter college. Feel free to reach out and talk more, [email protected]