Why is it such a good idea to start a business at university?
Stepping out of a normal day job and starting a business is incredibly tough. Hardly any people do it.
You are used to getting a pay cheque rolled into your bank account every month – it’s comfortable; it’s consistent.
You probably have rent or a mortgage to pay, how can you possibly convince yourself to risk jumping off the cliff into entrepreneurship?
By all means, there are ways of doing if you don’t start a business at university and when you are in that 9 to 5 grind.
Such as:
– Start something part time in your weekends and evenings
– Build up a ‘safety net’ of money in order to tide you over for around 12months in order to start the business.
Not something I would want to choose. If I was in this predicament and I had to choose, I’d choose to start something part time and work to build it up.
{AF template=round_quotes} But, you have have a better option. You are at university. University is the BEST time to start a business – Steve Burford. {/AF}
Even if it does go wrong you still have a safety net of TIME and believe me, if you attempted to start a business at university your CV is going to look bloody good compared to most graduate applicants.
I started my business in my second year. The first year was a blur, I was having business ideas in my first year but I was drinking too much wine to see it through. If you can stay off the drink and find some quiet time the first year is a great place to start, if it’s later for you then don’t worry – just go for it.
Above all, time is far more important than money when starting out,
as is a support network of like minded individuals. When you first start you need to chat through ideas with people, you can’t expect yourself to know it all and make zero mistakes. You’re going to make a tonne of mistakes.
I believe society is on the cusp of massive change in the way we work. It’s already happening. More companies are allowing their staff to work from home and work when they want, helping you live life on your terms.
By thinking of yourself as your own business, building your skills, your little business projects as you move forward in life you diversify and expand your possibilities. You could if you wanted have your own business, freelance for two others, all the while travelling the world and working from cafes in European cities.
I don’t believe in the doom and gloom of the media, I don’t even watch that s***. It’s a warped perception of the truth. The truth, I believe, is that we are on the verge of massive change and now is the time to move forward, rather than get left behind.
{AF template=round_quotes} University is the place to test things, make mistakes, fall over, meet new business people and START SOMETHING. {/AF}
Now, the question is…what should you start?
For this guide, we are going to be concentrating on setting up a freelance or lifestyle business.
If it’s the route you take where you could potentially work from anywhere in the world, set your work hours a-la The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris then you really want to start your own website.
Even if you want to build a global behemoth of a business, you have to start somewhere and this is the place to start.
Don’t know anything technical about setting up a website? Don’t worry.
Think it’s going to cost a fortune? Follow the way I suggest (and don’t throw £10,000 down the drain like me) then it won’t.
I and thousands of others have made these mistakes so you don’t have to go through the heartache of having to do so. Believe me, it is annoying but I learned valuable lessons.
Don’t know where to start?
Don’t know how to get traffic?
Don’t know how to make your first pound online?
We’ll show you how to start but you are the one that must take ACTION.
FOREWARNING: This is not a get rich quick scheme. I’ve been there too. When I was younger I would try anything to get rich quick. From:
– Pretending to be a scout washing cars (when I was super young, £5 was my idea of getting rich)
– Playing the lottery
– Gambling
– Network marketing (basically pyramid marketing) – probably the worst of all types of business
– Clinical trials
– Trying to set up a business in Hong Kong (most adventurous)
All of these don’t work and all will end up in tears.
Building a business or any type of income on your own requires an intense amount of:
– Productivity
– Patience
– Perseverance
I’ve been going at it for 4 years and still not even half way there, not even a quarter, probably not even a thirty-fifth of a way there. Seriously.
The Good News
There is now an abundance of help out there to help you start. The Internet is packed with a lot of crap but there is also a lot of great information too. Aside from the Internet, there are a lot of established entrepreneurs out there willing to help you.
I’m also here to help give you a nudge in the right direction.
You have two options: 1. Develop at a particular skill. 2. Start a blog/website. In this article we are going to concentrate on you setting up your own niche business website.
In it’s simplest form, this guide will show you how to:
1. Find out where there is a need in the market.
2. Build a website full of awesome content.
3. Drive traffic to your website and build an email list.
4. Start making money from all of the above.
As I’ll say throughout the guide…this is not get rich quick scheme. This can take months, even years to achieve. So, no time to waste – start today. There are no guarantees in business and in life, only that you will keep on learning if you take action.
1. Choose a topic, find a need and set up a website.
In order to be a success online you’re going to have to identify a need and then fill it. You may have a thousand ideas but if those ideas are not filling an unmet need then forget it. If you want some big examples take a look at these ones:
Facebook.
Unmet need: Ability to connect with any friend anywhere in the world very quickly, share information with them and connect with people in real time.
Amazon.
Unmet need: Cheap, value for money goods shipped quickly.
Google.
Unmet need: The ability to search the whole Internet super fast.
These are what the big boys are doing, but you are able to find a super niche of a niche and find your market.
You also need to choose something that either:
1. Is something you know about or have a passion about.
2. What you find enjoyable to write or video blog every day.
This needs to be something you love doing. This is a labour of love. Nobody hits the big time quickly, you have to have intense passion and desire for your subject and you have to fall in love with the lifestyle you are going to create for yourself.
What do you love?
Do you really even know? Have you ever sat down and written out what you love? What colours? What places? What kind of people? What are you insatiably intrigued by?
List everything, list everything right now.
Let’s say my friend Dave just made a list and it looks something like this:
1. Meeting new people
2. Travel
3. Martial Arts
4. Dark comedy
5. Tennis
Now, what do you do? How do you turn these subjects into a business?
You have a few options:
1. Start a blog about one of these things.
2. Make a product or e-book about one of these things.
3. Create a business that increases enjoyment in one of these things.
How to monetise.
1. Create a product.
2. Promote other products via affiliate marketing.
3. Provide consultancy services.
4. Sell advertising space.
5. Ask for donations in exchange for information.
If your favourite passion was to go out and meet new people. Why not create a blog on it? Test the realms of what’s possible by going out and meeting 5 new people each day and blog about it.
Throughout your experiences you’ll gain amazing new social skills which you could then train other people to meet new people, thereby meeting even more new people and creating an income at the same time!
Dave could also write an e-book and even get a publishing deal if his story is interesting enough. Perhaps by networking with the world every day Dave managed to meet the President or The Queen, who knows what is possible!
The key is is to be unique and stay focused on one subject. You wouldn’t want to start blogging about how much you love tennis as well as meeting people. Keep it focused, interesting and ultra niche.
But…Who cares about your product?
1. Either nobody cares about it.
2. A few people care about it.
3. A lot of people are eager to buy.
How can I know who cares about it?
1. Ask. Ask people but not just your friends and family.
Sites like surveymonkey enable you to ask a lot of people for a little amount of money with their survey software. A great way to research your potential customer.
2. Research.
Trendwatching.com is great for keeping up on trends. And in the The Lean Start Up by Eric Ries (recommended book) they advise to set up a Google Adwords campaign and a small website with a page saying ‘coming soon, sign up for more info’. 
This enables you to test if there is an interest in your service before you even start the business. A perfect way to test the market for under £50.
So, you’d set up a Google ad or even a Facebook ad saying:
‘Would you like to improve your social skills?’ and see how many click throughs and sign ups you get. It’s a great way and cheap way to identify the demand for what you’re going to set up.
Here is what Facebook should be able to tell you and what you need to research:
– What is your clients age and gender?
– Where are they from?
– What do they earn?
– Where do they socalise?
– What is their level of education?
And you need to find out…
– What keeps them awake at night?
– What dreams do they hold?
– What are they running away from and towards?
Once you have an idea of what topic you want to focus on then you need to buy your domain name and set up your website.
In order, you want to:
– Buy the domain name. Article: How to choose a domain name.
– Set up some web hosting
– Set up WordPress on the domain
If you can’t do this yourself – here is a guide on How to Set Up a Website With WordPress
If you still don’t want to do it yourself then the best thing to do is find someone that does so they can do it for free. No doubt you know someone who can do this for you. There are plenty of people at university who could set it up in less than an hour or two.
2. Next…You need to build CONTENT
There is a saying online, ‘content is king’. It’s true. If you want people to visit your site and drag their time away from the likes of Facebook or Twitter then you have to h
Twitter then you have to give them reason.
There are four ways you can build content:
Text
If you are going to choose text then you’d better enjoy writing and you certainly have to enjoy the subject you are going to be writing about.
Article: Content marketing strategy
Images
Some people have built their business or blogs with image. Take the great example of Poppy Dinsey. You’re going to have to keep things very niche and you’ll likely have to include at least a little text alongside the images.
Article: Choosing images for your website
Audio
Fancy yourself a podcast maker?
Video
Think you can entertain your public with a vblog?
3. Driving Traffic
Build an email list
Alongside building content you also want to be building an email list. An email list is important for driving traffic back to your website. You can do this for a few pounds a month.
To build an email list you need traffic, so it’s a bit of a Catch-22 situation. But, once you have traffic you need to deliver your reader something either:
– Entertaining
– Informative
– Useful
People don’t give their email addresses away very easily online and you are going to have to show you are offering real VALUE in exchange for their details.
You’ll then need to add an opt-in box to your website (like ours in the top right) it must explain why the user should sign up to your newsletter. In our case, we update everyone with deals as well as giving away a free copy of our book in e-book format.
With aweber you can set up automated emails, so it means you don’t HAVE to create a new newsletter each week. A subscriber can sign up and receive a series of emails as and when you want to send them and you can set everything up in advance.
Aweber is seriously easy to set up, even for a technophobe and I’d wholeheartedly recommend it. It’s what I’ve been using for the past 3 years and not one problem so far.
Article: Should I use html or plain text for email?
Article: Why email is marketing so important for your business.
You also want to be optimising your website SEO (search engine optimisation). This is key in order for your business to get more traffic. It requires a great deal of patience but here is an article on how to do it…
Article: Ultimate SEO strategy
If you have money to spend then you can try your hand at PPC (pay per click) marketing…
Article: PPC (pay per click) marketing
4. Make Money Online
Now you’ve built your site and you are getting traffic – well done! It’s time to test different ways to make money online.
There are three ways we suggest to make money online:
1. Affiliate marketing. Article: How to make money online with affiliate marketing.
2. Selling your own products or services
3. Advertising. Article: How to sell advertising on your website.
Check out the articles on each.
There is no need to restrict yourself to making one revenue stream online, by all means you can do all three and create multiple streams of income – the dream of most online marketers, making money whilst you sleep.
Remember, you can ask me anything in the business section of our forum.
5. Your Mindset
The way you think about yourself is probably the most crucial part of building a business. I’ll be building this section aggressively over the coming months.
You need a unerring self belief that this is what you want and you are going to take the daily tasks to get you to your ultimately goal.
‘Failure’ will come your way but you are tasked with rising above it and becoming your better, bigger self and reaching for success.
I highly recommend the Psycho Cybernetics book for mindset. It’s the ultimate tool.
Here some other great articles on the site to be inspired by:
Article: Focus your focus
Article: Video of motivational quotes
Article: Take charge of your potential
Article: 5 amazing, inspiring people