Can Dropping Out of College Help Your Career?

I quit school to start a pizza joint — It was the best mistake I ever made.

I was three years into a four-year business degree. And I was impatient.

I had always known I wanted to be an entrepreneur. It started with washing windows for extra pocket money when I was a kid. By the time I was in high school, I had turned one of my hobbies — paintball — into a viable business. I opened a paintball field, using the profits to branch out into selling equipment.

But college was calling. I wasn’t sure it was for me, but I gave into convention and enrolled in a business program. From the beginning, it felt like I was moving in slow motion. Our first-year economics textbook introduced topics — supply and demand, marketing, diversification — I had already had to wrestle with in real life.

But I stuck with it, semester after semester. The prospect of being a “college dropout” was scary. The summer before my final year, however, I made a decision: I wasn’t going back. I quickly got used to hearing “You’re making a mistake,” from my friends and counsellors. It felt like I was burning a bridge.

But it was the best mistake I ever made. Back home, I dove back into my first passion — running a business. This time it was a pizza joint. (Why? The margins are huge … plus I loved pizza.) I leased a space and bought equipment using a credit card with a $20,000 limit. I was a one-man show, responsible for ordering supplies, making the pizzas, manning the cash register, mopping the floors, marketing, you name it. It wasn’t glamorous work — days were always long — but I was happy.

And, even though I didn’t know it, I was getting a crash course on startups. I got used to being strapped for cash and getting more out of less. I learned how to wear different hats — to be good at lots of things even if I wasn’t an expert at any. I had to think on my feet, juggle a dozen pressing problems and do so without losing my head. I learned the supreme importance of good customer service. I also discovered that Hawaiian slices easily outsell any other variety — It’s not even close.

Eventually, I realized I was meant for more than just pizza. By now, the ‘90s tech boom was in full swing. Computers had always been an interest of mine, ever since I won an Apple IIc in a programming contest in Grade 5. I wanted in on the action. So after a year or so of selling slices, I unloaded my restaurant and used the profits to move from my little hometown in rural Canada to the big city, Vancouver. I taught myself some coding and, with the money I had saved, opened an agency that designed web pages and web tools.

My timing was terrible. The tech bubble burst right after I set up shop. Overnight, dot-com became a dirty word and investors began avoiding startups like the plague. Fortunately, all those nights pounding dough and chopping pepperoni imparted another lesson: persistence. I pieced together enough work (and ate enough ramen) to survive the lean times. Eventually, the business began to grow: first to two employees, then ten, then — after a few years — twenty.

Then, fate smiled on me. Around that time, social media was just starting to change everything. Facebook and Twitter had made the jump from the dorm room to the mainstream. Companies were trying to figure it all out. At my agency, we hacked together a tool to manage multiple networks from one page and called it Hootsuite. It was a simple idea, but it caught on, fast.

Today, Hootsuite has nearly 11 million users, including some of the biggest Fortune 100 companies. We count almost 800 employees in a half-dozen offices around the world and have attracted more than $250 million in investment. And each day I get to work with some of the most talented engineers, designers and marketing minds in the tech world.

Would I be here if I had stuck it out and got my business degree? I doubt it. I followed my heart (and stomach) and dropped out to sell pizzas. For me, it made all the difference. Obviously, this approach isn’t for everyone. But for entrepeneurs hungry to test the waters, it can be worth at least asking whether university offers sufficient ROI for your time and money. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg all wrestled with the same question at one point in time before quitting school themselves … and they seem to have turned out just fine.