Starting your first business as a student — Conor Bolger

Conor Bolger, 21, a 3rd year student studying economics and psychology in Trinity College Dublin.

Honestly, I was amazed as I read his LinkedIn profile. I mean, I was supposed to meet a twenty one year old. Twenty one. Not thirty one or fourty one but twenty one, you’ll be truly amazed at what he has to offer (so far that is). Vice President of Trinity Entrepreneurial Society, co-founder of Trinity startup fair, co-founder of a hoverboard startup named Craicboard and he co-organised the largest ever Fintech Hackathon in Europe last year.

Yeah, did I mention the fact that this man is twenty one?

Craicboards. Clever people do clever things. This was Conor’s first business start up and according to him it taught him a lot more than what three years of college ever has. So, Craicboards were basically hoverboards rebranded and sold as Craicboards. They made quite a profit in the beginning, researching well before buying and changing batteries to minimise damage in any sort of way. But soon enough, hoverboards around the world (not theirs) were starting to explode. Craicboards never exploded but since there was a risk, the company had to contact each of their buyer to notice them of this possibility and they even refunded most of the products! Fair play to their ethics.

“Plan for the worst, hope for the best and it sometimes ends up worse than the worst you expected.”

Now, I started this article off by listing all the extra curricular activities Conor was involved with in his college. And as Conor himself told us, ‘’you learn a lot more from the extra activities than the course itself.”

“Immerse yourself in college”

He then proceeded to tell us why this was so. As students, we have a lot of time on our hands, and we have nothing to lose. I suppose, the things that we can possibly ‘lose’ as students are different to each of us. But compare students to adults, adults who are tied down to jobs, what do they have to lose? Where should I start? An adult going into business is at greater risk (I’m not saying they shouldn’t). They have to worry about family, work, mortgages, bills and a lot of other things I’m sure (I haven’t started adulthood yet, so that’s just a list made from observation.) Since you don’t have much to lose as a student, it’s better that you take ‘risks’ while they don’t pose as a ‘risk’ to you, yet. Start before it’s too late. Just start simple and start now (quoting Dan Ram there). Oh and if you fail? Do it again, but do it differently. Train yourself to take leaps and to not fear failure. That’s where you start. Because at the end of the day, it’s all a learning experience. Failures build up to be your success.

Oh, and another word of advice from Conor:

“Work for a cause, it’s more fulfilling”