My First Attempt Of Entrepreneurship At 22
I really thought this was going to work. I was 22. And I had a desire to make a good change to the education sector. I believe I had the skills too. But something didn’t click. This is what happened.
It was September 2016. And I had just started to make Youtube videos. I was making education videos in the Khan Academy style for some courses at my former university. My idea was to provide such content customized to the problems that students are trying to solve. That means explaining assignment questions and exam questions in video format. Students can watch that as much as they want, whenever they want. Pretty useful, I would say. And so did the students. Students loved it. And they asked me to do more of it. I made hundreds of videos for quantitative courses at the Erasmus University. Mathematics, statistics, microeconomics, econometrics.
This is where my business idea appeared. I would start an education video company that makes customized webcasts to university courses across the world. We would focus primarily on solving problems, and not theory. And we would do it for quantitative courses only, since they are the hardest. I would spend two months getting in touch with all the universities in Europe. Absolutely all of them. I would have skype calls with directors and project coordinators of economics programs at all these universities.
“Yes Andrei, I like the idea. Very innovative. You’re definitely on to something.”
That’s what they said first.
“We consulted with our professors and we decided not to continue with this. Good luck with your business.”
That’s what they said second. I’ve been rejected by all the university executives that I contacted. I could not implement what I wanted. I couldn’t believe it. Students liked it so much. It was obviously a great product.
The problem was the barriers between me and the end-consumers. Universities are businesses. There are many stakeholders involved. Hence, I had to go through all these gatekeepers in order to serve my users, the students. Since this is a type of customized product that I wanted to offer, I could not think of an app that scales, or a business model that does not involve a partnership with universities. And this is where my entrepreneurship pursuit stopped.
I am glad I did that at 22. I am glad I took myself a couple of months to try to build a company. I am glad I did not go for a corporate job right out of college. This is an experience that I took with me and I know it will serve me when I try my second company. That’s right. My entrepreneurship pursuit is not over. I still believe I can pull it off. To every one reading: if you consider tasting the startup life, taste it. You can get your job later. Embrace risk and do something our of the ordinary. It is something that you will look back with pride.
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