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The One Thing I Wish I’d Done Before Starting My First Startup
It would have definitely made me a more successful entrepreneur
I teach college entrepreneurship courses, and one of my courses is exclusively for seniors. Because of this, at the end of every school year, I’m in the somewhat unique position of seeing the many different career paths of my graduating students. As a general rule, they’re either heading towards jobs or graduate school.
However, because I teach entrepreneurship, a certain subset of my students have different career goals best summarized by the following conversation I recently had with a soon-to-be graduate:
HIM: “Dr. Dinin, I’ve got some exciting news. I’ve decided I’m going to turn down my job offer from Amazon and focus completely on my startup.”
ME: “Really? I didn’t know you had a startup.”
HIM: “Yeah… well… I’ve actually got a few. They’re all mostly in the idea stage at this point. But some of them have real potential. And I know if I want to be a successful entrepreneur, I can’t work for someone else. I need to commit myself 100% to being a founder. So I’ve talked it over with my parents, and we’ve agreed I’m going to spend the next year after graduation focusing completely on my startup.”
