Why Students Should Build Things
On campus right now, it’s eerily calm. The CTY students have left, the undergraduates who interned in Baltimore have gone home for the final weeks before the semester, and everyone else is avoiding campus until they absolutely have to face it.
This calm wont last — PreO starts this Friday, followed shortly by real Orientation, my favorite part of year. There is nothing like eager freshmen stepping foot on their college campus for the first time. They are excited and horrified, exhilarated and anxious all at once.
They have four of the best years of their life ahead of them: freedom to explore, relationships to test out, time to discover new passions. Thousands of classes to take, labs to work in, internships to hit. Minors and majors and concentrations galore. Student groups and passion projects and finally a social life sans parents.
At TCO, we have the task of telling them they should add a startup to all of that.
There are students who will push forward and bring their ideas into reality whether or not we are there to help, or even encourage, them. We look up to those students, but they need us the least: they are going to be entrepreneurs and nothing is going to stop them.
At Hopkins, however, we typically deal with students who are on the edge. This is inevitable with any coming-of-age population as they navigate the vast array of opportunities ahead of them, but especially true at Hopkins where the students tend to lean towards years in academia, a worthy but safe career decision. Our goal is to show them that entrepreneurship, while much more unsure than academia (or finance or consulting) is indeed a viable path.
I’ve said before that the real reason undergraduate entrepreneurship matters is because it produces entrepreneurs, not ventures. Because of that, our main purpose is to equip these students with the skills and tools they need to build things, and the best way to do that is by experience.
Our job is to get these students building things. Startups, small businesses, nonprofits, it doesn’t matter — as long as they are getting their hands dirty and learning the hard (read: fun) way. For the first few months on campus, we pull all the tricks to get them to catch the entrepreneurial bug.
But that’s next week’s project. For now, I’m enjoying the last few days where I can work in my apartment without a single class, meeting, or trip downtown to yank me away. So, before I pick up a flyer, make a speech, or film another welcome video, I’ll wield the only weapon I can from the comfort of my desk.
To the freshmen, with years of opportunity ahead of you — here are the top reasons why you should be an entrepreneur, right now:
- You’re Sitting on Gold Mines
Imagine this: you are a hungry founder, desperate to get a bite of some much needed venture resources. The Tree Of Startup Provisions hangs juicy fruit high, high above your head. You have a few options: climb the tree with nothing but your bare hands, network your way to someone with a ladder, or chop the whole thing down while everyone tries to kill you (read: incumbents).
But instead, you are at The Tree of University Startup Provisions. This tree is short and bursting at the seams with resources for you. Hell, there is even a group of people whose job it is to bring those fruits directly to you. You simply have to ask, and you will receive. They’ll even write an article about you for it.
The point is, resources at universities are low-hanging fruits. Mentorship, funding, and entrepreneurial education are literally at your fingertips. There is often less competition for the resources, and those you are competing with are other students who you can only benefit from knowing (which is true in the greater world of startups as well).
University entrepreneurial ecosystems are ripe with resources for you and your venture. Even when you exhaust the resources at your school, there are a whole host of other resources meant specifically for college founders (Contrary Capital, the Thiel Fellowship, etc). Grab the fruit and eat it all — it’ll never be this easy at the next Tree of Startup Provisions.
2. You Have the World’s Greatest Safety Net
Johns Hopkins, like many other universities, gives its students 10 years to finish their undergraduate degree once they have started it. As Freshmen, this means you can take a leave of absence for 6 years and return with no issue at all.
So, if you start a working on an idea your freshman year, and by sophomore year it is really picking up, you can take a leave to pursue the company. This was the path taken by Shrenik Jain, the founder of Sunrise Health. He left JHU before his junior year to work on his company, which is currently thriving.
Your company can either do really well, in which case you may not be at all inclined to return to university, and instead spend your millions enjoying life on beaches (or more likely, starting other companies). Or, your company can absolutely fail. It can burn to the ground leaving millions in venture capital burnt to a crisp, and leaving you back at JHU. (Don’t freak, it happens more often than you’d think. You’ll live.)
But hey — you’re still a student at an elite university. You are still leaps and bounds ahead of many people in our society, and even your peers. You have years of real-world experience under your belt, while most students get one or two internships at best. You can pick up right where you left off, no harm, no foul.
Even if your startup doesn’t pull you out of school (most don’t) you are still sitting on a very comfortable safety net. You do not have a family to feed, you are not destroying any job prospects nor other people’s careers, and if your venture doesn’t work out, you can just graduate and try again.
Plus, you probably wont actually be that homeless, hungry founder while you are in college. You have Wolman and the FFC to thank for that.
3. People Like You (aka The Adorable Factor)
Students are, for lack of a better term, adorable. Freshmen especially, for the aforementioned wide-eyedness, but also students in general. Students are disciples, here to learn the lessons of past generations, challenge themselves to extract new ideas from them, and apply those ideas towards building a better future.
Young people in general are endearing, but young people who are starting ventures are mind blowing. By being a student, you are already well-positioned to be liked by strangers who you reach out to, especially alumni. But as a student entrepreneur, you really hit the jackpot. You not only have the adorable factor, but you are also inspiring.
And because of that, people will help you. People who have no reason to help you other than because they were once at this school and they want to give back to some kick-ass students. People who don’t see the fact that you are 20 years old and instead see what you could be in 20 years.
I’m not just talking about professors, although they will be some of the best mentors and advocates for you. The alumni network of any university, but especially Johns Hopkins, is ripe with people willing and able to help. I can’t even begin to explain how much support we’ve gotten while building TCO Labs, The Hatchery, and EcoMap from alumni, Baltimore community members, and strangers across the country who believed in us just a bit.
You have the adorable factor. It goes away quickly as you age. Use it or lose it.
—
These are the core reasons you should start building now, besides the fact that it is simply fun. People often ask how I work so much, and I can honestly say because it doesn’t feel like work. Any entrepreneur who is passionate about what they do will say the same. Given how much work being a student at Hopkins actually is, working on a venture is a nice recess.
Hopefully, by now I have convinced a few of you to scratch that entrepreneurial itch. Whether you are ready to start building right away, or are simply interested in learning more, we have the resources to help you out.
To check out everything that TCO Labs, and the greater Homewood entrepreneurial ecosystem has to offer, come check out Square One on September 14th from 5–7pm. (Which happens to be at the grand opening of FastForward U, the new hub for student innovation at Homewood)
I hope to see you there.
— Pava LaPere
Cofounder & President| TCO Labs, Inc.
Founder & Director | The Hatchery Incubator
Founder & Team Lead | EcoMap
