29 May 2013

Pursuing entrepreneurship during University, 8 tips to get you started

When is the best time to become an entrepreneur? Should I start my business during the University or should I work for a big multinational corporate for one to two years? Should I wait till I’m stable financially and probably start my own business after my kids get married? You can find lots of debates , however the answer is that only you can decide when is the best time to start your business, you’ll pursue entrepreneurship when it feels right, when you have an idea/project/business you believe in and by then it wouldn’t matter if you’re 17 or 60 years old.

Certainly, starting your own business during the University can be better than other times because it’s less risky and there’s much lower social pressure, so yes we recommend that you take a shot at entrepreneurship during the University, but most importantly we recommend that you make the best out of your time during the University, at Egypreneur we love working and collaborating with student activities and through our work with them, we got to learn about the secret sauce that makes a student leader and throughout this blog post, we’ll share this secret sauce with you.

It’s never too late to start taking active steps to make the best out of your time during college, so whether you’re a freshman or a senior you can make something happen and explore your full potential and here are some tips to get you started;

1- Join a Student Activity

As obvious as this might seem, there are 2 things I’d like to add here. First, some students get caught up in a certain student activity and they think that this is it, they think that they should spend all the 4 or 5 years in the activity till they’re elected as  the president and then fill up their C.V to be able to work in a multinational corporate and there’s nothing wrong with that , but know that you’ll be missing on lots of other exciting activities and projects you can do during the University, plus being the president shouldn’t be your motive because this definitely affects the quality of your work, so join an activity and get the best experience out of it and then move on to the next big thing.

Second, try to join a student activity early on and then participate in more than one workshop/committee throughout the one or two years you’re in and that will help you find your passion by working in different projects and committees.

Here we’d like to point out to 2 student activities who’ve done an amazing job helping their students learn about entrepreneurship and we wish them great success in the upcoming years as well.

a- STP

Their event “هتعلى بيك 2.0” was a great success

b- X Project 

This was their first year and they did an awesome job teaching an entrepreneurship curriculum during the whole year which ended with an amazing pitching day in which entrepreneurs pitched their businesses to a panel of judges and investors.

2- Do volunteer work 

Joining a non profit organization will expand your network, helps you gain lots of experience and again helps you find your passion and most importantly you’ll be doing valuable community development work that will help thousands of people in your community or country.

3- Get a training in a multinational company

Yes, we’re pro entrepreneurship and we’re empowering young Egyptians to pursue their dreams and start their own businesses, however when you have a training in a multinational corporate, you get lots of corporate experience and you’ll learn business etiquette you’ll need while working on your own projects sending emails, proposals and presentations to Sponsors/investors.

4- Benefit from the pool of talents in your network

Lots of successful entrepreneurs find it very hard to spot, reach out to  and hire talents for their businesses, while in the University, you can find talented students everywhere and the good thing is that they’re your friends or your friends’ friends. so they’re in your network and all you have to do is to talk to them, share your vision and then you can all make a ruckus.

5- Join different entrepreneurship programs and events

We cannot talk about an entrepreneurship program for University students and not mention INJAZ, so if you missed the program in the previous years, follow them now and apply for next year’s program.

Check out this year’s winners of their startup competition: http://loghatalasr.ahram.org.eg/News/6702.aspx

Also, another great opportunity is Startup Weekend events in Egypt and we’re in no shortage of such awesome events full of energy and passion, startup weekend giza winners were students from University of Assiut who made us all really proud

Well, if you missed this one, there’s an upcoming startup weekend event coming very soon in Cairo, Alexandria and Mansoura.

6- Finish the projects you start

It’s very tempting while you’re in the University to join tons of projects each with a great potential to grow but never get to finish any of them, When you start something, complete it till the end and finish it.

7- Have faith

You might be surprised to know that most startups that fail, failed due to lack of funding, skills or bad business plans, however in my opinion the main reason for startup failure is the lack of faith, faith in God, faith in yourself, idea or team.

8- Get an internship at a startup

This is by far the most important tip, join as an intern to a viable startup and you’ll get to learn a lot working with their passionate team, your ideas and hard work will be highly appreciated, plus you should know that mastering entrepreneurship is not getting an MBA or taking an English course, if you want to learn entreprepreneurship, then do it.

Check out Enstitute which teaches entrepreneurship by helping entrepreneurs get internships at startups.

Also, we’d like to point out that one of the most promising and innovative startups is seeking interns from an engineering background, so if you’re an engineer don’t hesitate to apply now!

If you want to hunt all opportunities like this one, follow Opportunities Alert , http://oppalert.me/ to get the latest entrepreneurship opportunities over email.

We highly believe in Student leaders and their potential to change our country to a better place and this was the motive behind designing Reyady program, join us for an impactful program https://www.facebook.com/events/634514779896492/

We wish all of you a great success during the University and we’d like you to share with us your success stories at the University, the projects/businesses you started during the University?

At the end we leave you with this inspiring video from Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqRPesTumlA&feature=youtu.be]