The best way for a University student to enter the business World is the same way anyone else would enter it – with a good idea, ounces of passion, and a ton of perseverance and determination.
I started my first business at 16 years old, alongside studying at college. It was a cash management tool for individuals to plan their finances quickly and easily for the coming year.
I sold this to an accountancy firm in Ireland within 6 months, and used the money from the sale to start a copywriting agency.
I started this when I was 17, studying at college, and eventually moving on to study business at University.
I had to choose The Open University since this gave me flexibility to study in my own time, as my focus during the day was on my company.
We built a network of 127 writers across the UK, and became masters at winning work and writing tenders, then outsourcing this work to our network (with our own margin applied).
I sold the copywriting agency just prior to graduating University, took a little time off from business to focus on my final exams, then graduated with a 2:1 in business from the OU.
So at this point, I had my degree, a little money, and time to focus on what I wanted to build next.
I went on to begin importing teeth whitening kits from China – but this was soon after outlawed in the UK (with a potential jail sentence of 6 months) – so I swiftly got out of this business, and began importing green tea from Japan (a powdered green tea called matcha).
I built a brand, we got the tea into the major wholesalers and retailers in the health food space, and we went on to build an online retail business with 20,000+ lines that still operates successfully today (vitalifehealth.com).
On reflection, my business degree did very little in terms of offering direction for the next venture post-graduation.
It did help with theoretical planning (building the business plan), pricing models, and basic principles of accounting, marketing, and operations.
But in terms of influencing what the business was about, or helping with day-to-day management and growth of the company – it really didn’t offer a great deal.
Ultimately, don’t think that having a degree gives you an advantage in business – it really doesn’t. There are plenty of people out there with degree-level education these days, and the information/knowledge you have gained through study is nothing unique.
I don’t like to sound negative, but this is the truth.
So whether you’re asking this question as someone about to graduate their degree, or someone mid-way through their studies, the best way to enter the business World is to understand your passions – what motivates or inspires you the most?
Then when you understand what you truly enjoy doing, then you need to find a problem, or something that’s missing in this particular space.
When we started Love Health Hate Waste – our BBD expired health food retailer – it was spawned from a problem. We were wasting perfectly good stock under Vitalife Health, just because it had reached its BBD. Yet staff were happy to take this home and consume, since they knew it was still perfectly good and edible.
There are no laws against selling BBD expired items – so we figured we’d branch out a separate brand to make these items accessible to people that would otherwise perhaps not be able to afford them at RRP.
It grew, and we started to purchase other companies’ BBD expired items, and resell them on our LHHW platform.
This solved two problems – it helped make dietary specific and healthy foods/drinks accessible to all, and it also prevented them from unnecessarily going to waste.
So find a valid problem in your chosen space, and figure out how you can solve it.
I hope that answers your question ‘what’s the best way for a University student to enter the business World’.
Good luck – and if you need any assistance getting started, I have a step-by-step business startup guide over on Udemy called Fast Track Entrepreneur that might help.