The Autodidactic Student-Entrepreneur

I'm a huge fan of reading nonfiction books. Whenever I am thinking about a new project, or want to learn a little background about something I hear about in passing, I can easily fire up my nook and find thousands of enlightening books to expand my knowledge and refine my interests. Nowhere is this more true than in the realm of business how-to books. If an issue or topic is giving you and your startup trouble, it can easily be mastered by heading to your local big box store (while they still exist) and flipping through a couple books on the subject. This is probably one of my favorite tips for solving issues as they come up, but what if you need a more broad introduction to a topic? Let's say you wanted to completely learn how to start and run a business, with absolutely no prior knowledge whatsoever. I find that books like Starting a Business for Dummies don't provide quite enough information to get the whole picture, and you may end up buying and reading several different introductory books before you get an idea where to start. So, rather than try to pick up a new topic piece by piece, I have started using a new system to get the information I need--buying used textbooks on the subject.

For example, when I began down the road of entrepreneurship, I starting reading books like the aforementioned Dummies book or Art Of The Start. But I found that neither really laid out the concepts and ideas in an easy to learn way. Then a friend lent me Small Business Management, his textbook from a recent college course on entrepreneurship. I devoured the text in two days. Not only was it much easier to read than the non-textbooks that I had read, it went into much greater detail of every step of the entrepreneurial process, and had a much more developed index and glossary. Since it was a 15th edition of the text, it was also incredibly fine-tuned. When I returned the book to my colleague, I decided to order a copy of my own. I was stunned to find a used (condition: good) copy available for only $12 including shipping. That was less than half of what I paid for the Dummies book alone!

Since my first experience with the SBM textbook, I have done ordered textbooks for other subjects that piqued my interests (most recently investing, español, and film production). I have found that, because I am passionate about the topics and pursuing them of my own volition, these textbooks are very easy to read and I can power through in a matter of days. This is compared to my general hatred of slogging through a required class text. So, if you have ever had trouble trying to figure out where to start in a whole new field or endeavor, maybe try searching for a good textbook on the subject.

A good way to find a textbook for a course is to go to the website of your local community college bookstore. They usually have the ability to search for class specific texts. Once you have the ISBN number for a textbook, look it up and see if there are any older editions that you can find for cheap on the web. Once I've narrowed down a particular edition, I use a site called BIGWORDS to find the cheapest one available.

Good luck and happy learning!

Students in a Startup

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a meetup focused on the explosion of accelerator programs here in Los Angeles. As I scanned over the audience, I noticed that I was definitely among the youngest in the room, at my tender age of 22. While there were several other young entrepreneurs in the group, the average age had to have been somewhere in the late-30s. You would think that, given the location (only 5 minutes from UCLA and 20-30 minutes from USC and CalTech) and perks (free pizza, networking opportunities, free pizza), more students would have attended.

A common concern among the attendees was a lack of driven and competent startup team members. The business people in the audience were concerned with finding developers, and the developers were concerned with finding business people. (I'm assuming financial constraints hinder them from utilizing each other.) As I listened to question after question on the issue, I began to recall my own experiences in finding competent partners for my projects. As a student at a major university, I have access to a huge network of driven and intelligent individuals. I can easily think of 40-50 fellow students who are actively looking for new business ventures and projects to work on.

So, would I recommend that those startups having trouble finding team members start trying to recruit students? There are certainly caveats to utilizing students in a startup, such as limited availability and a lack of experience. But, these obstacles usually come with silver linings.

• A student's passion, energy and enthusiasm can overcome their inability to work full-time. (How many 45-year-old people can toil away for 15 hours straight doing research, day after day.) Plus, their time spent at school can be used to take advantage of the wealth of resources available at most universities.
  
  
• Their lack of experience in the “real world” can enable them to approach problems in new and unique ways, coming up with fresh solutions. They may also be more experienced than you think—an engineering student typically has 10-15 projects under their belt by the time they enter their senior year.
  
  
• They work for nearly nothing, and many times their living expenses are taken care of by their financial aid packages at their school.

If you have a startup that is looking for a little extra help beyond your current areas of expertise, try looking into recruiting from your local college campus. You may be surprised by what you find.

Have any experience working with students? Tell  me about it in the comments below!