For the last twenty years I’ve followed two dreams. My dream of continuing to help students find their potential at college and above and also my dream of owning small businesses. I’ve been one of the lucky ones that has been able to do both of those. It wasn’t easy by any means but when looking back in reflection, I can easily say I wouldn’t take another path. I started contemplating how the next step in a student’s career is a lot like starting a business. It came to me when I hit my twenty year mark, yesterday of working in higher education. I’m big on reflective learning. Reflective learning is where you look back on a chunk of time or a situation and you get data and insight that helps you moving forward. A lot of people get stuck on the “reflective regret” which is where you look back and all you want to do is change that specific moment in time. Don’t get me wrong, we all have a particular situation like that. But the danger for most, is that the situation they reflect on will consume them and they will miss everything else. I’ll digress back to the topic now, or we could get stuck on this topic for the whole post.
When you look at starting a business, the first thing is the idea. How it fits into the workplace and what need it fulfills. You start coming up with a prototype and doing due diligence on product viability. Everyone tells you that it sounds like a great idea so you embark on it. You start working feverishly on it, constant tweaks and late nights, crawling your way to the top of the competition. At some point, you may need capital and you start to look for venture funding. Venture capitalists (VC) are people that invest time and money into you and your idea to help make it even bigger and better than it was. They own a part of your business now, so you can’t let them down or waste their money. If all goes well, your product/business goes well, you make enough money so that you and your investors are happy and you are proud that you were able to grow something into the giant that it is now. A lot of young students that are thinking about college or trade school right now, may have that entrepreneurial itch and may choose to go that route right out of the gate. About 10% of them will be successful at that. So how is college like a start-up business? The next steps that you take for determining college and beyond will mirror almost identically the same growing pains that a budding entrepreneur feels when starting a business. So let’s break down the steps as it relates to you from above…
As always… Dream It, Believe It, Do It and Win It!
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AuthorDustin Hall has been working in higher education for over 20 years. He's passionate about students, technology and entrepreneurship. Over the past two decades, he has owned several companies and worked at a number of private and public universities. At those universities he has held the titles of; Communications Coordinator, Asst. Dean of Residential and Campus Life, Director of Residence Life, Regional Admissions Officer, Director of Admissions and Adjunct Faculty. He's a big dreamer and doer and lives by his motto of "Dream It, Believe It, Do It and Win It!" |