Entrepreneurs on Campus: Advice From Those Who Have Gone Before

Last week Forrest and Justin were featured on the “Campus Entrepreneurism: Fad or Fixture” panel at the Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium. Here are a few words of wisdom from the event. You can read a full recap of the panel on Justin’s blog, or watch video from the event at the end of this post.

What is scary about venturing out as an entrepreneur?

Justin: Entrepreneurship is like walking a tightrope. If you are not constantly providing correction to your balance, it feels like you’re always on the verge of falling off. Some days it seems like you have 15,000 things pulling you off this rope, and it takes a lot of work just to stay balanced. Keeping a team together, that’s hard. Keeping a product laser focused, that’s hard. Cranking out revenue, that’s hard. Everything is hard. That’s what’s scary! When you live your life on this tightrope, you get really used to having your adrenaline pumped all the time. I think being a little of an adrenaline junky is also helpful.

What is your advice for student entrepreneurs?

Forrest: The execution aspect of ideas is key. If you have an idea, don’t say ‘Oh, it’d be cool if we did this.’ Just go and do it. Don’t ask questions or leave any room for fear. Make your ideas a reality. That’s how PerBlue and Capital Entrepreneurs came about. We saw a need and we filled it. We wanted to get all of our entrepreneur friends together, so we just did it. We created an organization and now it’s grown to 150 members. I can’t stress it enough, execution is the most important part of being an entrepreneur.

Should entrepreneurs worry about sharing their ideas?

Forrest: Ideas are pretty much worthless, they are a dime a dozen. What it really comes down to is execution. There are very few people in the world that could actually execute your ideas. So my advice is, don’t be afraid to share your ideas. Bounce them off your peers to get feedback. They can help you focus and refine your ideas. Talking about your ideas is actually a really good idea and something I would encourage.

So, Campus Entrepreneurism: a Fad or Fixture?

Justin: I’d say fixture, it’s extremely important to encourage entrepreneurship with young people. I hear so many complaints about a poor job market, and I have relatively no sympathy. ‘Hey, start a company.’ We need to create more role models of great companies and great entrepreneurs to get students thinking about entrepreneurship earlier. So many are still stuck in the “I need a job” mentality.