The university years are a wonderful time to develop your skills and meet people. It’s also a time when you can test yourself in different spheres and even business ventures. You may be surprised at how many successful business ideas were created in a dorm room.
Dell, Facebook, Google, and more inspiring college success stories remind us about enthusiastic and determined young entrepreneurs who succeeded in making their ambitions a reality. However, starting a business is not easy. Students need to find academic help and ask, “Write my research paper,” not drop out of college. They need to find ways to balance work and studies. It used to be harder for students to balance, but now there are write my essay free services.
If you have a business idea that you believe in, it is worth a try, even though it may bring a number of obstacles and challenges along the way. Your success can start with a simple idea. Here are ten inspiring examples that show it is possible to launch a large, profitable business while still in college.
- Dell
In 1984, an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, Michael Dell, founded PC Limited, now known as Dell. He began his company in his dorm room at first. That same year, the company’s profits became so promising that Dell devoted himself entirely to his business. The popularity of customized PCs grew rapidly. Soon Michael Dell became one of the youngest billionaires to create his own path to success.
As you may know, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook when he was still a student at Harvard University. His first attempt was to create a kind of “hot or not” game called Facemash. It raised obvious privacy concerns, as images were illegally acquired from Harvard’s safety net. Within a month, Zuckerberg created Facebook. At first, it was a social networking platform for Harvard students exclusively. However, a year later, it became available to everyone.
- FedEx
Frederick Smith, a Yale student, came up with the idea of creating a global logistics company while working on his economics class assignment. It wasn’t until 1971 that his idea for the air freight company was actualized. Smith used $91 million in venture capital to create Federal Express, which later became FedEx. Although a significant portion of the capital was lost during the first few months, he did not give up. Six years later, the company was serving thousands of customers, growing its annual revenue every year.
Some people find it hard to believe that students also created Google. It occurred in 1996 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Ph.D. students at Stanford University, developed a search engine capable of determining the relevancy of a webpage. BackRub was the engine’s original name, but it was later changed to Google. Many successful companies started small, and the same is true of Page and Brin’s business. Their first office was in a garage in California. Today, Google is a multinational company with 60,000 employees worldwide.
- Insomnia Cookies
Today, Insomnia Cookies has more than 180 locations in over 30 states. When Seth Berkowitz was a student at the University of Pennsylvania, he had the idea of sending warm, delectable cookies. He started selling cookies to other students in 2003. Demand grew quickly. The company added recipes and opened new and new bakeries across the U.S. In 2016, Insomnia Cookies celebrated its 100th opening. Many bakeries are close to colleges or universities.
Reddit was launched by University of Virginia students Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. They wanted to create a dynamic social news website where users could rate content. Each news item is organized and sorted by topic into subreddits. The platform became popular, making its creators millionaires. Huffman and Ohanian sold it to Condé Nast in 2006, but Reddit has never stopped expanding. In 2021, its valuation doubled to $6 billion.
- Snapchat
Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy founded Snapchat when they were still students at Stanford University. The idea was to communicate through photos. On Snapchat, users can share photos with certain recipients instead of posting them to the feed. Each of these photos is available for a short period of time, usually a few seconds, and then disappears. In addition, Snapchat is not constrained by rating systems like other social networks, allowing its users to be creative and free from pressure. This functionality attracts millions of people around the world, and the number of Snapchat users is now growing to over 300 million people.
- Time Magazine
We don’t even need to talk about Time magazine’s reputation or value. It is known everywhere. The idea to create the first weekly news magazine hit Yale University students Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, who were also the editor and president of the Yale Daily News. The magazine was first published in 1923. Today, Time is one of the most widely circulated magazines. Moreover, it is no longer limited to the U.S. edition but has European, Asian, and Australian versions.
- WordPress
The WordPress story began in 2003. University of Houston students Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little wanted to create new software to replace the b2 / catalog. WordPress became a fork of projects and used the base of b2/catalog for independent development. WordPress made a significant contribution to blog development. Over time, the company grew and evolved. In 2019, it was used by more than 60% of all websites.
- Yahoo!
Finally, there is a success tale from Stanford University, where two graduate students founded “Yahoo! In 1994, Jerry Yang and David Filo created it as a catalog of websites. Although Google, which appeared a few years later, overtook Yahoo !, the latter remains the second most popular search system. In addition, it offers mail, finance, answers, maps, and various other services. Yahoo domain websites are among the most popular in terms of participation.
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