This post tells you 5 reasons why you need to start an internet business while in college. If you are someone who has an entrepreneurial bent of mind then this is the post for you. This post focuses mainly on college students however, I am sure that everyone has a little to learn from this post. Famous internet entrepreneurs like Milun Tesovic started business while still 16. Currently, Milun has completed his BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration).

16-Years Old MetroLyrics Founder - Milun Tesovic (far left)

Time: Time is the most essential factor to succeed online. You need to have a lot of time to put in your energy and effort to startup your internet business. When you are in college you don’t have the responsibility to feed your family, nor do you have to pay the electricity bill nor worry about mortgages and such. College is a great time in everyone’s life where one can behave like an adult with the carefree nature of a child. It is up to you to make the most of this time.

Everyone Needs Pocket Money: While in college, everyone needs pocket money. It may be for buying the totally rad car or maybe even to take a girl out on a date. You can easily find suitable people in your college campus who have the specialties you require. Provide you pay them decently – you can get a lot of work done. Even then, the fees students would ask you will be much lesser than a professional would ask you for. The quality of the work will not be very different either. So its a win-win situation for you.

Cheap and Easy Availability of Resources: In a college campus you have free wi-fi, free electricity (at least for you), a laptop – these things are more than enough resources for you to give impetus into your internet business. The ease at which you can meet your requirements in college is unmatched and moreover, the resources are easily available. Moreover, in college it will be easier for you to find someone who is like-minded and may be partner you in entrepreneurship. There are clubs, groups and lot of people who may know a lot about the area you intend to initiate an internet business. Just imagine the scope for these – if you are not in college, so value the environment and make the most of it. Create an asset for yourself in those magic years.

Easy Publicity: Do you know about Mark Zuckerberg? He is the Founder of Facebook – the world’s most popular social networking site. He started this site from his dorm room – the site was a hit in his university. But eventually  the word-of-mouth is so powerful in college and universities that other universities also heard of Facebook and began to join it. Soon Mark Zuckerberg realized that he was onto something and that is how this revenue powerhouse was created. I want to emphasize here that while in college it is easier for you to get the word around about your startup. There are college notice boards, campus newsletters and a lot of other mediums where you can reach out and spread the word. And of course, do not ever underestimate the power of word-of-mouth publicity, it is the best kind of exposure you can get.

Enthusiasm: At the age that we are in college, we are more prone to taking a plunge into risks and work harder. As a startup in the internet you need to work really hard. Energy and health will definitely not be a problem for you in the youth. Moreover, you understand the value of money and it is generally seen that college students are good at boot-strapping creatively. These skills can be priceless for your internet business.

The best time to start any business not necessarily online is definitely in college. However, many fail to realize this until too late. Of course, have your fun while in college but trust me when you run your own company while still in your 20s it is a different feel altogether. Becoming a college entrepreneur is really cool and something which will earn you a lot of respect. If you are looking for a little bit of direction and inspiration, you would love to read Moonlighting on the Internet: 5 World-Class Experts Reveal Proven Ways to Make Extra Cash. It is paperback written by famous internet entrepreneur Yanik Silver.

On March 2010 we published 16 articles under various categories. As always CollegeFallOut has tried to maintain a strict balance between the posts on Internet Entrepreneurs and Blogging related content. Here is a list of the articles published last month:

College Entrepreneur Alan Schaaf: College Entrepreneur

My Experience of Posting on ShoutMeLoud.com

Apply Longtail SEO techniques for Small Blogs

Seminar By Internet Entrepreneur Kiruba Shankar

How Can an Entrepreneur Fight the Fear of Failure?

Post Drafts are a Bloggers Asset

How to Become a Blogtrepreneur?

My Obsession with Alexa Site Info

Online Reputation Management: An Emerging Industry

Digg-ing into Kevin Rose

How to Comment on Other Blogs?

Why Online Business is Best for Entrepreneurs?

4 Effective Characteristics of a High Traffic Blog

Game Review: Mass Effect

Paypal rectifies Indian Bank Transfer Glitch

List of Businesses that Can be Started by College Entrepreneurs

Hope you like the quality of posts.

Many people want to become an internet entrepreneur, but here is an eye-opener on how to really become one!

This post is all about the inspirational college entrepreneur Alan Schaaf (21-years old). Alan Schaaf is a budding internet entrepreneur – he is the owner of one of the most popular image hosting sites – imgur.com. Alan Schaaf is a Ohio University who is in his senior year currently.

I am sure that you have heard of imgur.com, it is the image hosting website which has tinyPic, Imageshack, and Photobucket biting dust. Alan Schaaf decided to become an internet entrepreneur when he was left with free time after his college classes. Alan Schaaf started imgur.com while he was in the middle of his junior year and by the time he reached his senior year – imgur had grown into a brand name and most visitors would think that it is a money-making conglomerate.

Imgur – like most venture startups was born out of a need. In Alan Schaaf’s own words:

I guess I picked an image host because, in my opinion, the existing ones were really lacking in some key features and functionality and I knew that I could do a better job. It also seemed like they didn’t care about the images they hosted or their customers, taking down images randomly and putting bandwidth caps on specific high traffic sites such as reddit. I think they real kicker was when TinyPIC started redirecting everyone coming from reddit to their slow ad-ridden pages, and half the time it would just take you to their homepage. There had to be a better option, and I wanted to provide it.

Most people would think that Imgur would have required a lot of venture capital but as a fact of matter, the initial investment was only $7 for the domain name. Alan already had a cheap hosting service, however, that account was deleted as his site began to generate mammoth traffic. Imgur.com sits comfortably in the top 500 of Alexa rankings.

However, many people would be surprised at the business concept Alan uses in Imgur. Currently, his site imgur.com creates no money at all. It is in a break-even state right now. He claims that he is currently more focused on making imgur.com even better and does not want to focus on the money making aspect.

You should also know that they were no coders hired or any kind of programming from outside – the whole idea was conceived and implemented by Alan Schaaf.

Here is a peep into the stats of Imgur.com:

6,020,551 Visits

• 13,930,592 Pageviews

• 2.31 Pages/Visit

• 62.68% Bounce Rate

• 00:03:29 Avg. Time on Site

• 24.93% %New Visits

• 280,208,079 Image Views

• 222,993 Images Uploaded

• 168.34 KB Average Image Size

• 35.03 TB Data Transferred

I am sure that it is a little intimidating but that is the kind of impact an entrepreneurial genius can have on the internet world. Most big-shot image hosts have been left way back in the competition. After all, Imgur is a minimilastic, “almost” ad-free and most simplistic interface for hosting your images.

If you want to know what this under-grad has plans after his college, here is what he says:

I’m not exactly sure how right now, but I know I can do it. People ask me to join their start-ups all the time, but I just want to work on Imgur, move to California and buy a sailboat. You can totally come party on my sailboat..

You can vist his home page here.

Hello everybody. This article is a list of businesses that can be started by entrepreneurs while in college. The list is not only for internet entrepreneurs but also contains few business ideas that are not related to the internet. Also I have specially focused this article for college entrepreneurs.

List of businesses for college entrepreneurs:

Content Creation Company:

The internet today is driven by information. All search engines scan the content on websites and then rate their placement. Most webmasters today are looking for high-quality content writers. You will be surprised how many people are looking for content on the internet. It is mainly because many webmasters do not have time to create content or because they write for multiple blogs. A well established Content Creation company provides an excellent avenue for business.

Event Management Company:

This business idea is not related to the internet. In most countries there is an extreme lack of a good event management company. Also, most event management companies are so over-priced that you cannot afford them for usual events. If you have the skills of managing time and have a general liking towards organizing then an Event Management company is a great idea.

Blogging Workshops:

There is a severe deficit of blogging conventions and workshops in many countries except may be the US. So if you are someone who has already established some kind of authority in blogging or you are extremely strong in SEO, then you can start a company which conducts blogging workshops.

Designing Services:

If you have a nice hand at Adobe Photoshop then you can provide great design solutions to small-scale bloggers as well as big websites by designing logo’s for them. They would also require designers for their ad banners of different sizes. Almost all bloggers are today looking for cheap logo designers who can provide them value for money. Your challenge is to catch the clients who are looking for such services. You can charge anywhere from $5 to $200 for a single logo that you design.

Magazines/Booklet:

An idea which was undertaken by Virgin boss Richard Branson when he was 16-years old. Richard Branson launched a succesful magazine while he was just 16. Although it is a little difficult to get started initially but you can be succesful if the value provide in the magazine is good.  Also, another alternative to a magazine is booklets – which can be less capital intensive and easier to manage.

All these ideas would require team work and you can think of starting up provided you have formed the right team for it. In college, it is less difficult to find a team of people who would be willing to work with you.

Best of Luck.