Anti-Senioritis
It is currently 70 days until graduation at the University of Oklahoma, but that all-too-common "senioritis" has yet to set in. Being an entrepreneur while being an Entrepreneurship major doesn't really allow for such excuses to be lazy, and this is a good thing event hough it may seem like a pain while it exists.
The final class for the Entrepreneurship major is aptly named Business Plan (well to be 100% correct it was recently changed to New Venture Development III, but for our purposes Business Plan makes more sense). The journey towards the business plan has been a long one, technically spanning three semesters.
Three semesters ago I started on a plan that was apparently way ahead of its time, in some ways imitating the Holodeck of Star Trek. This sounded really cool from a gaming-oriented mind like my own, but the judges didn't quite see it. To be clear, these projects are all group projects, and I started this gaming dream idea with one of my current Business Plan partners who is also a student (and soon to be non-student) entrepreneur over at Student Accelerator Tips.
For the past two semesters I've been working with three others (EJ, DJ, & Time) on a project called Todarro. This is another idea that is hard for most in the non-techie world of Oklahoma to grasp, but we've been meeting almost nightly for 2 semesters now, often going late into the night from random rooms that we can find open on campus. This is all culminating in a (hopefully) polished business plan that will be submitted this coming Monday, March 7, for the "Governor's Cup," which is a business plan competition among all of the colleges across Oklahoma.
If we make the competition, I will again be occupied almost nightly after classes with preparing for the all important pitch and presentation. In this last semester and this one class, I can safely say I will have worked more outside of class one one project than on all of my classes in my entire college career combined, but as an entrepreneurial exercise this is extremely exciting. Being an entrepreneur is all about making the sacrifices, staying up late, missing out on some parties to go the extra mile and get that necessary work done, and ultimately getting to the excitement of a product launch and sharing your creation with the world.
What you create may not be financially successful, but if that is your only goal I don't think you are really cut out to be an entrepreneur and I don't think you are in it for the right reasons. Money is obviously one of the end goals, but you will never get there without setting your goals higher and going for something new and exciting that will provide value to more people than just yourself.