Are you a college student with an entrepreneurial spirit?
If so, there has never been a better time to start your own business.
While you may be worried that your budget is already overburdened, many students have actually funded their business ideas by adopting lesser known but very creative strategies.
4 Creative Ways to Fund Your Business as a College Student
Just because you’re a college student doesn’t mean you can’t take on the title of CEO, too. In fact, there are a number of reasons why starting a business while in college makes perfect sense.
So long as you have a good idea and plenty of drive, these four creating funding methods will take care of the money.
1. Speak with Alumni
One of the best reasons to launch your business while you’re still a student is because you’ll probably never have this much access to free advice again.
Your college’s alumni association is full of people who would love to help students at their alma mater.
Best of all, many of them are going to have experience in the field you plan on entering. Contact them and politely ask for a meeting to pick their brain a bit.
If your idea eventually becomes promising enough, you might even have your first investor or two along with all the free advice you’ve just received.
2. Apply to an Incubator
A much more direct approach is to seek out an incubator program for college students.
Not every city has them and in order to apply for most of them, your business either needs to be up and running (though not necessarily profiting yet) or you’ll need a very sound business plan.
However, the payoff will be focused attention by proven experts in your field and potentially a lot of money for your idea.
3. Take Advantage of Crowdfunding
If you have a solid, well though-out idea but no incubators in town or generous alumni with deep pockets, you still have one massive opportunity: crowdfunding.
In short, crowdfunding to raise money for your business entails using platforms like Kickstarter to find investors all over the world. More investors mean each one has to provide less cash to get your business off the ground.
4. Leverage Your Private Student Loan
Despite what you may have heard, you can definitely use your student loans to cover living expenses.
While popular college pastimes like late nights at the bar and going on Spring Break don’t count as “living expenses,” this category does cover:
- Rent
- Utilities
- Groceries
Those first two are very important. Don’t waste money finding office space. Just run your business out of your college apartment, which you’re paying for with your student loans, and use the money you pay for your new company.
Don’t Wait to Bring Your Business Idea to Life
As you just saw, college students have fourproven options for funding their business ideas, so there should be no reason to delay. The longer you hesitate, the better the chances are of someone else stumbling upon your winning idea.
So take steps right now and by the time you graduate, you may no longer need to worry about finding that first job – because you already created one.
