Archive for June 2010
Don’t Drop Out, Take a Gap Year
This post has been marinading for a while but after a friend sent me a recent news article asking my opinion I knew I had to throw my noise out there. The article, “A College Student and a CEO: a Profile of 21 Year Old Entrepreneur Jay Rodrigues” speaks of Jay Rodrigues, a motivated, talented, student entrepreneur, who manages classes and exams along with customers, team and now an investor. The article makes the case there is hope yet for students who want to pursue startups whilst still at college.
WRONG.
There is no point in saying that you cannot stay in class and pursue a startup. I did it, I know people who do it, and Jay seems to be having a good crack at things. But the problem with the article is it’s angled at “you don’t have to be a Zuckerberg or a Gates”, i.e. you don’t have to try to be an exception, you can try and stay at school, raise money, and grow a successful company.
WRONG.
On a different spectrum, Rodrigues is as much of an exception as Zuckerberg or Gates. It is sending completely the wrong message to students who are on the cusp of something interesting, unable to fully break out because they’ve got school on the line. The article was somewhat in response to Caterina Fake’s provocative article “Want to Be an Entrepreneur? Drop Out of College.”
The topic of student entrepreneurship is particularly close to me. My first fore-ray into the Boston startup scene, I called out some of the biggest VCs in town for not doing enough to engage students. My first real experience with blogging was from College Mogul, a small content site highlight student entrepreneurial endeavors. I dropped out of school in December last year, and have tried to convince my co-founder to do so ever since.
Let me insert a little hypothetical exercise. You go to college to get a job when you graduate. Let’s say you want to go to Microsoft or Goldman Sachs. After two years of taking classes, entrepreneurship starts to take your interest. So you work on something, there’s a bit of traction, you’re coming close to the end of junior year.
Scenario 1: You get an internship, but not at Microsoft or Goldmans. You are piled back into the list for interview rounds a year later.
Scenario 2: You get an internship at Microsoft or Goldmans. You have a decent shot at getting the grad offer.
Scenario 3: You take a year off, you pursue your startup. It fails, you finish off your degree, a year later, you are the top interviewing candidate with the most kick-ass story when doing your interview rounds. Job prospects go through the roof.
Scenario 4: You take a year off, you pursue your startup, you love what you do, you get a feature in the New York Times six-months later.
The Gap Year thing doesn’t really seem too popular in the States. I don’t know why. When I finished high school, I took a Gap Year with my best friend to London. We worked hard, traveled far, learned things about the world and about ourselves. I’m currently on my second gap year, working hard, traveling far, learning things about the world and about myself.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re committed to your venture above all else. If you are committed to your adventure above all else, you will have the best chance of succeeding. Do yourself a favor. If you’re an entrepreneur, and a student, take a year off school, it’s one of the easiest risk-reward decisions you’ll probably ever make.
