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I'm going to just share something with you that my mentor that changed my life forever.
This man had a million dollar company, he was respected by his community, he had a special
needs child that he loved her, with unconditional love just someone you want to look up too.
He said if you want to be successful, you have to be willing to do what other won't
so you can then have what other people don't. Let me say that one more again, he said you
have to be willing to do what other won't so you can then have what other people don't.
One of the most important lessons for you to learn is don't talk yourself out of a good
idea or of trying to do something just because you think your not old enough, your not smart
enough, your black, your white, your male, your female. All of those things are excuses.
A good idea, is a good idea and the people that you see on T.V. that are successful are
not smarter then you. They just did something about it.
You have to put yourself out there and tell people what you want to do. Were going into
2012 here, no one is coming up to you guys. You have to tell people exactly what you want
to do. Because you never know what that next step is going to be.
There is no shame in failing in life. Entreprenuers fail a lot. In fact, if you never fail your
not pushing hard enough. People that push the envelope fall. You don't become a world
class downhill skier unless you are willing to try it and fall a few times until you get
it right.
Kent State has the most comphrensive entreprenuership program in Northeast Ohio. Students who come
here can major in entrepreneurship, they can also minor in entreprenuership. So maybe there
is something else you want to focus on, but you want to have enough of a background through
a minor. We umm have students who are launching student businesses, students who are running
student businesses. So you don't have to wait until you get done with college to become
an entrepreneur, you can actually do it while your in college.
Any business is taking a step to get over your fear. I think when we all started our
businesses, umm we were scared to do it. Everybody has a fear and its the part of getting over
it.
Last year, I decided I was like, I need to finally start a business and get up there
myself. And without the program helping me it's a lot harder. But coming into this program
you have a good idea and most people do have good ideas, but the only ones that succeed
are the ones that really act on it. And that's what I found to be most successful with, is
that all the teachers and the EIR's, they all have your back. They'll help you whenever
you want. They'll mentor you and give you the connections. And pretty much if you have
the drive they will help you succeed.
I did the Ultimate Bootstrapping when I was here. I raised about 1400 dollars from my
advertisers. I went to the computer science building for a couple of days and ended up
getting some kid to build me a website umm for 1400 bucks. He probably ended up working
for like 3 dollars an hour when it was all said and done. But umm he built the uglist
website you would have ever seen in your life. But umm we had about 750 transcations. Umm
and still at my age I was a Junior, getting into my Senior year of college. I had no idea
what I had or even what I was doing. And umm in the entreprenuership program I went to
Craig Zamary and he pretty much coached me. I started taking some classes and I feel in
love with it. And I Knew that was what I wanted to do. But since then I have brought on four
main business partners, we have grown to 43 schools. We have actually just took on a large
amount of funding and moved the company to Boston and I have never looked back. You know,
it's been an amazing ride and I've met some of the most amazing people in the field. All
you need an idea and run with it. As long as you have the people around you to help
build it and the ability of passion to go after it.