The Earlier, the Better

If you’re an ambitious student or if you know one, the time to start a business is now!

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the three winners of the first Most Promising Campus CEO Contest. They are Catherine Cook (first place), Corey Kossack (second) and Seth Flowerman (third). Catherine, a high school senior, is founder of myYearbook.com. With 1.7 million members only two years after going live, myYearbook.com is one of the fastest-growing sites on the Internet. You can read more about Catherine and all the finalists by clicking here.

Why did I put so much effort behind the contest? Many of you already know me as the winner of the fourth season of The Apprentice. Earning that opportunity meant fame, a hefty salary and the chance to supervise some challenging projects for Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City.

But if you were to ask me to reveal the real success secret that led me to my Apprentice victory, I would have to point to the fact that I was a student entrepreneur. During my student years, I launched no fewer than five businesses on different campuses. I started one of them with my roommates when we were students at Rutgers University. That enterprise has now grown into BCT Partners, a multimillion-dollar business. Today, I am chairman and CEO.  

The benefits of starting a company while you are a student are unequalled. Let me point out just a few:

• First, your earnings make it possible to graduate college without going into debt. That is what I did.
• Second, the skills and aptitudes you develop allow you to build one success on another for the rest of your career.
• Third, you can keep your business, or sell it, after you finish school.
• Fourth, an educational institution is an ideal place to tap into the knowledge of top business consultants - your instructors - without paying an extra dime.
• Fifth, you can meet influential alumni, rub shoulders with venture capitalists who are looking for promising enterprises and build a strong network of people who will support as you widen your professional activites.

 And those are only a few of the reasons. I am such a strong believer in student entrepreneurship that I wrote a book, Campus CEO,to inspire and advise students who want to launch businesses while they are still in school.

So if are a student dreaming of success, my question to you is, why not now? Of if you know students who have the drive and the vision to start enterprises, I would encourage you to encourage them.

I firmly believe the entrepreneur’s mindset - of creativity, resourcefulness, courageousness, vision and resilience - is empowering and I hope to help foster that outlook in talented young leaders everywhere.