The Student Room Group

Would I be stupid to quit uni for my business?

Hi

I need abit of advice

I started my own online business last June and it's 6 months old now and I'm earning about 6k a month from it. It all started as abit of fun but things have really taken off. I started not expecting much but all off a sudden orders increased and we started building a strong client base. Now I want to expand and get a good PR team behind me and improve my marketing techniques to build my brand properly.

My plan this year is to expand our business three fold and hopefully be selling about 20k worth of items a month by this time next year and sell across mulitple channels with online marketing aimed at customers all over the world particularly Canada, Australia & USA .

The progress I've made allows me to know this is 100% possible, if I can be bothered to sell more and I'm ready to expland and a company is willing to invest quite alot into us to take the next step but there is just one thing in my way...........UNI. Right now I am literally running the business myself out of my uni room but it's getting very hard as I'm finding it almost IMPOSSIBLE to juggle the two and there is NO WAY I can expand and do the two.

I'm currently a 1st year student and as said before I started the business not expecting it to grow so big so fast and I can't see myself building my brand fully whilst still at uni.

I have lost all interest for my course now as I am currently earning double now from my business as I dreamed to get from a graduate job and if I continue to further my brand I will keep earning more and more, also I enjoy owning my own company it's become my passion and I want to fight for it to grow, the classic graduate and find a job thing isn't really for me anymore. I have a passion for my brand and customers, not really for my course anymore.


All the money I earn I've been saving I've saved about 25k within the last few months alone, I'm not lavish and most of my friends don't know how lucrative it and how much I can pay myself.


Over Christmas I told my mum I'm considering dropping out of uni and she went MAD her theory is if we go bust of something I'll regret it and she doesn't think I'm ready.

I've been reading alot of books for guidance and it appears most of the most successful people dropped out of uni when they saw their business ventures growing (bill gates, steve jobs, mark zuchenburger) it was a huge risk but it paid off.

At the moment the annual salary I'm able to pay myself will 68,000 after tax. I'm only 18 and eventhough its abit like WOAH (I was hoping to get a 25k job when I graduate)! my parents are both accountants and help me take care of it, I still buy value and my freinds don't know I'm making that much. I know I can make this something more but I don't know whether I should drop out of uni and take the risk.

If you were in my position what would you honestly do? Drop out and grow the business or stay at uni?

Thanks a lot in advance

Scroll to see replies

Hmm this is a hard one.
Reply 2
Could you provide a tl;dr
Reply 3
Original post by U.S Lecce
Could you provide a tl;dr


Guy shows off because he's making good money.

/end
Reply 4
You have to be 200% commited to make it work. If you are then I don't see why not.
Reply 5
Original post by SpecialMode
Hi

I need abit of advice

I started my own online business last June and it's 6 months old now and I'm earning about 6k a month from it. It all started as abit of fun but things have really taken off. I started not expecting much but all off a sudden orders increased and we started building a strong client base. Now I want to expand and get a good PR team behind me and improve my marketing techniques to build my brand properly.

My plan this year is to expand our business three fold and hopefully be selling about 20k worth of items a month by this time next year and sell across mulitple channels with online marketing aimed at customers all over the world particularly Canada, Australia & USA .

The progress I've made allows me to know this is 100% possible, if I can be bothered to sell more and I'm ready to expland and a company is willing to invest quite alot into us to take the next step but there is just one thing in my way...........UNI. Right now I am literally running the business myself out of my uni room but it's getting very hard as I'm finding it almost IMPOSSIBLE to juggle the two and there is NO WAY I can expand and do the two.

I'm currently a 1st year student and as said before I started the business not expecting it to grow so big so fast and I can't see myself building my brand fully whilst still at uni.

I have lost all interest for my course now as I am currently earning double now from my business as I dreamed to get from a graduate job and if I continue to further my brand I will keep earning more and more, also I enjoy owning my own company it's become my passion and I want to fight for it to grow, the classic graduate and find a job thing isn't really for me anymore. I have a passion for my brand and customers, not really for my course anymore.


All the money I earn I've been saving I've saved about 25k within the last few months alone, I'm not lavish and most of my friends don't know how lucrative it and how much I can pay myself.


Over Christmas I told my mum I'm considering dropping out of uni and she went MAD her theory is if we go bust of something I'll regret it and she doesn't think I'm ready.

I've been reading alot of books for guidance and it appears most of the most successful people dropped out of uni when they saw their business ventures growing (bill gates, steve jobs, mark zuchenburger) it was a huge risk but it paid off.

At the moment the annual salary I'm able to pay myself will 68,000 after tax. I'm only 18 and eventhough its abit like WOAH (I was hoping to get a 25k job when I graduate)! my parents are both accountants and help me take care of it, I still buy value and my freinds don't know I'm making that much. I know I can make this something more but I don't know whether I should drop out of uni and take the risk.

If you were in my position what would you honestly do? Drop out and grow the business or stay at uni?

Thanks a lot in advance


Also do you know any good domains to start a website on I need one. Plus any website designers thanks
Original post by SpecialMode
long post


Why are you still at uni anyway? :tongue:
You're not interested in the course, there's more money in leaving, so why would you bother staying?
It's not like you can't come back at some point if it doesn't work out...
Reply 7
Original post by EsStupido
Guy shows off because he's making good money.

/end


Original post by U.S Lecce
Could you provide a tl;dr


I am not here to show off or anything of the sort I just want real students to give me their opinion.
Reply 8
Bill Gates dropped out of university and so did the guy who made Napster.
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 9
Na bro, think of alan branson... and that richard sugar guy - worked out well for them!:d
Reply 10
Original post by SpecialMode
I am not here to show off or anything of the sort I just want real students to give me their opinion.


What opinion could a bunch of broke-ass students give you that'd matter?

At the end of the day, why would you need a degree if you're making such good money? If you're unconvinced about your business as a future then it clearly doesn't have one.
Reply 11
Original post by wavey93
Also do you know any good domains to start a website on I need one. Plus any website designers thanks


Hi, the best domain provider and most cost effective is cheapdomainnames , in regards to web designers it depends on what exactly you are going to be using the website for and your budget?
Reply 12
Original post by SpecialMode
Hi

I need abit of advice

I started my own online business last June and it's 6 months old now and I'm earning about 6k a month from it. It all started as abit of fun but things have really taken off. I started not expecting much but all off a sudden orders increased and we started building a strong client base. Now I want to expand and get a good PR team behind me and improve my marketing techniques to build my brand properly.

My plan this year is to expand our business three fold and hopefully be selling about 20k worth of items a month by this time next year and sell across mulitple channels with online marketing aimed at customers all over the world particularly Canada, Australia & USA .

The progress I've made allows me to know this is 100% possible, if I can be bothered to sell more and I'm ready to expland and a company is willing to invest quite alot into us to take the next step but there is just one thing in my way...........UNI. Right now I am literally running the business myself out of my uni room but it's getting very hard as I'm finding it almost IMPOSSIBLE to juggle the two and there is NO WAY I can expand and do the two.

I'm currently a 1st year student and as said before I started the business not expecting it to grow so big so fast and I can't see myself building my brand fully whilst still at uni.

I have lost all interest for my course now as I am currently earning double now from my business as I dreamed to get from a graduate job and if I continue to further my brand I will keep earning more and more, also I enjoy owning my own company it's become my passion and I want to fight for it to grow, the classic graduate and find a job thing isn't really for me anymore. I have a passion for my brand and customers, not really for my course anymore.


All the money I earn I've been saving I've saved about 25k within the last few months alone, I'm not lavish and most of my friends don't know how lucrative it and how much I can pay myself.


Over Christmas I told my mum I'm considering dropping out of uni and she went MAD her theory is if we go bust of something I'll regret it and she doesn't think I'm ready.

I've been reading alot of books for guidance and it appears most of the most successful people dropped out of uni when they saw their business ventures growing (bill gates, steve jobs, mark zuchenburger) it was a huge risk but it paid off.

At the moment the annual salary I'm able to pay myself will 68,000 after tax. I'm only 18 and eventhough its abit like WOAH (I was hoping to get a 25k job when I graduate)! my parents are both accountants and help me take care of it, I still buy value and my freinds don't know I'm making that much. I know I can make this something more but I don't know whether I should drop out of uni and take the risk.

If you were in my position what would you honestly do? Drop out and grow the business or stay at uni?

Thanks a lot in advance


mate, my advice is go for it.

High risk, high gain.

Good luck.
Reply 13
Original post by EsStupido
What opinion could a bunch of broke-ass students give you that'd matter?

At the end of the day, why would you need a degree if you're making such good money? If you're unconvinced about your business as a future then it clearly doesn't have one.


I don't see them as 'broke ass students' I think a person can bring a valuable thought no matter their pocket size.

You obviously haven't read my post have you? I started my business without the thought of it growing now it has I'm wondering whether to take the risk and drop out to pursue it.

I don't see any point in answering the question 'why would you need a degree if you're making such good money?' Seems a rather silly question to me.
Reply 14
Original post by awais590
mate, my advice is go for it.

High risk, high gain.

Good luck.


Cheers mate.
Reply 15
I would go for it! If you wanted to go back to uni you'll be able to reapply in the future. Are you liable for everything though? cause if you went bust and lost everything paying for uni could be difficult...
Reply 16
A pr team? For an online business? All you need is SEO and targetted traffic. I cant understand how people build succesful online businesses and still have no real knowledge. Pm me with an email or something and we can work out a deal. I hand out 1k/pm SEO contracts to local businesses and increase traffic (traffic + product = revenue hurr durr) so therefore, profit.

And if you hire anybody to do anything BUT SEO/design/accountant/lawyer you can outsource to the philipenes (much more reliable than indians) for less than £300 a month a worker who works 8/hrs a day. I can hook you up with old employees no worries. These dudes are great for boring tasks like adding content, data entry etc.

and remember, make sure your self employed, and claim loads as expenses :wink:


ps, last bit of advice, you can work your ass building a brand, or open up several sites (1 a month), hire philipene workers to keep it running round the clock, wait 8 months and flip them. Flip means sell. £6k p/m on one site works out a cool 100k if you get a good broker.

That could be 100k p/m if you hustle hard then you can invest in something worthwhile, software, membership sites, high end domain flipping, buying websites that look like **** but make okay money, work on them for a month, hire a designer, flip for several more k, b&m businesses, stocks, etcetcetcetcetcetce.

The point of the online world is never do anything yourself, the famous 4 hour work week eg, if you hire me to do SEO, ill send detailed instructions to my guy in the philipenes and thats £700 a month for me for providing instructions.
Reply 17
Ahh but what about uni life?!? That's what i'd miss the most!
Reply 18
Original post by SpecialMode
I don't see them as 'broke ass students' I think a person can bring a valuable thought no matter their pocket size.

You obviously haven't read my post have you? I started my business without the thought of it growing now it has I'm wondering whether to take the risk and drop out to pursue it.


Where's the risk? You've found a niche in the market to allow yourself to earn good money.

What's strange about all this is you've made it a success, yet at the same time, you're not very confident about it.

I don't see any point in answering the question 'why would you need a degree if you're making such good money?' Seems a rather silly question to me.


How so? Thousands of very successful people have built big businesses without degrees.
Reply 19
Original post by TShadow383
Why are you still at uni anyway? :tongue:
You're not interested in the course, there's more money in leaving, so why would you bother staying?
It's not like you can't come back at some point if it doesn't work out...





Thanks girls, I think it's just the whole process I'm abit scared of, leaving my friends, no education,going out there and employing people and building my brand, it is as exciting as it is scary.

Also I was thinking if you have a degree you can always refer back to it whereas, if God forbid anything happens to my company I will go back to square one.

However I think as someone highlelighted, high risk, high gain.

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