Starting a Business During Our Freshman Year in College
We created ROCS during our freshman year at George Mason University with no real clue as to what we were doing. The two of us combined had a total of 0 years experience in human resources or staffing and a whopping $400 in funding to work with (Brandon’s $200 was credit from downsizing his campus meal plan.) We didn’t know much about the student job market we were entering other than the fact that we didn’t really like it.
Ignoring the Haters
When telling people about our new business start-up idea years ago, we got many reactions. The majority being: chuckling, doubting, and waiting for a punch-line (when we stopped talking, they thought a punch-line was coming.)
Our Secret Recipe
- We told people who we were
- We told them what we could do for them
- We worked as hard as we could to get the job done
- And if we messed up anywhere along the way, we admitted it
Thats basically it. No secret recipes. If you expected more, sorry. This process has worked for us so far and we think its the best way to have a chance of becoming a great company. It’s not very complicated. It can be extremely demanding, challenging, and time consuming—but not complicated.
Keeping Things Simple
We avoid arduous processes, strict rules or complex plans for the company to follow. They slow things down and never work. What we do have instead, are some simple phrases that we use to keep us going in the right direction.
A few Concepts & Ideas we live by:
- Return lost wallets, hold open doors, and don’t disappoint mom
- Make a friend, not a sale
- Tricks are for kids
- Arriving late to an early morning meeting due to last nights college two-for-one special is a legitimate excuse
We will be adding our thoughts and reasoning of each throughout the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for the updated posts..
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Great simple write-up! I believe this. When I was in college, I started my own ‘web design’ company and got many clients who were at first skeptical. I never did lie to them though – I admitted I was a student, still learning, but was willing to work hard to deliver on their needs and it worked. 8 Years later, I still go by the same belief in honesty and treating people properly. They will come back for more and more and bring friends along with them.
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