In our previous article we explained the benefits of joining the free entrepreneurship programme at UP and how students could benefit from it. The biggest benefit of joining the programme as soon as possible is the advantage of time. It is never too early to start your own business. Entrepreneurship is a skill that can be learned.

While entrepreneurship is the ability to start and grow your business, it is also a mindset that can be developed. As a student, you can decide that you want to develop your own business so that you are not dependent on finding a job after you graduate. This means that you have the potential to be an employer rather than an employee.

Entrepreneurship gives you the freedom to do what you love, to make a difference to an industry or a career field that you are passionate about by providing a product or service that fulfils a need in that space.

To assist you along this path, the Entrepreneurship Professional Online Development (POD) and its subsequent phases of offerings (#Start_UP, #Link_UP and #Grow_UP), will provide successful candidates with all the tools, skills and aid they need to become entrepreneurs.

In the #Start_UP phase, you will refine your business ideas and present them to a team of experienced business managers who will help you by suggesting changes where they see pitfalls. Successful ideas will be assisted to the next phase. 

The advantage of this is that as a young entrepreneur, you will benefit from the skills and experience of expert business managers and analysts who will critically evaluate your ideas. This means that you will not put your time, effort and money into an entrepreneurial project that will fail due to inexperience, poor market analysis, or a lack of need for a particular product or service.

It takes approximately three years to develop an entrepreneurial model for a business that works. Say for example, you complete the POD in your first year; you could have a business that is running by the time you graduate. This means you have the potential to generate your own income, while still being guided by the support provided by UP over the course of your training.

In the current economic climate, many graduates will struggle to find employment, but that does not have to happen to you. All you need to do is have the will and mindset to want to be a leader in your field. With the skills and experience of the UP Entrepreneurship team behind you, and the benefit of your youth looking forward, you have the right mix of time and experience to help make your business idea a success.

Some of the advantages of being a young entrepreneur include:

• You have less commitments and more time on your hands.
• You have the ability to adapt to, and implement new technologies easily.
• You can take more risks in business because you have more time to rectify errors and recover from small losses. This is not the case with older people in business who have more to lose and less time to recover.
• You have a vision for a world that you and your peers will inherit. Your mind is more open to new ideas and ways of thinking. This means your ideas have the ability to change the world.
• You can learn from failures and be better next time.
• You have flexibility and freedom. As a student, you have long holidays in which you can invest in your business ideas. The flexibility of working for yourself can become a lifestyle if your business idea is successful.
• You have support available from the UP entrepreneurship programme.
• You can create networks with your peers. You will all graduate soon, and have the necessary resources to call on in terms of skills and business contacts from among your classmates and fellow alumni in the future.

You can improve your future prospects, and positively affect the lives of those around you by becoming a successful entrepreneur. The skills and resources are available to you.

To get on the road to being a successful entrepreneur, sign up for the Entrepreneurs POD right now. Enrol on http://www.enterprises.up.ac.za/training-solutions/ready4work/