Washing windows may not be the job of a lifetime but Reed MacDonald said being your own entrepreneur makes for a valuable experience.
The 21-year-old business student from St. Albert started Sods & Odds last year with his brother and two friends.
The company provides window washing, lawn care, spring clean-up and driveway sealing services in the summer months between their university studies.
“I have to say, it just kind of happened. We ran through a few ideas and thought of different things and finally said maybe we do lawn maintenance or window washing,” he said.
“As students you don’t have a lot of capital to start up a company but with window washing all you need is a squeegee and ambition.”
It wasn’t always that easy.
MacDonald said they worked hard on getting the business on its feet. In the first week, they handed out over 1,000 flyers but only received three calls for jobs.
They also dealt with customers who refused to pay them or questioned their ability to do the job.
But MacDonald said there are also perks to being a young entrepreneur.
“In some sense it can help you because people see that you are a student and want to help you,” he said.
“As long as you are persistent and keep going you’ll be able to do it.”
It is not uncommon for students to create their own business in the summer, said Ray DePaul, director at the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Calgary-based Mount Royal University.
Most student-run businesses are landscaping or window washing companies, but there are also entrepreneurs who run shops for drive-through oil changes or own a food truck during the summer.
DePaul said the skills and mindset students pick up during these few months give them valuable knowledge in the future, whether they stay in the business or not.
“This can really help a student grow and the lessons will be remembered forever,” he said.
“They finish a course and things will trickle out of their memory. But if you go out and see how valuable it is and how important it is to make your livelihood that summer it will stick with you much better.”
He added that all new businesses have credibility issues to face – whether you are in your early twenties or late fifties. But there are many industries and activities linked to younger people, such as web design.
And many people will go out of their way to help see students succeed, he said.
The major mistake any business owner can make is misunderstanding their customer’s needs. DePaul said entrepreneurs need to differentiate their business from others or find a niche in the market that will get them hired.
“If you start your own business you wear multiple hats and you are expected to solve all kinds of problems yourself and you have very little support which can be scary,” he said.
“And that’s why one of the key things you can do is get some mentorship and get people who are helping you.”
In Sean Colvin’s case, mentorship came through University First Class Painters.
The Canada-wide business provides students with everything from business training, to solving liability and accounting questions. In return, students get to run their own painting franchise under the University Painters banner.
ColvinPusch Painting was launched this year and provides residential and commercial painting services in the Edmonton area. Colvin said he and a partner find the jobs, hire the painters and manage the business.
The initial cost of purchasing equipment may be high but Colvin said it made for a great return.
“There’s an incredible amount of freedom that comes along with this job … and another benefit would be the huge amount of potential for making your own money,” he said.
“You develop a strong work-minded independence and do things for yourself instead of for someone else.”
MacDonald said he found mentorship through speaking with local business owners and doing a lot of research online. At first, he said, it’s difficult dealing with business licenses, insurance and legal procedures.
But when he returns to school in the fall he knows what the professor is talking about, he said.
“If you go into business school, that gives you the book sense on how to run a business, all the terms, but you need the real world sense,” he said.
“So we decided to do something about it.”
