Fishing for Knowledge with Cole

What would you tell a student entrepreneur? Someone who wants to do something on their own, make their own money while still going to

school.

Yeah.

I would say keep it simple.

Good businesses don't have to be very complex.

I think the most important thing is there's a few things.

You want to have a good product that is needed.

And you want to ensure your margins are there.

And you want to be someone who, if you're doing it, say, where your business is straight to a customer and you're chatting with people, you want to make sure that you are able to communicate about your product at first.

And if you can do those three things while keeping it overall simple, I think you can be successful.

Because when you're in school... you're being pushed in a completely different direction than what is business, right? And as an individual, you only have so much bandwidth to be able to push yourself in different directions.

So I think if you're able to really keep your business simple and understand it and have it down to almost a science, you can then obviously put the majority of your time and brainpower into school because school should be your priority because you're investing so much money into it.

the business really, when you're going through school should just be a way of generating cash to help you really, you know, get through your school.

So it's really just about being able to multitask and knowing what's important, right? Because the other day, we're all human, and you can only do so much.

So

Yes.

And you used your funds that you made towards school, towards purchasing a truck, everything you needed for the business, but also your own

home.

Yeah, I was very fortunate enough to purchase my own house in, I think it was 2022.

But it's all about, it's really like, that's one of the hardest part I have as a business owner is like, not even budgeting, but understanding where funds need to go, right? Because you do need to leave a certain amount of money for your 15 market vendor fees and your rent for your commercial kitchen over the winter.

And also you need to pull out some funds to be able to survive during the winter and pay for your school.

So when you're not just solely tied to just making money for the business and you are doing it as a student as well, it's really essential that... you reduce costs where you can and really have everything mapped out because as much as you need to survive, it's essential that you have enough cash put aside to be able to keep the business running as well, right?

Yeah, and I think that's the track that some younger people, even older people would get into is that they want to go out and buy all these new things to start their business.

But you started it by kind of Like, I don't know how to explain it.

It was