A heavyweight punching bag and a multitude of Bruce Lee posters adorn Jake Brick’s fraternity house room, symbolic of the fighting spirit he will need to compete in the world of e-business.
But Brick is not ready to drop out of school and jump into the ring just yet. A McCormick senior, Brick is biding his time and using the experience and revenue from his fledgling Web design company, Redox Designs, to further his education.
“I just wanted the experience of starting it up to see if I could actually do it,” Brick said. “It’s a résumé-builder.”
Along with extra spending cash, he added, Redox gives him the chance to use new technologies and his own ideas rather than doing a set assignment.
Redox currently employs three other Northwestern students and keeps a client base no bigger than one or two at a time, thereby restricting growth and protecting Brick’s academic focus.
Unlike Brick, Weinberg junior Josh Golden has put academics on the back burner, taking Fall Quarter off to try his luck pursuing elusive dot-com millions. Fireline Networking, Inc. is the brainchild of Golden and Michael Levitt.
Golden and Levitt are using the next three months to “ramp up,” testing the market for Fireline’s proposed residential networking solutions and signing on potential investors and hardware providers.
“It’s very scary leaving school,” Golden said, “but if it means making $30 million before I’m 30, then I’d be content to be 32 and finishing my degree.”
Despite recent dot-com failures and NASDAQ crashes, Golden doesn’t consider Fireline vulnerable to market volatility.
“The market is looking for solid business models and a direct and reasonable path to profitability. (Fireline) is a business that services the growth of information technology, and there is no stopping the growth of IT,” Golden said.
Even with legendary stories of college drop-outs who end up with dot-com millions — including NU’s own Hank Adams and Eric Carbone who sold their company, Extreme Fans, to America Online — the chances of success are dicey at best.
“It’s a big gamble,” attorney John Allen said. “You have to have a very good idea what you want to do and how you want to do it.”
Allen volunteers one day a week at the NU/Evanston Research Park counseling prospective entrepreneurs about the start-up process. Professionals at the Research Park have helped many start-ups navigate the e-business market, including Redox Designs.
“(Allen) leads you through all the legalities,” Brick said. “After I talked to him, it was just a matter of filing the forms. It’s a great service for NU students.”
The Research Park is just one of the many resources available to students who want to start a business. Kellogg Graduate School of Management has a program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation that offers more than 22 courses for credit. Students also can take advantage of annual conferences put on by Kellogg’s Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club. Both Brick and Golden were inspired by the club.
Whether academics are a top priority, both Brick and Golden agree that taking the dot-com plunge is worth it.
“Give it a shot,” Golden said. “Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.”
Dropping out of school, however, may not be the answer for students lured by the promise of instant millions.
“We haven’t had too many overnight millionaires,” Research Park Incubator Director Tim Lavengood said. “In fact, I don’t know how many of those there really are. Some people are content just paying their own bills.”
