IT Milk: entry

A couple of months ago, I had a great business idea that would leverage the tens of thousands of students here at Penn State University. I was confident about its success so I took the idea to the Lion Launch Pad (Penn State’s student business incubator) to apply for funding and business assistance.

Along the way, I discovered another startup that was taking the same business model to a broader scope at the national level and doing it with the same goals that I had envisioned. I was impressed by what they had done so far and immediately took a liking to it.

Instead of pursuing my own business idea, I thought it would be better to use my potential energy to help out this new startup make their product more successful. Meanwhile, I figured that I could still pursue my goal of targeting Penn State University by offering a localized marketing campaign for this startup. This product is a nationwide movement of students. It would be extremely valuable for any student-focused product to gain even a fraction of Penn State’s 40,000+ students for its user base.

So I applied for a campus representative position for this company and, if everything proceeds smoothly, I will soon be responsible for pushing this product at Penn State.

Originally, I had a lot of hope for my own plans for developing this business idea. But, in this case, I immediately recognized that this other company had already developed a great product, and that they were doing it better than I would be able to. I will be able to accomplish more in the long run by swallowing my pride and offering my help.

I will be writing in more detail about this in the next couple of weeks. I am excited about launching this product at Penn State and I can definitely see it catching on quick with our students here.