College students may have a lot of time for light hearted partying but some of them are also spending hours transferring what they learned and experienced in the classroom and on campus and turning that knowledge into a thriving business. Millions of college freshmen will flock to campuses nationwide this month as a new school year gets underway. Inevitably some of them will get lost trying to find the nearest ATM or Post Office or Chinese takeout. Jared Stenquist hopes to help them find their way.Stenquist, a self-taught web developer, started CampusLIVE as a hobby while studying at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst. The site allows students on 18 campuses nationwide, including the University of Connecticut and George Mason University, to locate campus services and local businesses without ever leaving their dorm room. The company became so large and well known that it started attracting advertisers. When the advertisers contacted Stenquist, he took a leave of absence from college to work on the business full time. CampusLIVE now employs five full time staff plus interns and made over $100,000 in gross revenue last year.

Finishing college can reap its benefits too. Carlos Leon graduated from Full Sail University with a bachelor’s degree in film. He took the knowledge gained from that and turned the small multimedia company that he started in his parents mobile home into a full service production company. He now can list clients such as Warner Bros., VH1, Sirius and MTV3. Not only did Leon build the company from scratch, he also built the new 1,500 square-foot studio by himself with help from some friends. CML Studios is now grossing $150,000 a year and may make up to $200,000 in 2008. Leon is also going to expand the business this year, adding an online TV channel and a record label.

Both of these college students started young and have made their hobbies into thriving businesses.  Entrepreneurship is all about taking an idea from anywhere and turning it into the next big thing. Think about what you do with your spare time and how it might make a difference to someone somewhere.

Tags: CML Studios, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, Full Sail University, Global Entrepreneurship Week

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Innovators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.