When you are heading off to college, it’s an exciting time. Life is full of possibilities when you’ve just graduated from high school and have your whole life ahead of you. Sure, it’s hard to leave your friends behind as you go your separate ways and attend a school far away from home. New adventures and experiences await at your new university and your four years there will be a time of incredible growth. There will also be great parties, weekend football games and the freedom of living away from home for the first time.
Most people wait until they are in the middle of their college years before really thinking about their future career. Many graduates simply opt for a degree followed by a routine entry level job that doesn’t usually pay that much. There is another path you can take, though. If you would like to be your own boss, make great money in life and have the freedom to work from anywhere, you should consider starting a tech business while you are enrolled in college. Then, when you graduate, you can already have a successful company where you bring in top dollar for your skills and services.
Getting the Education You Need
The first thing you’ll need to do to assure your success is to get the education you’ll need. When you enroll in the university immediately sign up for the best technical, business and marketing courses. You’ll need to develop skills in several programming and layout languages, including PHP, JavaScript and CSS. Taking a graphics design course is also a great idea. From there, make sure you get solid business courses that cover the nuts and bolts of running a firm and most importantly, marketing.
It costs a lot of money to get a four-year degree these days. In order to make sure you can pay for college and still have time to start your business, it pays to talk to a private lender about taking out a student loan. Private lenders such as banks, financial firms and credit unions offer student loans with rates that are very favorable right now. With financing in place, you’ll be able to get the courses you need now and pay for your education over time.
Starting a Web Development Company
While there are different tech business models you might consider, one of the best options to consider is to start a web design and development venture. Every business or organization needs a great website to impress customers, and if you possess marketing, technical and design skills you can quickly pitch and sign-up clients who can benefit from what you have to offer. Once you have a portfolio of websites that showcase your work, you can move from selling services to a broad range of companies and start to focus on a niche. By focusing on clients in a specific industry or market segment you will be able to tailor your marketing message to directly address your prospects’ needs. This will help you build your business even more quickly.
Use the Right Software and Tools for Your Business
If you are going to be a successful web developer, you’ll want to make sure that you select the best software and tools for your business. This is the biggest first step you can take to assuring that you can create top-notch, professional websites for clients. While it is possible to hand-code a site, it’s far better to use a Content Management System (CMS) as the framework for your web development. WordPress is the top CMS and is currently used to power around 40% of the sites on the web.
When you choose WordPress, you also have tremendous choices for your other software and tools. You will need to research and choose a WordPress theme company. It’s helpful to think of WordPress as the engine of the car and themes as the body design and all the features. Theme companies will offer pre-made website design templates that will suit any of your client’s needs. The themes can be modified, in many cases without coding, and there are even themes for specific industry segments.
