Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.
Weekly hours budget between degree and startup
Most student founders who fail a module did not decide to neglect it; the startup simply took whatever hours were free that week. Writing down your contact hours, independent study, paid work and sleep first, then giving the startup a fixed number of hours from what is left, turns a vague ambition into a week you can actually keep.
First tasks
- List every timetabled lecture, lab and seminar for this term
- Estimate your weekly independent study hours per module
- Block paid work, travel and at least seven hours of sleep a night
- Write down the startup hours left over and the exam week figure
University intellectual property policy check
Some universities claim a share of anything students create using university staff, labs, funding or as part of assessed work, and the wording differs a great deal between institutions and courses. Reading the policy before the product grows is far cheaper than discovering a claim when an investor asks who owns the code.
First tasks
- Download the university's current student intellectual property policy
- List the university labs, data, staff help or funding the startup has used
- Email the enterprise office asking whether the university claims any interest
- File the policy and the reply together in the startup's records
Map of campus startup resources
Universities often run an enterprise office, an incubator, a makerspace, legal clinics, free software licences, alumni mentors and small grants, and most students hear about them only in their final year. A single page listing what exists, who runs it and how to get in saves months of finding out by accident.
First tasks
- Search the university website for enterprise, incubator and entrepreneurship pages
- Ask the entrepreneurship society which campus services founders actually use
- Book a short meeting with the enterprise office
- Check the campus events listing for founder talks and workshops @recurring(monthly:5)
