It’s been quite a ride for us at Brand-Yourself.com the past few weeks. Originally we decided not to enter Syracuse University’s annual Panasci Business Plan Competition so that we could focus solely on launching the business. However, a few weeks before the deadline, we suddenly changed our minds. Why not?

The competition was fierce but friendly. Over 100 entrants were whittled down to 16 semi-finalists, who were whittled down to the top 5. These top 5 then battled it out for a chance at the $40,000 prize.

We’d like to take a moment to thank all of our competition from the semi-finals onward. You guys were great and forced us to put in 110%. We’ve all come out stronger for it.

So, thank you:

• Bike N Go
• BioRhythms
• Bolivia Fair Trade
• Boogienomics
• Dream Water
• Edu X Perience
• Help Connect
• Impression, LLC
• Let Us Fish
• Light Innovations
• Lur-nid
• Secure Order
• Acoustar.com
• Some Where Out There
• Water Enhancement Techniques, Inc.

Also, congratulations to Dream Water who took first place!

While we didn’t win the competition, we did come out winning the Dreamer & Doer award. More importantly though, we learned invaluable lessons from our competition, our advisers and our judges. We’re confident that this experience will allow us to create a better personal branding web platform for you.

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To date I have launched two companies; Charles River Web Connections (CRWC) and Brand-Yourself.com. CRWC launched while I was still a sophomore in high school. Both companies are going strong.

College-aged business owners aren’t a rarity these days, but starting a serious business as a high school student is still intimidating. Getting a business off the ground is the first obstacle a young entrepreneurs faces today. Good ideas are everywhere, but to make them into great ideas, you have to put them into action. You can start your own company at any age. Entrepreneurship isn’t just for people with specific business training; it’s for anyone who wants to take advantage of an opportunity. Here are some tips to help you get started:

1) Starting a company at an early age can give you a competitive edge. Young people have many creative ideas flowing, and often a substantial amount of free time. If you’re doing something you love, thinking about your company becomes your daydreaming. I had always been around computers, and my business grew out of that. Another key motivation for me was the desire to manage my own schedule, and be able to plan my work around my other interests.

2) Be prepared to make mistakes and ask for help. When I first started CRWC I did a lot of shooting in the dark. If I didn’t know how to do something, I found someone who did. At first, I was surprised to realize how much information and advice was available. People love giving advice about things they have a passion for. The knowledge was there, I just had to ask the right questions. Don’t be timid; learn as you go – you don’t need to have it all figured out at the very beginning; it’s an educational process.

3) Perfect your time management skills. Handling a triple-major workload and a rapidly growing company requires an extraordinary amount of efficiency. Once you reach the level of being able to plan out your time and sit down and work through projects, you’ll find that you can get a surprising amount of work done at once. Standardizing and streamlining day-to-day processes to minimize inefficiencies is often helpful in both the short- and long-term. If administrative processes are “lean”-efficient and easy to duplicate-entrepreneurs can spend less time supervising and more time expanding on new ideas.

4) Balance, balance, balance. Earning an undergraduate degree and running a business both require a lot of time, but I still make time for other things I love, including dirt biking, woodworking, photography, and some occasional XBOX. Having other interests and a social life is crucial to avoiding early burn-out. Don’t develop “target fixation”-concentrating too hard on one problem. Being creative and efficient often requires a fresh mind, so time away from work is imperative.

5) When you’re ready to grow, choose carefully. Be selective about who you hire when the time to expand comes. Make sure their goals are aligned with your own, and pay close attention to their work habits. Hiring people who bring out the best in your company, people you can work with, is very important. It’s important to have well-written contracts that minimize liability and protect both the owner and the employee. Being clear about expectations from the very beginning is central to creating a healthy work environment.

6) Creative marketing is key. One mistake I made early on is that I wasn’t innovative enough in my marketing strategies. Since then I’ve learned to keep my target audience in the forefront of my mind at all times. It’s important to think like potential clients and walk through each step to get an idea of what the marketing piece looks like from the other end. You have to be in the places where they’d look for you, otherwise you’re just wasting time and money.

7) Stay focused. Don’t let your entrepreneurial spirit shut off the second you take the leap into starting your business. That’s just the beginning. Stay opportunity-focused. There is a way to use everything to your advantage, so keep being creative! And a special piece of advice for college students: there’s a useful little thing I like to call “the morning.” Don’t forget to use it! From nine to noon the dorms are quiet, and your clients are already at the office – it’s a great time to clear administrative work out of the way.

I am the director of the web design company Charles River Web Connections and co-founder of the personal branding platform, Brand-Yourself.com.

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We are very proud to announce that Brand-Yourself.com has officially launched as a private beta!

We are excited to give the first 50 people that register for an account 2 totally free months of use. All we ask is that you report any problems you encounter on the support forum. Register fast, because half the private beta slots were filled in a matter of hours!

In other news, we are in first place on IdeaBlob’s $10,000 idea contest. The idea with the most votes at the end of the month wins, and voting for us reopens on April 22. So please, next week, vote for us on IdeaBlob – if you did already, we need your vote again! (They clear our past votes when next week arrives). We could use the $10,000 to speed up the development of new features!

We are also eagerly preparing for this Friday, when we present Brand-Yourself.com at Syracuse University’s $25,000 Panasci Business Plan competition. If you’re in town and want to support us, we will be presenting on Friday the 18th at 2:00 in room 202 of the Whitman School of Management. We look forward to seeing you there!

- The Brand-Yourself.com Team

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We couldn’t be more happy!

Between 4/1 to 4/7, we received the most votes on IdeaBlob’s Monthly Showdown, where entrepreneurs and small business owners “can share and grow their business ideas – and have a chance to win $10,000 towards fulfilling them.”

Users vote on the best ideas, and the idea with the most votes at the end of the month wins $10,000 to make it a reality.

Come back and vote between April 22 and April 30 to make Brand-Yourself.com the winning idea! Otherwise, we’ll have to borrow money from our friends and family (who only love us so much).

So come April 22, vote for Brand-Yourself.com on IdeaBlob!

- Pete Kistler

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