Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brian all share a few enviable accomplishments. They’re billionaires, and they started their businesses while they were still students.

Fresno City College has a very superb business program, but also some exceptional students who are either attempting to start up their own businesses, or already have existing businesses.

These student entrepreneurs spoke about the hardship that come along with planning a business, incorporating those ideas into real life and financially supporting one’s ideas along the way.

Catherine Gonzalez, “Katt”, is a Fresno City College student works on her current business, Organs Spotless, in her spare time.

Organs Spotless is an organic cleaning company because Gonzales is all about “saving the earth.”  She aspires to start a second business which will be foster youth based, sometime in the near future. At the moment she has one employee.

Gonzalez urges other student entrepreneurs to not “be inferior to others and their  ideas  and to “own their thoughts and let them grow.”

Similarly, Charles Price, a 29-year-old Fresno City College student operates his own company, BLK Entertainment, which he started at the age of 26.

“BLK Entertainment is a company which consists of multiple businesses including, videography, photography, management, graphics, promotion, brand and imaging consulting as well as video marketing,.” Price said. “[It] is a collective of all skills under one umbrella.”

Price said he grew up in poverty and wants to improve the quality of life for not only his family but also for surrounding families in need.

“I’m really driven by the desire to change people’s lives,” Price said..

“If you add up all of the small change, it creates big value,” Price said.  He added that he believes that making small changes now will lead to growth in the future.

Students looking to become entrepreneurs should heed these advices from

1. Don’t be naïve.
2. Learn how to delegate and build a compatible team — Delegation is important because one cannot do everything single handedly. Build a team with multiple skillsets and who complement each other and work well together.
3. Keep an open mind — There are so many opportunities out there; don’t just sit back and wait for things to happen. Work on other opportunities and get things out there.
4. Validate your idea before executing — Learn more, talk to people, validate your idea and make sure that there’s a real market and interest before you even start to execute on the idea.
5. Take advantage of being a student — Reach out to mentors; ask people questions; Take advantage of the business plan competitions, hackathons and other resources that are open to aspiring student entrepreneurs.

“Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t,” Warren Buffett, one of this country’s most famous entrepreneurs said. “So that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”