Businesses Started by Undergraduate Entrepreneurs

• Aquarium Service
• Coffee shop
• College marketing, promotions, and consulting firm
• Computer retailer
• Computer sales and repairs
• Custom cookie business
• Deejay business
• Designing classic video game controllers
• Dorm design and dorm accessories
• Driftwood art furniture and accessory company
• Genealogy software company
• Glow-in-the-dark bicycle technology
• Greeting card company
• Gymnastics business
• International network of reptile breeders
• Landscaping company
• Manufacturing and retailing gardening accessories
• Motivational speaking company
• Music business
• Online investment newsletter
• PDA communications computer consulting
• Real-estate developer
• Rehabilitation software company
• Residential and commercial painting company
• Retail clothing store
• Sign manufacturer
• Web hosting company
• Web sites where students can list and exchange textbooks
• Web/graphic design
• Window cleaning service
• Workout facility/gym

Well-Known Businesses Started by Undergraduate Students:
In addition to Microsoft, Dell, Napster, Netscape, FedEx, Apple, Tripod, and TheGlobe.com, here are some other enterprises started by undergraduate entrepreneurs:

• Virante, “Web marketing services for emerging growth and high potential companies,” started by Ryan Allis when he was in high school and revived when he was a student at the University of North Carolina.
• Mistico Jewelry, started by Missy Fine in high school and continued when she went to college at Babson College, Babson Park, MA.
• Plaxo, started by Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring when Ring was working on his master’s degree. Plaxo keeps people connected by solving the problem of out-of-date contact information.
• CertificateSwap.com, founded by Cameron Johnson when he was a 19-year-old student at Virginia Tech and later sold. Johnson then started EMazingSites.com, a search-engine optimization site.
• Dream On Information Technology, Inc., founded by University of Central Florida students Alex Volin and Keith Rogers, offering Web design and technical outsourcing.
• GoSMG.com, started by Jason Smith while he was a student at Cypress College, is a fundraising product and program distributor.
• TicketAdvantage, founded by Adam Witty when he was a senior at Clemson University, provides transactions for ticket buyers and ticket sellers to sports and entertainment events around the world.
• Inventables, which creates “how-to” materials for entrepreneurs, inventors, and engineers, is actually the second company that Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht started as students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Kaplan, a mechanical engineering major, and Schacht, a computer science major, joined Lehigh University marketing and finance major Brian Witlin, in founding Lever Works, Inc, an Internet applications development company that the trio sold to e-learning company Leo Media, Inc.
• College Prowler, founded as a class project by Luke Skurman as a student at Carnegie Mellon University, offers guides to the top 200 colleges.
• Axon Sleep Research Laboratories was hatched when Brown University student Samee McDannel told a friend after a difficult exam that a groggy morning had made her test go poorly. From this conversation sprung the inspiration of an alarm clock, SleepSmart, that would guarantee the end of sleepy, bleary-eyed mornings by monitoring a user’s sleep cycle. Business-oriented Brown student Eric Shashoua soon joined Samee. In 2003, Axon Labs won the Brown University Entrepreneurship Program Elevator Speech competition after pitching their SleepSmart product.
• AllDorm Inc., a college furnishings manufacturer, was started by Ryan Garman, Kevon Saber, Chad Arimura, Ivan Dwyer, who met at Santa Clara University.