How college prepared me to start a business from scratch

While in college, I studied at the Kent State school of Business. Entrepreneurship with a marketing minor. I knew I was in the right place when my Intro to Entrepreneurial Skills professor described teaching us to herding cats. She and every professor in the center for entrepreneurship and business innovation had founded, and in almost every case, successfully sold, most times multi 7 figure businesses to larger corporations. So we were all down to listen, this was the ideal case of taking advice from people who have been exactly where you want to go. 

First day, not even 5 minutes in, she basically roasted us saying she was used to everyone wanting to do things their own way and turning them in on their own time. Getting ahead of this was also her way of letting us know she totally understood but also wasn't willing to take any shit. Very much the type of leadership I can thrive working under. As long as the work gets done, having the freedom to creatively explore ways of getting better results with different methods. I'm down for that. 

I still had to balance the monotonous accounting classes and core credits tho, while working and drilling as a reserve component of the military. Balancing this gave me the skills necessary to be willing to start and manage a business within such an incredibly regulated and competitive industry I think.

The discipline, teamwork, and leadership skills I learned in the United States Army National Guard have also proven valuable for starting Pivot.

I learned so early on in the military the only way out is thru. “Hurry up and wait” is such a common understanding during any mission and sometimes the “cool stuff” like throwing grenades and shooting was literally 20 hours of waiting and cleaning up on the other end.

However, as an adult, I can look back with perspective and see learning the concept of delayed gratification was the best thing that could have happened to me. Not everything can always be the fun part, like tasting cocktails and marketing them, but if I was doing the mundane SO I could have the fun part also be the most lucrative part, it was easy to push through when I didn't feel like it.

My Entrepreneurship Degree gave me the knowledge and experience to start my own business.

Having a college degree has no doubt helped me tremendously in securing a day job and all but when it comes to what parts of that went into pivot, it was the connections and experiences more than anything, hands down. Having a full on excuse to cold reach out to any company because “I was a kent state entrepreneurship student doing a feasibility analysis on a startup” 110% gave me the level of blind confidence necessary to take some of the steps that have been required of me to propel this concept this far. 

A college degree also provides individuals with networking opportunities.

I actually met my life coach to this day at a Female Entrepreneurship Summit KSU sent me to in 2019. She's been on retainer for two years.

In her network, I met my current operations manager Riz and my accounting firm as well as tons of friends in my circle today.

I ended up on a canning line thanks to KSU also. When projecting costs for my “pivot” at the time, not yet PIVOT, I called a company that was a co-packing company for a price estimate to see what was needed other than a recipe to sell a commercial beverage. Co-Packing companies serve to show up to breweries etc. with a canning line, set up the equipment, can your beer, label it, pack it up in cases, clean up, pack the canning line on a truck and leave. It was a holiday weekend and I was lucky because the VP of the Midwest called me back, and I laid a concept on him about a hack I had for avoiding hangovers and integrated it into a cocktail. I wanted to know aside from a detailed recipe what was needed, he let me know about basically the cheat code of beverage... that you didn't necessarily need to buy a $150k canning line for slim cans, tanks to mix, and a warehouse to store it in. You could subcontract someone to do all that if you had a solid recipe. A year later they needed help during the pandemic and I worked on a mobile canning line for a summer.

My internship got canceled due to COVID and they were very busy due to local breweries needing to get all liquid out of their tanks, due to COVID. So I said f it. He's helped me this much let's meet some people. So tremendously thankful for this role as it taught me the industry and was most definitely pivotal if not a make or break for this startup. But overall it was the worst job ever. With all due respect, I would rather deliver 425 papers in the snow every Saturday for $30 as a 12-year-old again. Breweries are not glamorous girly, they are 90 degrees IF THERE IS AC, everything is wet and likely to grow bacteria if not cleaned properly and so much metal. I was responsible/trusted with driving the truck with way too much equipment in it and basically moving palettes of EMPTY CANS without bending/dropping/knocking over any of them. Imagine a pallet of eggshells, not heavy but fragile af until they are filled and sealed. After two months I would end up being the most expensive employee ever hired by Ironheart canning co. I let the truck run out of diesel fuel once after an 18-hour day, and the other time absolutely bricked a concrete post at a gas station and completely bent the wheel of the truck. Not the rim, the wheel. Happy to say we continue the relationship but with me as the client this time.  

 I ended up meeting my now manufacturer on a job and I would later find out he was one of an extremely slim amount of permit holders for what I needed within the state.  

Thru this manufacturer, I met a lawyer that specialized in beverage law whose father worked for the TTB for 25 years and what I cannot even begin to explain as the holy grail for this project. However tedious, building the network of professionals necessary to build this cannot be understated. And truly a college degree isn't necessary to make it in life, but in this particular situation, it created a lot of opportunities that grew me into the individual meant for this.