New book helps college students become entrepreneurs

Jessica Rawski, Biz & Tech Editor

Students come to college to figure out what to do with their lives and to get an education. Once students figure out what they want, what comes next? For some students, especially at UW-W, what they want is to start their own business. To help these kids out, Professor David Gee has released a book to help jumpstart their startups.

The College Student Startup Guide: 12 Steps to Building a Successful College Startup was released just last month and gives students a step by step guide to answer many of the common questions about trying to start a business while in college.

The book discusses how to balance classes and running a startup, while also giving helpful resources that students can utilize to make the transition from student to part time entrepreneur just a little bit easier.

“I wanted to help out the little guys. I had this David versus Goliath scenario, and I wanted to help the Davids,” said Dave Gee, author of The College Student Startup Guide.

Professor Gee currently works at UW-W and has the opportunity to teach Entrepreneurship here and coordinate the Entrepreneurship program here. He also gets to work with students on their startups. He previously taught for the University of Wisconsin-Madison MBA program, worked for TDS, BellSouth, U.S. Cellular, Humana and has launched four of his own startups.

“I took my marketing experience from all these bigger telecom companies and then I applied those practices to small telecom businesses,” said Gee.

Previously, Gee had also released a similar book called The Corporate Refugee Startup Guide. It’s aim was also to help others jumpstart their business.

“The corporate refugee is someone who leaves corporate and wants to break out on their own,” said Gee.

Dave Gee has launched four startups and is starting a fifth sometime soon with the release of the app, HUG, which aims to help people in rural areas have access to therapy, which is a new route for his businesses to take.

“What happens with a lot of entrepreneurs is over time it is not about themselves, and it’s not about money, it becomes more about helping other people,” said Gee.

Students can find his book on amazon and check it out for themselves.