Graduate as a CEO!
/ About The Book /
Why You Should Start Your Business in College
With so many new experiences waiting for college students, and so many responsibilities on their plates from day one of classes, it’s easy to understand why starting and running a business while in college is a complete afterthought for most.
However, college is the exact right time to start your business! Colleges and universities have abundant opportunities to gain a deeper education about business, obtain funding, access to expertise, and other invaluable resources needed to start and successfully run a business.
Filled with insights earned as a lifelong entrepreneur and substantiated by the exciting success stories of student-entrepreneurs, Jim Hunter—Entrepreneur-in-Residence at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and leader of multiple enterprises of his own—presents his new book, Graduate a CEO: Why College is the Perfect Time To Start Your Business.
With Graduate a CEO, Hunter pitches today’s college students on the merits of starting their own business while still in school. Starting with an inviting discussion about being an entrepreneur, what it takes, and what it means, and evolving into an indispensable go-to guide for the burgeoning student-entrepreneur, Jim makes the tedious and technical fun and accessible.
For students graduating into a completely unprecedented business environment that is more absolute in its successes and failures, more bifurcated in its leaders and followers, and more challenging for long standing businesses to adapt to, there is a rare opportunity in entrepreneurship that Jim Hunter’s book is sure to help graduates capture.
Free Chapter Download
Do you want to graduate college as a CEO of your own company? It’s more plausible—and beneficial than you might think! Find out why Jim Hunter believes students should take entrepreneurship more seriously and if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Download your free chapter of his book below!
/ About Jim Hunter – Author, Professor, Entrepreneur /
Lesson from a Life of Entrepreneurship
Jim Hunter is Bostrom Entrepreneur-in-Residence and has taught entrepreneurship courses at the Lubar School of Business since the late 1990s. He is the president/managing member of three companies, CFO of one company, Executive Vice President of one company, and director of three companies/organizations.
Jim grew up an entrepreneur, learning the ropes on his family farm in northern Ohio. Taking surplus fruit from his family’s fruit trees, Jim sold the produce at a hand-built fruit stand by the road in front of his family home. He would set prices, manage supply, provide customer service, and handle cash—all valuable lessons for a budding entrepreneur. Though his true colors as an entrepreneur wouldn’t emerge until years later.
After earning an undergraduate degree in civil engineering, Jim became a commissioned officer in the Civil Engineer Corps of the US Navy, where he served three years of shore station active duty, and attended graduate school at Harvard Business to obtain an MBA. Summers consisted of Navy cruises or summer jobs with major corporations.
After a circuitous path of engineering and consulting, Jim’s early entrepreneurial spirit emerged. A failing company had been run by the trust department of a bank for several years. The company was losing money, sales were dropping, and the organization was in disarray. He struggled with the company for three years until it finally failed. Learning a hard lesson early in his entrepreneurial journey, Jim lost everything except his house and his car.
Jim’s family rallied around him. His wife started a wallpapering business. His teenage daughter started a house-cleaning business. His older son started a driveway-sealing business. Even his four-year-old son started doing his own laundry! These remarkable contributions along with new business ventures of his own, consulting opportunities, and teaching at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM) allowed Jim to continue his entrepreneurial pursuits while earning enough income to keep the family afloat.
Since that initial speed bump, Jim has started several more businesses. Most recently he started and sold a mosquito trap business. Jim and his partners obtained a unique mosquito trap made in China and sold it to major retailers throughout North America. The business was started in 2010 and sold in 2019 for over $40 million.
Today, Jim still teaches an entrepreneurship course at UWM, and uses the business experiences he’s had as material for many case studies for the class. To date, more than 2,000 students have completed this course, and many have started their own businesses. With his new book, Graduate a CEO Jim hopes to exponentially expand this number and turn more students into CEOs before they graduate.