By Sara Payne
Surviving a full school load, maintaining an active social life and working part-time may seem challenging. Throw in an international business, and the task borders on impossible.
For Shaun Neff, a junior from Thousand Oaks, Calif., majoring in advertising and marketing, this life is his reality. Neff owns Neff Headwear, a specialized company for snowboarders, skateboarders and surfers.
'It''s super hard,' Neff said. 'I have two hour phone conversations with my distributor in Japan ... and then I come to class for an hour and a half and then jump back in to more Neff stuff.'
Although only in its second year, Neff Headwear is booming. Neff finds himself flying to tradeshows to promote his product on the weekends, then flying back to Provo to arrive on time for his 8 a.m. Monday class. He describes himself as running around with his 'head cut off.'
'I would say in the beginning it was easier because we were doing smaller numbers and just doing a lot of promo and guerrilla warfare marketing,' Neff said.
Neff''s 'guerrilla warfare marketing' proved successful. His hard work has launched him into 14 countries, and in a year, Neff will be available in most major specialty surf, skate and snow shops in the U.S. Still, Neff says all his responsibilities have caught up with him; hiring more people will be essential.
'The set-up was basically me doing everything from marketing to ... product design to manufacturing to distribution; I was just doing tons of it,' Neff said. 'I can''t wait to hire a bunch more people. It''ll be sweet.'
'Sweet' businesses aren''t exclusive to Neff. Junior Aaron Melven from Dallas, Texas, majoring in business finance, started inkforless.com six months ago and is definitely enjoying the savory sweetness of success.
With revenues last month the highest they''ve ever been, Melven says he hopes to develop his business for another five to ten years into maturity. Melven hopes to generate other businesses out of the experiences he gains with inkforless.com.
'I plan on always having my own business in something,' Melven said. 'I''m not passionate about ink and toner; that doesn''t excite me. Basically what I''m gaining with this business is the experience. Hopefully, I''ll be able to sell it and move on to bigger and better things.'
The experience his business will bring is reason enough for Melven to sacrifice regular student relaxation time for rigorous responsibilities. Melven juggles his time between his business, church callings, school and hobbies. He admitted that his hours spent on school have slacked since starting the business.
'I haven''t taken very many credits since I''ve started the business,' Melven said.
Of course, to Melven, 12 is not 'very many credits.' But all this work for Melven is paving the path of financial freedom that comes from self-employment. Melven emphatically describes the life most Americans lead as not something he''d like to emulate.
'Ninety-five percent of the population in America are employees,' Melven said. ' get a degree, they go out and get a nice paying job, they get married, start having a family, and then they''re locked into being an employee. I don''t want to follow that dogma; I want to be self-employed - create my own destiny.'
Working alongside to create destiny, BYU majors are helping Melven and Neff develop their businesses. Neff said he likes the creativity that advertising promotes, while Melven said he enjoys the financial side of business better.
'A lot of businesses fail because of finance,' Melven said. 'I think the key to being financially successful is being financially literate, and that''s really why I want to do an emphasis in finance.'
Melven said being in school with a business is a better alternative than simply owning a business outside of school. The assistance he is freely given by professors cannot be duplicated in the business world.
Surprisingly, professionals in the industry respect the determination student entrepreneurs'' display to continue school and their business simultaneously. Neff said his status as a student business owner has definitely made him more recognizable.
'Industry people see as the next thing in snowboarding and skateboarding, so they just laugh, ''You''re still in school; are you kidding me? How are you doing that?''' Neff said.
Industry people are laughing, and Melven is laughing with them. He said the benefit of e-business is that people have no idea who is running the company. He attributes his success to the professional look of his website.
'One of the great things about being an Internet business is you can appear to be very large and in fact be running out of a college apartment, which is what I''m doing,' Melven said. 'If half the people knew ... that I''m a college student, that out of my apartment, they probably wouldn''t order from me, but because it''s an Internet business, you''ve got that disguise. As long as your Web page looks professional, and you look like a big business, then people put their confidence in that.'
Neff and Melven are still in school and their businesses are moving forward, so perhaps the marathon of multi-tasking these owners deal with isn''t completely unmanageable. Neff wraps up his experience with two simple words.
'It''s maintainable,' Neff said.
Neff is on the web at www.neffheadwear.com, and Melven may be reached at www.ink4less.com.