Group recalls time spent pursuing entrepreneurship

“We found out there really wasn’t much security at conferences,” recalled Perla, who said that the organizer had repeatedly denied their requests to officially attend the conference.

But after successfully sneaking in, they realized they did not have a place to stay for the night. Luckily for them, Johnson’s aunt came to the rescue, offering to let them stay at her house about a mile away for the night.

This was one of many anecdotes integrated into the seminar “How to Start a Business in College, Hire your Roommates, and Raise Millions in Venture Capital,” held by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club in Tower Club’s seminar room Wednesday night.

The event’s featured speakers — Johnson, Perla and Benneschott — offered 25 attendees advice on a variety of entrepreneurship questions, ranging from choosing a co-founder to securing funding.

All three had taken time off from Princeton to pursue entrepreneurship projects — Perla originally belonged to the Class of 2009, Benneschott to the Class of 2008 and Johnson to the Class of 2006.

Benneschott warned against working with a close friend, since a co-founder “shouldn’t be somebody that you depend on for emotional support.”

While Perla said that Silicon Valley is the ideal location for aspiring entrepreneurs to find collaborators and funding, he noted that there are many resources for students in Princeton and its surrounding area. “There are tons of professors here who have startups, and they will help you,” he said.

Students who attended said they found the event useful.

“I wanted to hear some firsthand experience from some people who have started business,” Cuauhtemoc Ocampo ’14 said. “If I ever decide to create a startup, I can have some leverage from hearing from people who have experience.”

“It was really informative, especially since I’m working on a startup of my own,” said Kofi Frimpong ’11, an economics major and member of the entrepreneurship club. “It was very inspiring for me.”

Over the summer, Frimpong and Jordan Sawadogo ’11 founded HCFExpress, which allows parents to send care packages of home-cooked meals to their children in college.

Ryan Shea ’12, an officer of the entrepreneurship club who organized the event, said he was pleased by the event’s content and turnout.

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“We want to see more Princeton startups coming out and show students that entrepreneurship is a viable option,” he said. “We hope events like this can help grow the startup community at Princeton.”

Above all, speakers attempted to convey that aspiring entrepreneurs should not let setbacks dissuade them from pursuing their startups.

“A startup is like a roller coaster: There are crazy ups and crazy downs,” Perla said.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified the website founded by Jeremy Johnson, Joseph Perla ’11 and Breanden Benneschott ’11 as zinch.com when, in fact, it was zandigo.com. It also incorrectly stated that Tom Szaky '05 was a founder of the website.