Ask HN: Current college student with big goals.

1. Be good. Be very good. Don't be the "front-end guy" or the "back-end guy", or some other "guy". Once you know what you want to build, building software is about five things: algorithms that solve your problem, programming languages that express your algorithms, computer architecture that makes your algorithms run efficiently on real hardware, the practical toolchain, and the management of complexity of real software. So study algorithms, and then graduate algorithms, and then advanced graduate algorithms. Do every challenge problem online. Study programming languages to express those algorithms. You can get away with three: C, Lisp, Haskell. Everything else is crud. Study computer architecture and compilers to see how your programs run efficiently. Learn great tools (Emacs/Vim/Visual Studio/bash/Linux/OS X/Windows whatever - just great ones that you're damn good at). Learn how complexity is managed. Look at lare open source projects, study how they're organized, and contribute patches to understand how small changes can effect a large system.<p>2. Learn what to build. Once you get really good, your time starts to be more valuable than gold. There will be very few people in the world who are as good (the internet will bias you to think that the world is full of great people - this ain't so, there isn't enough of 'em). You <i>owe</i> it to people and to yourself not to bother with improving something by 1% or 10% because you're wasting time in opportunity cost and could be improving something by 1000%. Make sure what you're building is worth building, and make sure every line of code you write is worth writing, otherwise you will fail. Break the NIH syndrome in yourselves now (all good people have it, phenomenal people that build successful companies broke it in themselves). Learn to infer what people want.<p>3. If you're that good, you will easily get a $100k job after graduation (probably more by then), and grow to $180k in a few years. That's very, very comfortable. It's not worth busting your ass 16 hours a day to build another CRM tool when you can have a $180k job. So don't start a business to start a business. Start a business to bring a meaningful change in the world. A huge change. A 1000% change. There are lots of hugely successful companies out there that do what's not meaningful to you - ignore them. But do make sure that what's meaningful to you is also meaningful to millions (hopefully billions) of others. You won't get rich writing Lisp compilers.<p>This is what matters. Most everything else is fluff.

Start now. Even if you don't have the time or resources to do something huge, make projects that can be of real use and benefit to people. Some you may charge for; others you may offer for free. Your users might be people at your college, in your community, or all over the world. No matter how small or large the userbase, whatever experience you can get will be helpful, and one of these projects may grow into a significant business.

I'd say: focus. Get as much as you can out of being in school right now-- you're unlikely to get a chance again to spend 4 years dedicated solely to expanding your knowledge. Learn everything you can. Find out who the best professors are (ask around, you'll find out quick) and take whatever classes they are offering. (A good professor can make even the dullest subject come to life; a bad professor can kill even the most fascinating topic.) Learn what you can from your friends; don't pass up any opportunity to learn. And, finally, try to pick up as many good habits and disciplines as you can-- you'll find years from now, you still have some of them.

Get to know all of your classmates as best you can. They are a big part of your future network, and potential startup collaborators.

Work for someone else's startup. That's the best way to learn how it works on the inside.

1. The first rule to actually be able to build stuff is to learn <i>real life programming</i>: know a couple of languages, their libraries and ecosystems. Tip: use open source tools<p>2. Know <i>algorithms</i> to make smart software. If you make a board game, A* comes in hadndy for the AI. If you make a service like dropbox Minimum bounding box algorithms lower your costs.<p>Now you can build some stuff. Time to sell.<p>3. Learn the basics of finance and legal stuff of your country to be able to solve paperwork related stuff.<p>4. Learn some marketing to attract users<p>Profit!<p>Tip: A lot more in Ask HN Archive - <a href="http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive" rel="nofollow">http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive</a>

Have some idea what you're going to do.<p>"I want to have a startup" is not a plan. It is a path to failure. If you haven't got any idea what you want that startup to do, you're just setting yourself up for disaster.<p>Real, productive startups happen when someone wants to do or create a specific thing, and then creates a startup as a vehicle for that thing.<p>A startup is not an end. It's a means.

It depends a lot on what you want to do. Some business problems are not all that technical, some are highly technical.<p>Some startups are easy to bootstrap, others aren't.<p>The main advice I'd give you is this: Figure out what you really, really want to do... the thing that makes you most excited and passionate. And demand of yourself that you do it.<p>There's nothing worse than working very hard at something and realizing that you've put blood, sweat and tears into something you don't really give a damn about.

1. Read code written by master programmers (e.g., <a href="http://golang.org/src/" rel="nofollow">http://golang.org/src/</a>, <a href="http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/" rel="nofollow">http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/</a>) to learn how it's done and to keep you humble. ;) But beware the opposite danger of becoming disillusioned when you realize that most of the code you will encounter in the real world is not written by master programmers.<p>2. Understand that much of what you learn to do as an undergraduate CS student are "historical reenactments" (<a href="http://research.swtch.com/2008/03/rotating-hashes.html" rel="nofollow">http://research.swtch.com/2008/03/rotating-hashes.html</a>). The core algorithms and data structures you need are almost always provided by the language or libraries.

1. Plan to start your company in 10 years.<p>2. Between now and then, work at a small company, a just-funded startup, a raw startup and a big company (maybe in that order, maybe in any order). Watch the management closely and LEARN.<p>3. No matter how frustrating it is to work for someone else, stick to your plan.<p>4. Keep your technical skills current.<p>5. Learn management skills.<p>6. Save your money - live frugally now so you can self-fund your startup and keep control of it.<p>7. Become an expert or become good friends with an expert in some domain - gaming, architecture, finance, whatever.<p>8. Do your startup in that domain.<p>9. Develop a healthy lifestyle. You'll need your all your health and stamina to make the startup succeed.<p>10. Regularly sell things on eBay and/or Craigslist to get used to selling to people.<p>11. Watch how your non-technical friends use computers. They compose most of your customer base.

Forget the technical things. While in college, get a job in marketing. Get a second job in technology if you want, but chances are if you are a CS student that can actually program, then the technical side is the least of your worries.<p>Running a business is extremely hard for some people. Expose yourself to it. It would be even better if you worked for a smaller company to get a more holistic view of it.<p>When I was in college my first job was managing the entire ecommerce side of our business from building to maintaining to figuring up innovations. There were 4 of us. I got significant experience in accounting, marketing, cash flow, customer service... everything. Having that exposure has helped me immeasurably thus far.

Start now.<p>Start a start up or go execute an idea or help somebody else execute an idea and use that as a tool for learning relevant stuff that is required to successfully execute an idea. Whatever reason you are not able to execute it, thats an indication of where you have to plug holes in your skill set, either by learning yourself or developing relationships with somebody who is strong in that area.<p>If you keep executing and keep plugging the holes in your skill set, you will have the fastest learning curve that no college education can provide by itself.<p>Do complete your college education, it does teach a lot of good basics on different useful stuff and its a great backup in case things don't work out with the business end by the time you complete education. But thats what it gives - basics, useful basics, basics that are not enough for anything but an entry level job.<p>College education + loads of experience by the time you complete education = killer resume.<p>This is from a guy who has done his fair share of education and waited too long to go after his dream ( of course, not too long to let the dream die or go after it now :))<p>Good luck.<p>(edit: If you start the action part now, you will also attract a network of friends and teachers who appreciate a person like you and can probably help you. That network you start building now can be a deal maker or breaker for succes later. )

I'm in similar shoes. I've recommended this essay on HN before, but I found it to be really insightful.<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/college.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/college.html</a><p>I've basically come to the conclusion my time here in school is gain enough knowledge an experience in my field that when startup time comes I'll not just be quicker than competitors, but I'll know of better methods and techniques for doing so.

All of the stuff said here re: building a product and working for a startup is awesome advice. There's one major thing missing: Learn how to acquire customers and retain them. You can build a great product, but if you don't know how to acquire customers, it's a disservice to the great product you built. CREAM- Customers Rule Everything Around Me.

Focus on two things:<p>1. Connecting and networking with others in the field. A blog is a great way to do this and get started.<p>2. Build something said network will appreciate. It doesn't have to be the next twitter, maybe it's some dumb little app that a 5 year old kid will spend 10 minutes playing with and get bored. Remember we are all 5 year olds on the inside, except pg, he's 7.

Look for potential cofounders. Make friends with people who have similar interests as you (hacking, startups) and whom you get along with really well. Building trust and learning what people are really like takes time and being friends for a longer time gives you the chance to do that.

(1) Learn what people will pay for and how to convince them to do so.<p>(2) Make friends with and keep track of your talented classmates, especially those whose talents are in other areas.<p>(3) Learn how to evaluate folks in those other areas.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned much yet is marketing. Read the big popular marketing books such as "Positioning" by Reis and Trout, because marketing is tough. There is little technical risk involved with most web companies. The biggest risk is not finding enough people to give you money.

As someone who just passed out from college and is working on a startup, I would say do as much projects as you can during your college. Hence learn the art of starting and finishing.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who commented. Really great advice. It is much appreciated.