3 Reasons Why Denmark Is An Awesome Place To Be A Student Entrepreneur
Three years ago, I received a letter from Aarhus University. They had accepted me into the bachelor program “Marketing and Management Communication” and I was so happy.
After studying for almost 6 months, I found out that maybe this study thing wasn’t for me. I didn’t really enjoy showing up for the lectures and I definitely couldn’t find it motivating to read 80–100 pages every day. However, I still enjoyed the topics, the campus life and my inspiring class mates. So — long story short — I became an entrepreneur and started my own business while studying. Here’s why Denmark is a perfect place to do just that.
1. You get paid to study
Yep, that’s right. In Denmark education is free and you get paid almost $850 per month while studying. That means you can start your own business without being afraid of running out of money the next month. That’s your first seed investment right there! We (@spjer and I) built our previous startup (Greenticket, an Eventbrite competitor for the Nordics) while going to college, and because we didn’t need salaries we were able to reinvest almost all of our revenue in the company’s growth.
2. The universities love entrepreneurship
And they wanna help you! At first I thought we were doing something criminal. I mean, we were getting paid to study, not to build a business. But then I found out that the university actually appreciated “students” like us. They had even built a dedicated department for student entrepreneurs. Here we got our own desk (and later our own office) for free. There was even free coffee and free wifi! So here we were, starting our first company, drinking free coffee in our free office. Not bad.
3. You can hire fellow students for free
When going to college in Denmark, most of the students have one semester where they’re allowed to work full-time in a company for almost 5 months. The student is still getting paid by the government in that period. This is a great chance for students to gain experience from well-known big companies, but also a great way to be a part of a startup. We hired a sales intern and a communications intern, and it was a super valuable experience for both parts (at least that’s what they told me!).
Today we‘re not studying anymore and I really enjoy being able to focus 110% on Hivebeat. However, I will definitely recommend it to students who’re curious about starting their own business. It has been a great way for us to get started.
Please feel free to hit the heart or share it with your friends :) I’m also on Twitter: @jonasboegh. You could also check out the startup we’re working on now. It’s called Hivebeat and we’re launching in about 2 weeks!
