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This Issue 09/18/2008

Also in this issue

• Best Week Ever: Jeans
• Drinks of the Week
• Dim Lighting
• Word on the Street
• Street Takes You Out: Northern Liberties

While a college campus affords many entrepreneurial advantages, it also challenges students to strike a manageable balance between their academic and professional lives. "The biggest challenge at the beginning was the incredible amount of time it took," affirms Schaeffer. "During the summer before we launched [Penn Drinks], we spent every single night on the computer talking to programmers, in addition to having full-time internships. At the beginning of the year, we were doing deliveries ourselves and were just physically exhausted." However, both Berkowitz and Talens claim their grades actually improved in the midst of scrambling to establish their respective companies because their packed schedules forced them to manage their time more efficiently. "Every single ounce that I'm not spending [on Cupmakes] has to go into schoolwork," Talens says.

But Penn students are not your average brand of overachiever. Home to Wharton and a much-touted pre-professional atmosphere, the University attracts and breeds students with a knack for business. In 2005, former Wharton undergrad Nathaniel Stevens launched Yodle, a company that helps small businesses utilize Internet advertising to increase profit; he later earned a spot on BusinessWeek's roster of top 20 entrepreneurs under 25. More recently, Austin Lavin, C'07, founded Myfirstpaycheck.com, a job-posting site for local teenagers that has gone national and currently offers 750 job listings in all 50 states "ranging from marketing internships to ice cream scooping," says Lavin.

"I think a lot of people can come up with a great idea," Talens says. "But they don't do any modeling behind it, they don't have a plan. I know for a fact that Cupmakes was a great idea. But it's not the idea that made it successful. It's the operations behind it." Penn grants students the tools to make such operations a reality. For example, Schaefer says she discussed her plans for Penn Drinks with her entrepreneurship professor, and Talens says the business experience he has gained complements what he learns in his OPIM classes.

While many of their peers aim to strike it rich on Wall Street, student entrepreneurs try to take their businesses full-time. As his graduation approached, Berkowitz began planning to expand Insomnia Cookies outside Philadelphia. "We were already planning on opening three new stores before graduation. So by the time I got my diploma that idea was already in the works," he says. He moved directly to New York after graduating, and has since upgraded from a 700-square-foot space to a 3,000-square-foot office at 53rd Street and 5th Avenue. Talens has similar ambitions to expand his small-scale cupcakes operation. "South Street would be great, maybe New York," he says. "I really want to do this full time."