It’s never too early to consider starting your own business. Find out how to acquire the skills you need to run a successful startup, even as a student.

Every week, young business leaders and student entrepreneurs tune into the Leaders of Tomorrow podcast for enlightening interviews and insider tips from the 8-figure Student Works Management Program. Their hope: to find everything they need to become a leader of tomorrow.

You can tune in too! Listen to one of their best episodes right now or keep reading for a short recap with some useful advice for students thinking of creating a startup.

How to Ditch Your Corporate Job and Actually Start a Business with Jonathan Suter

In this episode, Student Works Management Program head coach Chris Thomson interviews Jonathan Suter. This Student Works alumnus co-founded his own startup, SimpleTax, which he eventually sold to Wealthsimple. But this entrepreneur’s journey didn’t begin with him quitting his corporate job to follow his dreams. In fact, we can trace the foundation of his startup all the way back to lessons he learned from his time with Student Works.

To start, Jonathan shares some inspiring (and funny) anecdotes about his first corporate job at Nortel. He thought, at the time, that it was a stable place to start a career…until his entire department was fired overnight.

From there, Jonathan touches on his experience with Student Works. He explains that even if he didn’t know it then, the lessons he learned in leadership and management would slowly permeate into his actions as a budding entrepreneur. In particular, he speaks to the focus which his experience taught him and how, along with some patience and ingenuity, it helped him face many challenges that came his way.

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At this point, they talk about Jonathan’s lingering entrepreneurial ambitions. Even as he worked a steady job in tech, he never stopped waiting for the right opportunity to come knocking.

Finally, Jonathan reveals what ultimately prompted him to co-found his own company with his wife and how their unique “pay what you like” business model functions. 

If Jonathan can implement systems and lessons learned from his time at Student Works in order to build a sellable company of his own—then so can you.