Skills to pay the bills

Owning a business is a common dream, but not many get to reach this goal. Bryan Young, a junior in sports management with an entrepreneurship minor, started his first business when he was eight years old, and his current business is his fourth one.

 Young's company is the Business Education Extension System, and 3,000 students are committed to using BEES in the spring. 

"N.C. State is a client, and we have three Ivy League schools that are interested in using it," Young said.

"We do Web design work for small to large businesses all across the company, and then we have educational software to support different learning styles," Young said.  

The focus is learning how to apply information learned in classrooms, using video, audio and textual information.

"We try to be educational and entertaining at the same time, so while you're learning you're actually enjoying yourself," Young said. 

The software concerns beginning and sustaining a business, as well as teaching valuable skills. 

"It takes you through a business simulator. It walks you through starting a business, and it teaches you more to be an entrepreneur thinker and a business problem-solver," Young said. 

Young developed the initial idea after he had grown his previous company too quickly and almost became bankrupt due to expenses. A lot of students approached Young for help in class work and business assignments, and the entrepreneurship program also began sending students to him. 

Young had originally started an online magazine to make it easier for those who wanted help.

"The concept kept growing and growing, and we eventually moved from being an online business magazine to educational software," he said. 

Young and Matthew Laster, his business partner and co-owner of BEES, decided to develop an online educational textbook in May 2009 because it was the same information for clients as in the magazine.

Young and Laster work with five other people who have already graduated college. Most of Young's team has worked with corporations before, such as Terminex and Cartoon Network. 

Young handles most of the daily interaction with clients. Other team members' duties range from technological programming to design and marketing. 

"We work from home mostly," Young said. 

The team has an office, but rarely uses it since it hinders productivity.

One big challenge Young has had to overcome really can't be helped. 

"A lot of people look at our age and think sometimes we don't know what we're talking about, but that usually gets resolved in the first meeting when they meet us in person," Young said.

Young and his team are talking with venture capitalists, something that Young hasn't done before.

"It's a different avenue for us," Young said. 

"Right now, we're [working with] more supplemental material. One of the long-term goals is becoming a virtual textbook," Young said. 

He said that ideally people would be able to go to the Web site and glean examples from interactive material.