Elijah Khasabo starts his mornings answering emails, checking metrics, and debugging his software—a routine not all too uncommon among aspiring tech founders. But unlike many entrepreneurs, he eventually has to put his laptop down and head to his first class of the day.
At 22, Khasabo is walking a tightrope few could manage: his user-generated content platform startup Vidovo is on track to hit over $1 million in revenue this year, yet he’s still completing his senior year at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
At a time when many young people are questioning the value of a degree—thanks in part to growing student loan debt and a less-than-ideal post-grad job market—Khasabo’s time in the classroom might look like a distraction from scaling his business. He admits he’s thought about dropping out plenty of times. In fact, he waited until 14 hours before his first class of the semester to move back on campus.
“Nothing hurts more when the momentum is there. People are talking about you. You’re finally getting your respect. It’s like the bootstrap grind is finally starting to pay off—and knowing you have to go back to school in September, nothing hurts more than that,” Khasabo said.
But for him, the experience is more than just a line on his resume. It’s a jumpstart for the rest of his career.
College is about networking
Khasabo’s entrepreneurial journey began as a teenager, when he built a Discord server for individuals to share stock market ideas. Within two and a half months, it had grown to 30,000 members.
A few years later, he began experimenting in the e-commerce drop-shipping world. But a breakthrough moment came when he purchased a user-generated video that went viral, amassing 15 million views. That’s when he realized there was a major untapped market, and the idea for Vidovo was born: a platform for users to create, share, and monetize short-form content.
What started as a bedroom project while in community college quickly grew into a startup. Khasabo juggled product development, customer outreach, and learning how to run a company—all while transferring to a four-year institution, keeping up with classes, and the daily rhythm of campus life.
And even if he might not learn any breakthrough lessons in his final year, he says the pros of college outweigh the cons, largely because of the massive networking opportunity.
“The more I can learn from other people, the more people I can meet, having a healthy social life, and being able to provide value to others—that makes me happy,” Khasabo said. “You never know where a student I met yesterday will be in three years.”
Moreover, after spending the summer in New York, he said he’s realized there’s a “real advantage” to understanding how the real-world works, then returning to school and knowing how to best balance his time.
The college advantage
Some of the most accomplished businesses have roots on college campuses. Growing tech giants such as Databricks and SoundHound AI, for example, were started at Stanford University. And although Mark Zuckerberg is known for being a college dropout, he and his four co-founders are perhaps the best known case that building out a business on campus—in their case at Harvard—can turn into a $1.5 trillion venture.
While such experiences may not be typical, it’s part of a growing movement: more young people are skipping traditional corporate paths to become their own bosses. One study found that 50% of Gen Zers have expressed a desire to start their own business.
For Khasabo, timing was key. If Vidovo had been further along before he started college, he said he might not have felt the need to pursue a degree. Instead, he’s finding a balance that allows him to honor a promise he made to his mother to get a degree, grow personally and professionally, and treat college as a complement to—not a distraction from—his entrepreneurial ambitions.
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