How I Landed a $50k Investment for My College Startup

When I first got the chance to meet Christian Friedland, I was a bit starstruck. He was a big name at Chico State, one of the wealthiest people around, and I had learned a lot from his entrepreneurship seminars. So, when he called a few days after I won a local contest, I was thrilled. He suggested we grab dinner at Tres Hombres, a restaurant I’d actually built an app for. This was a huge step for what was essentially a dorm room operation, and I had no idea what to expect. My project was just a side hustle back then, but this meeting felt like it could be the start of turning my idea from a .

I got there first, feeling nervous at a table by the window. About five minutes later, Christian arrived in a black Mercedes CL500, looking every bit the successful entrepreneur. I immediately felt my age and inexperience, terrified I’d say something dumb. After a firm handshake, he sat down and got straight to the point.

“How many customers do you have?” he asked.

“Seventy,” I replied, handing him my iPhone to show him the app I’d built for the restaurant we were in. I walked him through the menu and loyalty system, and the demo felt natural since I’d done it hundreds of times. His questions were sharp, focused on the app's template, its limits, and how it could be improved. He was thinking about the future.

Then he said something that completely caught me off guard.

“I’ll give you $25,000 for 10 percent of your company.”

I froze. An investment offer wasn't even on my radar. My company, Bizness Apps, didn’t even have an LLC. It was just me and a website. I was a kid as a full-time student. Trying to sound more confident than I felt, I asked for a week to think and promised to come back with a proper pitch deck. He followed up the next day with a profit and loss statement to fill out, something I’d never even seen before. The process of getting this was officially underway.

The Real Negotiation

Christian was a proven entrepreneur who had sold his company, Build.com, for $50 million. This next meeting, I knew, would be the real test. As I rode the bus to his office, I felt like I was leaving my younger self behind. If this went well, my life would change forever.

Fifteen minutes into my pitch, Christian cut me off. “What do you want, Andrew?” Another investor, Robert Strazzarino, was also there—a serial entrepreneur who had successfully built a business while he was still in college. It felt like a good sign.

I took a deep breath. “I want $50,000 for 10 percent.”

He and Robert exchanged a look. “15 percent, and we do the deal right now.”

My palms started to sweat. I saw a future of endless fundraising, slowly giving away the company I was building. If I conceded now, what kind of founder would I be? “Sorry, Christian,” I said. “I can’t let you win this one. If you want to do $50,000 for 10 percent, then we have a deal.”

They both stood up, smiling. It was a friendly negotiation, a test. We shook hands, and the deal was done. Even so, the feeling of giving up a piece of what I’d built would stick with me for years. If I let others buy control, I might as well get a job. And that was the last thing I wanted.

From a Dorm Room to a Real Office

I walked out of that office with a $50,000 check for Bizness Apps LLC, an entity I still had to create. This investment was more than money; it was validation. I was leaving college to run my own , and I couldn’t have been more excited. This was the moment my project truly felt like a business.

Fifty grand might not seem like much for a startup, but for a solo founder like me, it was a fortune. I avoided the trap of burning it on fancy offices. Bizness Apps HQ was a modest $400-a-month room, not much bigger than my dorm. But it was mine.

My first move was to hire help. I convinced two college friends, Zach and Stephen, to join me. At the time, I don’t think any of us saw it as a serious career. We were just friends making calls, learning as we went, and slowly growing our customer base. Our goal was to create a that could support us all.

Hitting the Big Stage

In 2008, Google launched Google Play, and we knew we had to expand beyond iOS. As Android grew, it represented a huge untapped market. I decided to launch our Android version at the 2010 DEMO conference in San Jose, a major event for anyone in tech. Getting accepted was a shock—we were three college kids playing startup, and now we were heading to one of the most prestigious tech conferences of the year.

True to form, we partied the night before and drove to San Jose hungover. We checked into a dingy hotel and I ended up sleeping on the floor the night before the biggest presentation of my life. The next morning, we set up our booth, full of a college kid's optimism. Our energy attracted a crowd, and we demonstrated our product to everyone who walked by.

When it was my turn to present on the main stage, I looked out at 600 faces—investors, journalists, and CEOs. I was humbled and excited, but I had no notes and hadn’t rehearsed. I just went for it.

I ended my presentation by saying, “Oh, and as we’re still in college, if you want to have a beer, find us in the back.” The crowd laughed, and a few people took us up on the offer. One of them was a guy named Rip Empson. We hit it off, and after a couple of drinks, he handed me his business card. I didn’t look at it until later. He was a writer for TechCrunch. Back then, a feature in TechCrunch was a golden ticket. It meant the world was taking notice.

Rip ended up writing about Bizness Apps multiple times. He loved our story: college kids taking on a big market, helping small businesses without taking investor money. That press coverage did more for our than any investment could have.

For a while, everything seemed to go our way. My phone would ping with new sign-ups while we were out at bars, and we’d celebrate every small win. But as we grew, I realized our strategy had a ceiling. Calling people and doing in-person demos worked, but it wasn't one of those that could grow into a multi-million dollar company. To reach that next level, I knew I had to devise a whole new tactic.