MANDEVILLE, Manchester — While many tertiary students may be aiming to don the cap and gown before starting the search for employment, one Northern Caribbean University (NCU) undergraduate student is already nourishing a business.

With personal funds, 20-year-old Rasheen Smith has been operating a home-based enterprise for the past eight months, using graphic design and sales skills that he says he possesses naturally.

From his laptop, and with the assistance of two part-time employees, the range of products he creates include flyers, business cards, shirt designs, posters, web designs, and programmes for functions.

To date, he has done design projects for individuals and two small businesses in Manchester.

He believes that a significant platform for growth for his fledgling company would be having at least 50 customers for a long-term business relationship, and sees opportunity in the growing micro, small and medium-sized business sector in Manchester. It is a niche, he says, into which he could tap as he strives to make Rasheed’s (an alteration of his first name) Advertising Services known on a wider scale.

The young businessman said that currently the relationship that he tries to maintain with clients is one where even after the work is done he makes an effort to assist them in promoting their products and services at no further cost.

Smith now juggles studies for a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and Sales with a job as a security guard on the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) campus, but his vision for his business is clear.

“I would like to have a physical location in Mandeville within five years and employ up to 100 people depending on the project,” he said.

In addition to working and studying, Smith is cultural co-ordinator of the Southern Region Mission Council and uses that seat to promote pro-bono youth camps, fun days, sports days, and rallies.

Entrepreneurship, he said, has been a part of his psyche from his days at Victor Dixon High when he promoted parties through two short-lived entertainment companies that he started with his peers.

But even with his innate abilities and classroom knowledge, Smith said that he is getting support from the The Morris Entrepreneurship Centre a non-profit organisation established by NCU in 2006 to provide business development services to MSME’s.

He remans unfazed by the failure rate of start-ups and believes that he can grow his business successfully not limiting his services to Manchester and by consistently offering quality service.