Kaylee Priest is pictured in her at-home office, where she took clients from her house last summer. Photo courtesy of Kaylee Priest.
By Alyssa Cortes
TAMPA, Fla. — In Jenkins Hall, Kaylee Priest, a freshman business information technology major at The University of Tampa, is painting her third set of nails in three days. Her makeshift nail station takes up the majority of the living space. The room smells of nail polish remover, and a soft hum of a UV light fills the air as dust flies. Priest, with her pink gloves, expertly drills away layer after layer of polish from her client’s nail bed: one of her roommates and her best friend, Sydnie O’Connor, a sophomore allied health major at UTampa.
She claimed a roommate’s desk to use as her station. Between classes, work, and deadlines, Priest has built a profitable nail business out of her dorm. She’s not alone.
According to data from Companies House, the United Kingdom’s official registrar of companies, the number of companies registered by students in the U.S. aged 18 to 25 jumped from under one hundred to over four thousand between 2021 and 2022. This trend implies that today’s students are starting businesses sooner and more frequently than previous generations.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), 25 to 44-year-olds were among the highest rate of entrepreneurs from 1999 to 2021. The average age of entrepreneurs is dropping, and Generation Z, ages 18 to 24, is taking the lead.
According to a 2020 survey for Junior Achievement (JA), two-thirds of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 said they were likely to start a business or become an entrepreneur as an adult. A GEM 2023/2024 report found that nearly one-fourth of 18 to 24-year-olds are currently entrepreneurs, with over 20% intending to start a business in the next few years.
A student-run business can look like Priest’s: a beauty empire in the making, but it can be anything from a local merchandise line or a wellness brand selling vitamins.
For Rowen Heeter, a junior marketing major at UTampa and the founder of health and wellness brand Vine Nutrition, creating a business is the combination of opportunity, resources, and a desire to build something lasting.
“The moment I realized Vine Nutrition had real potential was when we started getting repeat customers and over 1,000 positive reviews on Amazon from people I didn’t know personally,” said Heeter, who launched Vine Nutrition during his sophomore year at UTampa. “That was the turning point, I knew it wasn’t just a ‘student side hustle’ anymore, it was a real brand and company making a difference.”
Heeter was inspired to create Vine Nutrition due to a lack of transparency and personality in supplement brands on the market.
For Heeter, the mentorship and competitions offered by UTampa’s entrepreneurship program pushed him to create his business. Like many universities, UTampa provides students access to entrepreneurship centers, pitch competitions, and mentors who help guide them through the early stages of their businesses. Heeter said his experience highlights a crucial factor in the rise of student entrepreneurship: the availability of resources.
“I treat Vine Nutrition like a classroom; every challenge is a lesson that helps me grow both as a business owner and as a student of marketing,” Heeter said.
Heeter’s business, which started with a single health supplement, has grown into a reputable brand with thousands of sales on Amazon.
Heeter isn’t the only student benefiting from UTampa’s entrepreneurship center resources; Macey Breedlove, a senior entrepreneurship major, received financial aid from the University to help kickstart her company, HeyMacey!, an in-development makeup brand selling cosmetics aimed at tweens aged 10 to 15.
“Since before I can remember, whenever someone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, my answer was to start my own makeup company,” said Breedlove.
HeyMacey! uses affirmations and positive language to teach young girls how to speak kindly to themselves while learning how to use makeup.
“I love makeup, but I definitely think the beauty industry has negativity woven in it…and if I could, I don’t want any girl to grow up hating herself or feeling the way I did,” said Breedlove.
Anna Vu, a senior entrepreneurship major at UTampa, has two businesses in the works: a podcast and a merch line.
Vu was inspired to create her podcast, Mindset On Trial, by her own healing journey and the self-help podcasts she benefited from. She wants to spread the message that you’re not alone.
Vu started her merch line, Premium Prints Tampa, by painting and embroidering bags and selling those when she could. She plans to focus on making merch for Greek life, student clubs, and small local businesses. Her businesses are now startups. She’s hoping to make them a profitable reality rather than a side hustle.
As an entrepreneurship major at UTampa, Vu came in with the mindset of starting a business while still in school. She said the university pushes the idea and provides access to the tools to start a business.
Vu said she’s observed people becoming more driven, especially as they hear the job market is getting tougher. According to GEM, more than 60% of people said job scarcity plays a big role in their pivot to entrepreneurship. Vu said she believes people her age don’t want to get stuck in the traditional 9-to-5 corporate routine. Starting a business is a way to break free.
“They have ideas, they have creativity, and they just want to be their own boss,” said Vu.
For Priest, it wasn’t the need for extra income that played a big role in her decision to start her own business, but a need to express creativity.
“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been starting little small businesses here and there, making crafts,” said Priest, alluding to her days in elementary school selling duct tape wallets.
She saw a problem — spending a lot of money to get her nails done and being unhappy with the final product — and decided to solve it.
“I’ve always done that my entire life, so it wasn’t really a thought to me that I should start doing this,” said Priest. “It was kind of just a next step.”
She started doing nails at her house, first experimenting on herself and O’Connor.
Priest didn’t originally intend for this cost-saving solution to become more than that.
Then it took off.
“People in my classes [would say] ‘Oh my god, I love your nails.’ And because I’m like, ‘oh, yeah, I do them myself.’ [They would respond,] ‘Oh my god, can you do mine?’” she said.
Stories spread by word of mouth about the student who could paint intricate designs and 3-D effects on acrylics. Then, last spring, she found herself working out of her room at The Barrymore Hotel. She would move her desk and set up chairs, disinfecting everything and creating a cozy setup. Then, she would go down to the lobby to collect her clients and bring them up to her room.
“I look back at [that experience] like, wow, it’s kind of amateur, but you gotta do what you gotta do,” said Priest. “I’ve grown a lot since then with my work.”
This summer, Priest became a licensed nail technician and opened an at-home office. After returning to UTampa, she got a job at a local salon called Frenchies, but she occasionally still does nails in her dorm. She’s become her friends and family’s go-to nail lady.
“I went to a regular [nail] spot beforehand, and I was always nervous to ask for dramatic nails,” said O’Connor, while Priest files her nails. “What I love is now that I have her, I can be like, ‘okay, can I do this crazy thing?’”
Priest doesn’t intend to do nails after graduating from university; instead, she plans to work in project management for tech companies, although her dream would be to work on nails for celebrities and on red carpets. Yet, she enjoys what she’s doing now and knows she will always have some type of creative outlet and potential side hustle in the future.
Priest sighs from her makeshift setup in her dorm’s common area, her tone playfully sad as she talks to O’Connor about her nail design that’s far simpler than what she usually requests.
“I need something that’s going to match both my costumes,” said O’Connor, referencing Halloween, which is two days away. She’s planning to go as a princess and a showgirl.
“Don’t move,” Priest instructed, then laughed. “I’m not as mean to my regular clients.”
“It’s just to me,” said O’Connor, laughing with Priest as she settles comfortably into the chair, just as she has every three weeks for nearly a year, as her roommate puts her skills to work.