[keiferski]

As someone who's in a similar position (I did drop out of college, partly to build a company, but partly because it didn't make sense at the time):

1. Your idea sucks, so don't drop out of school to start it. You need to find a better idea.

2. See if you can take a leave of absence, and also see how long your credits are good for. For example, my uni's credits are good for 11 years; if I twiddled my thumbs for 10 years, then came back, I would (presumably) have lost nothing.

In the final analysis, you should drop out of college for reasons that have nothing to do with the college itself. In other words, drop out because it won't help you get to where you want to go, or because you have other things to do. But don't drop out simply because it's boring or because you want to stick it to the man. Once/if you drop out, you'll realize that.. no one really cares either way.

Likewise, don't stay in school because it seems like the safe thing to do. Life isn't a checklist, and you need to have a good reason for whatever you're doing with your time. The idea of "using a degree as a backup plan" is no different than "finishing a degree in the future as a backup plan", as far as I'm concerned.

Being an anti-college revolutionary is all great when you're in school, but once you leave your school's ecosystem, you'll realize that it's exactly that - a small part of the world. (this is all from personal experience.)

[naf]

Really appreciate your input, but your statement about my idea is rather brusque. You don't have a clue what my idea is about. It is possible to take a leave of absence at my university, which I'm considering. I might even go to night school getting a bachelor's degree while working on my startup during the day.

[keiferski]

Sorry, that was a poor choice of words, and I apologize. But I still think it's a bad idea, if only because you're going up against multiple billion dollar companies. You're essentially a novice climber who wants his first climb to be Everest.

Business isn't easy; you'll need every advantage you can get. My advice (and what I'm personally doing, after being in almost the same situation as you) is to build a smaller business first, specifically something that does not require a network effect to be useful. In other words, a product that is useful to a single customer without any other users. See stuff by 37signals and most SaaSs in general for examples.

The end point is really that business is hard, and it's infinitely harder when you go after something huge like eBay on your first try. That's not being bold, it's being foolish.

Why not build something smaller to learn more about business, make a good bit of money from that, and then take on eBay? It is quite a bit easier to build a 100k/year company than a 100million/year company. Plus, you'll have money to bootstrap your company.

[kurtvarner]

The "Your idea sucks" comment is very unnecessary and provides no constructive feedback. You have no idea what it actually entails, except for the very general market space it's in.

A better response would be, "I think the e-commerce space is really crowded, so be sure your idea can differentiate and provide more value than other existing options."