Beginning a business while in college is a challenging experience, but for one university student, the struggle is worth it.

Sidney Rehg, a December 2013 graduate from Belleville, is an example of what the reward can be through long-standing dedication and perpetual determination: your own business.

Rehg officially launched Piranha, a public relations and branding firm, in May.

He worked throughout the spring 2013 semester to bring his business venture to fruition.

“When I started Piranha, I understood that Carbondale, along with the region surrounding it, lacked a strong public relations presence,” he said. “With my background in digital content creation and public relations, I knew there was a great opportunity in the market.”

The company was formed through the Dunn-Richmond Economic Development Center’s Small Business Incubator.

Rehg provides a variety of public relations services to clients in the area including content development, email campaigns, newsletters, media and press kits, event planning, and website development.

Piranha focuses its public relations endeavors on a digital scale in the St. Louis and southern Illinois region. Rehg said operating in this area requires strong networking.

Jasmine Breeland, a junior from Wheeling studying speech communications and account executive at Piranha, said Rehg’s love of public relations and background is what drove him to start the company.

“His brother started his own business at 18 and his father has a digital ad agency in the St. Louis area,” she said. “Sidney was further inspired to start his business after seeing his father and Daymond John, founder of FUBU, speak at Southern Illinois University Carbondale within a few weeks of each other.”

Denise McClearey, a senior lecturer in speech communication who taught Rehg, said his background will be an invaluable asset to his ongoing success.

“I think Sid is going to be really great in this role,” she said. “He was born to do it. His father has a very successful business and I think Sid learned a lot watching his dad.”

Rehg worked with only one other employee when he started. As the company has grown, he hired another four.

“The business picked up clients rather fast and I aspire to grow the business to manage client accounts and transition away from project-based contracting,” said Rehg.

Two of his larger clients are Blue Stingray Digital Ad Agency in St. Louis and Bow Tie Cigar Company in Belleville.

John Pearson, a professor of management, said there are several challenges any small business owner faces when starting, but they may be harder for a student.

“The two reasons that startups fail is undercapitalization—which means not enough money—and poor management,” he said. “If you’re a student starting a business, you may not have any business background at all.”

Pearson said capital can also be hard to come by for students because investors may think they do not have the ability to be successful.

However, Rehg has been able to overcome these obstacles.

“I will admit, finishing my last semester at SIUC and running a business on the side proved to be challenging at times,” he said. “I always appreciated the challenge and recognized the challenge as a sign of success.”

Rehg said despite the difficulty, he has loved the process of starting his own business.

“Launching a business while in school was actually a great experience,” Rehg said. “I completed the majority of the ground work over the summer and was already up and running before the semester started.”

Pearson said students should rely on services available through the university, such as the Dunn Richmond Economic Development Center’s Small Business Incubator, as Rehg did.

Pearson also said students may have one advantage of starting a business while young.

“Students are at a perfect time in their life to take on these ventures,” he said. “I mean, what do you have? If you’re 30 years old, married, two kids and a mortgage, there’s things you can lose. When you’re 20 years old, you might have a car.”

Rehg is working on expanding his business to a wider area of operations and activities.

“The current focus on digital public relations efforts led to a surprising success and I am excited to expand the firm to cover more public relations efforts,” he said. “We are currently working on community events in the Carbondale area to expand event planning efforts.”

Josh Houston, a senior lecturer in speech communication and one of Rehg’s professors, said he hopes Rehg’s success is indicative of what students at the university can accomplish.

“Sidney is an example of the type of students that we find at SIU,” he said. “While he’s special in his own way, he’s also symbolic of the quality of students I encounter on a regular basis here.”

Piranha’s website can be viewed at www.prpiranha.com for more information on the company.