For the young, motivated, college or university student who is looking into entrepreneurship, the forgiving nature of the marketplace towards student entrepreneurs provides a great opportunity to jump in and explore the possibilities. In addition to the market’s encouragement, being young also provides some great advantages to the aspiring entrepreneur. You have the least to lose at this point in life, and you have time to work through the learning curve. Additionally, there are a few outstanding programs willing to provide the hands on training and support necessary for your development, with little to no up front capitol required on your part. A couple of programs that I have first hand knowledge of are College Pro Painters and College Pro Window Cleaning. They have a long-standing history of providing hands-on experience to train and coach student entrepreneurs through the challenges that occur during the path to success.

College Pro sits down with Vitaly Ishin now General Manager in Winnipeg for College Pro Window Cleaning was once a franchisee for College Pro Painters.




Name: Vitaly Ishin
Current Position: General Manager – Window Cleaning
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba

When did you start working for College Pro and in what role?
I signed up to run a College Pro Painting Franchise in the fall of 2005 and ran my painting franchise for the first time in the summer of 2006.

Painting the exterior of your home is a great investment. A fresh coat of colour will improve the look of your property as well as help protect your home from daily wear and tear. And while you could tackle this task yourself, the odds are stacked against you. Residential painting is no easy task – from cleaning and prepping to scaffolding and edging, the average handyman simply doesn’t have the working knowledge necessary to complete the job quickly and with minimal mistakes. Experts at College Pro Painters, a student painting company that, since 1971, has been painting homes in communities across the US and Canada, offers the following five things for you to consider before you decide to tackle your next exterior house painting project yourself.

When deciding to paint you will first need to prepare your surfaces to accept the new paint choices. How to prepare those surfaces will depend on what and where you are painting.

Interior Painting

When painting the walls inside your home, you will want to do a few things before you grab the paint roller. First, you should always examine the area to be sure there is no damage to the area. Work at repairing any holes or cracks in the wall before painting. Wash the walls to be sure there is no dirt, debris or oils from skin contact on the areas to be painted. You should then prime the walls and wait for the primer to dry fully. Once your walls are primed, you should tape off any areas you do not want painted.

Millions of people each year are faced with the decision of either hiring a painting contractor or painting the exterior or interior of their home without outside assistance. Whether you choose to hire a painting contractor or not is a personally choice. However, there are a few reasons most people choose to go ahead and contract out their house painting to a professional painting contractor.

They Can Afford To Do So

Many homeowners find their peeling gutters to be a little more than annoying. Even if the remaining areas of your home seem to be weathering beautifully, peeling gutters can occur quickly. This most often occurs with galvanized metal gutters. Most often gutters peel because the wrong type of paint was used (most often oil base paint).

Homeowners will need to prepare to strip the gutters down to bare metal and start over. It’s not wise to simply sand and re-prime the gutters. If you do this, the areas which were not peeled yet will not be able to re-establish a bond and will consequently peel again. Thus, it’s much easier and effective to start from scratch without worrying about complications in the future.