What It's Actually Like to Run a Startup as a Full-Time College Student

Most people picture a COO in a corner office managing a large team. At GreenMark, it looks a little different. I am a full-time college student, and I help run a three-person startup focused on LEED certification and sustainability in commercial real estate.

No corner office. Just a lot of coordination, structure, and moving parts.

The Role Nobody Talks About

The COO role is easy to overlook. You do not get the glory. You are behind the scenes making sure everything actually moves.

I think of myself as the glue and the clarity. My CEO brings the vision. My CTO builds. My job is everything in between. I take ideas, structure them into actionable plans, and hand them off in a way the team can execute. I keep the source of truth of the business and handle finances, accounting, and revenue generation.

A COO at Nous described it well in Sifted: "A COO needs to be willing to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in when they need to, and then helicopter back and adjust overall strategy based on what they saw." That is exactly how I would describe it.

It is the role I am most built for as a business major.

What Agile Looks Like for a Team of Three

Agile for us is not a buzzword. It means one goal at a time, with real dates and real checkpoints. We lock in, work toward the outcome, and let that outcome lead us to the next goal.

I built a workflow that pulls from all of our meeting transcripts, structures the key decisions, and uses AI to filter what actually makes sense given where GreenMark is right now. Every day it helps me uncover something new.

Keeping the Team on Track

One of the hardest parts of this role is knowing when to hold the line. Recently we had a meeting with someone in commercial real estate who gave us a perspective that could have easily pulled us off course.

My job was to hear it, take it seriously, and redirect the team back to the goal. That takes logical thinking instead of acting on emotion. When something interesting comes up, we note it and decide if it is worth exploring later. But we do not chase it in the moment.

We are also all students. If someone has a rough exam week, we pick up the slack. We never stop moving.

That balance is something I am proud of.