Most UCSD students are satisfied with a job that gives them a steady paycheck and something to put on their resume. But imagine owning and managing your own business while still in college.

This is a reality for five college students, two of whom attend UCSD, who run and manage a Quickly Tea franchise. Quickly Tea sells a variety of drinks, such as boba, a Vietnamese specialty drink that mixes tapioca balls with juice and, of course, tea.

“”I didn’t want to work for anybody. I wanted to employ, not to be employed,”” said Thurgood Marshall College senior Peter Yeh, who opened the store along with fellow UCSD student Minh Ngo.

“”At first, this started out as a hobby,”” Ngo said, also a Marshall senior. “”Now we are growing up and treating it as business.””

What began as an idea in November 2001 has turned into a full-fledged business, owned and operated by Yeh, Ngo and three other friends.

“”At first we jumped into this,”” Ngo said. “”I was sitting at the kitchen table, and Peter said, ‘Want to start a boba shop?’ and I said, ‘Yeah!'””

Their franchise opened in Mira Mesa in February. Opening the store involved much time and money. Yeh, Ngo and their friends used earnings from summer jobs to purchase their own store from Quickly Tea.

“”All of it was bootstrap funding,”” Yeh said. “”The money came from us. If I made money, it went straight to funding this place.””

Managing and running a store, however, has not been easy for Yeh and Ngo, who met each other their freshman year at UCSD. It has also been hard on their friends: Jason Cheng, a University of Southern California graduate; Brent Estrada, a student at UC Berkeley; and Ricky Chang, a high school friend of Yeh’s.

“”This isn’t stuff you pick up at UCSD,”” Yeh said. “”It’s really difficult because what you do at school doesn’t correspond to what you do here. Managing time is tough — I work at the store 30 hours a week, and another 10 to 15 hours writing business plan projections and studying demographics.””

Both students said the challenges of managing the franchise were unexpected.

“”I never knew starting a business would be so hard,”” said Ngo. “”We stayed up until two or three in the morning working on the store.””

This included constructing the kitchen and tiling the entire store. Each student put in about 100 hours per week at the outset, and the results were more than sore backs.

“”I never knew grout would stay on my hands,”” said Ngo. “”They were red for days.””

At first, business was slow.

“”At the beginning, we had no customers,”” Ngo said. “”We were sitting around thinking, ‘Man, this is an expensive place to hang out!'””

Business has grown exponentially since then. For the past two months, the store has been profitable.

Yeh is now planning to extend his business venture. Quickly Tea is looking to open its second store in Los Angeles by the beginning of June, and a third round of investors is considering opening a store in Riverside, Calif.

“”In all honesty,”” Yeh said, “”we’re not just looking to open one store: We’re looking to expand.””

Though Quickly Tea is decorated with large signs and T-shirts that say “”Got boba?”” both Yeh and Ngo said their ultimate goal is not selling boba.

“”The idea that will last forever is not boba,”” Ngo said. “”It’s tea. Tea is as good as soda and coffee, and even better.””

Creating a completely new store environment is one way that Yeh hopes to expand the Quickly Tea franchise.

“”Quickly uses really vibrant colors, but from now on, all our Quicklies will be completely different,”” he said.

Straying from bright colors and opting for more mature, neutral colors is one way Yeh hopes to encourage his customers to come to Quickly to relax. Although Quickly Tea specializes in Asian food and drinks, Yeh hopes that Quickly Tea will assimilate into U.S. culture.

“”The Southern California market for boba is very saturated,”” Yeh said. “”If we can assimilate to U.S. culture, we’re not limited to Southern California.””

Thao Troung, a senior at Mira Mesa High School and an employee at Quickly Tea, said that she loves working there.

“”It’s the people that I work with — they’re all so generous,”” she said.

Dung Nguyen, another employee, agreed.

“”I like everyone here. It’s a kickback job, and I’ve learned a lot, especially about customer service,”” Nguyen said.

Ngo encourages students to go out on a limb and explore the possibilities.

“”At what point in your life do you have the least to lose? In college. This is one of the best times to get started. I think that students should just try it,”” Ngo said.

Yeh, who will commit himself to Quickly Tea full time after graduation, said that even though he did not learn his entrepreneurial and business skills from UCSD, he still learned a lot from college.

“”We have a plan: A, B and C. That’s what we learned in college. You can work really hard, but you have to have something to fall back on.””

For him, Quickly Tea has been “”a free business school.””

“”You can’t put a price on this experience,”” Ngo said. “”I like working with this company because we’re all so young and ambitious. It’s the ultimate adventure. It’s so worth it, not just because of a sense of pride in achieving something — you’re just so amazed that you did this.””