While many of their peers are working part-time jobs to earn a little spending money, some Central Iowa college students are already running their own businesses.

But balancing the responsibilities that come with owning a business with keeping up with school work and trying to have a social life can be a challenge. With the support of their families, these four students are gaining business experience they hope will bring them closer to reaching their career goals.

ADAM KADUCE, URBANDALE FIRST LAWN CARE

Like other 13-year-olds, Adam Kaduce and his twin brother, Michael, started mowing lawns to earn some money in the summer. But unlike most teenagers, they didn’t stop with a couple of yards. They’ve had as many as 50 clients at once with their 7-year-old business, Urbandale First Lawn Care.

Adam Kaduce, a sophomore at Drake University majoring in entrepreneurial management and marketing, handles most of the mowing now while his brother attends Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids. Kaduce said his parents have been involved in the business since it began.

“Our parents used to drive us to the houses when we didn’t have driver’s licenses, and my dad, who is an accountant, helps us with our taxes each year,” Kaduce said.

So far, Kaduce’s schedule at Drake has been conducive to balancing his schoolwork and the business. The College of Business doesn’t have classes on Fridays, so he reserves that day for mowing. He’s hired another student to work with him, and they can usually get all 30 lawns done in 12 hours.

“It’s more motivation for me to do my homework during the week because I know that I can’t put it off until the weekends because I’ll be mowing,” Kaduce said. “It’s kept me organized.”

Kaduce said having his own business has made his classes more meaningful in some ways. If he’s having trouble understanding a topic in accounting class, for instance, he “puts it in terms of lawnmowing” to help it make sense. Also, the firsthand experience working with clients has taught him lessons he wouldn’t have learned in the classroom.

“The main thing I’ve learned is that you take care of your clients as No. 1,” he said. “We really try to do whatever we can to accommodate them.”

Urbandale First Lawn Care charges about $30 per lawn, which has been profitable enough for the Kaduce brothers to pay for part of their college expenses and invest in new mowers for the business. Adam Kaduce said he isn’t sure how far he will take the business. It could end in a few years when he finishes college, or it might be around for much longer.

“Ultimately, I think I’m going to go to law school,” he said. “But I love the business atmosphere and the relationships you build with clients so much that I may consider keeping it after college. Who knows, in 30 years, I could be the lawn care king of Des Moines.”

AlEX DULL, DENT DENIM

An assignment for a graphic design class sparked the idea for Grand View College student Alex Dull’s business, Dent Denim. Dent comes from “accident,” which is how Dull describes the way his business began.

Dull, a junior graphic design major, was working on an assignment to design logos for a fictitious business about four months ago when he decided to place some of his creations on T-shirts, jeans and hats. This past summer, he started selling his clothing to friends and fellow students, and he’s hoping to expand his sales now with the addition of women’s clothing.

Dull has had some help from Michael Draper, owner of Smash Clothing in the East Village. He buys plain T-shirts he buys from Draper, then “destroys” them before he returns to Smash to have them screenprinted. His process of destroying the shirts involves hand-bleaching them to produce a washed effect. This process also adds some small holes, which are a hallmark of his clothing line.

Becoming an entrepreneur seemed like a natural fit for Dull, whose father has been self-employed for about 10 years. His family has supported him in his efforts to build Dent Denim, with his father serving as the investor.

“Owning my own business has always been something I was interested in because my dad runs his own company,” Dull said. “Hopefully this business will keep growing and we’ll see what happens from there.”

Dull said the challenges he has faced starting a business at his age result from a lack of experience handling finances and some of the technical aspects of running a business. He is in the process of getting a trademark for his designs, and he is working on getting a vendor’s identification number. He said balancing the workloads from his classes and from his business has not been problematic, except his afternoon practices with the cross country team limit the time he can work on his shirts at Smash during business hours.

But Dull said being a college student has actually helped him to expand his business in some ways. Two of his art classes this semester are related to Web site design, and he has permission from his professors to work on the Web site he is developing for his company, www.dentculture.com, for his class assignments. Also, when he wants feedback on his designs, he has easy access to people in his target market.

“I ask people around campus if they like the clothes, which colors go best with their wardrobes and what they would wear them with,” Dull said.

His shirts sell for about $20 each, and he plans to have his Web site ready in a couple of weeks for online ordering. His shirts are currently available at Smash and an Iowa City boutique called Stuff Etc. He has also sold them at events around Des Moines, such as 515 Alive this past summer.

GWENDOLYN DICKMANN, ROCOCO DESIGNS

Gwendolyn Dickmann started to make jewelry at the end of her freshman year at Simpson College as a way to pass her free time. It didn’t take long before people began asking if she could make pieces for them. Seeing a business opportunity, Dickmann launched her jewelry line, Rococo Designs.

Now a senior majoring in vocal performance, Dickmann’s business has grown steadily. She sells her pieces through her Web site, www.rococodesigns.com, at Accenti and Aimee in the East Village and at boutiques in Kansas City and Los Angeles.

Dickmann uses a variety of beads, wire and semi-precious stones to create her jewelry, and she tries not to repeat designs. Some pieces might take only an hour to make, but she has spent up to 15 hours on others. Her jewelry is priced from $25 to $355. Sales have provided Dickmann with some spending money, although she said she still has debt to repay to her brother, who has financed the majority of her expenses so far.

Though the artistic side of making jewelry came naturally to Dickmann, some of the other aspects of running the business proved to be more difficult. Her brother has helped by managing the business side of Rococo Designs, and friends have provided some assistance with marketing.

“I love what I do, making jewelry for people and having them wear it and knowing that it makes them feel good,” Dickmann said. “But I’ve learned that I would love to have an accountant in the future.”

At times, the balancing act of running her business and keeping up with a busy schedule of music rehearsals, classes and sorority events has been a challenge. Last year, after an article about her business ran in the Simpson Magazine, numerous orders for her jewelry poured all at once. It happened to be right before her midterm tests and during a time when she was busy with rehearsals for an opera. But she knew she had to put school ahead of work.

“That was a crazy time, but luckily, most of the people who ordered from me through the magazine were alums, and they were understanding when I shot them a quick e-mail to say I would get to their order as soon as I could,” she said.

Dickmann is still deciding how jewelry making will fit into her future. She is planning on attending graduate school for vocal performance, and she also has an interest in the fashion industry and does some modeling in Greater Des Moines.

“I would love to build up my business more, but I’m going to have to see how things all come together,” Dickmann said. “I know I’m very blessed to have a lot of options, but it makes it tricky to decide where I’m going from here.”

KELLY NORRIS, RAINBOW IRIS FARMS

There’s a running joke in Kelly Norris’ family that he goes back to college in the fall so he can take a break from running the family business, Rainbow Iris Farms, in his hometown of Bedford nearly three hours away.

“We run it as a family business with me being the candlelight behind it,” Norris said.

A couple of weeks ago, Norris, a sophomore horticulture student at Iowa State University, finished the busiest time of the year on his seven-acre iris farm: the digging and shipping season.

“Those first weeks of school are pretty hairy,” Norris said. “I’m trying to settle into classes and make the trip back home on the weekends to process and ship orders, do some office work and restock cultivars.”

Norris discovered his love for gardening in grade school. Four years ago, he found an outlet for his interest with Rainbow Iris Farms, a business he persuaded his family to purchase from a family in Texas. Today, Norris is the farm manager for the business, which boasts an inventory of more than 250,000 plants. Rainbow Iris Farms ships about 700 orders annually totaling about 9,000 plants to every U.S. state and several foreign countries.

Norris said running Rainbow Iris Farms has given him valuable business experience and insight into his strengths. He has learned how much he enjoys working with other gardeners and learned basic business skills in accounting and inventory management. He has also experienced the growing pains associated with being a new business owner.

“There were a couple of years that were tight financially,” Norris said. “But as a capstone to that, we had no idea that it would grow in such a way that it has. We’re considering adding manpower to keep up with demand and reflecting on how we can be as efficient as possible.”

Norris is building a name for himself as a rising star in the horticulture industry by serving on the scientific advisory committee for the American Iris Society, writing for gardening publications and giving lectures to horticulture groups. Rainbow Iris Farms is something that Norris plans to be involved with for years to come. After he receives bachelor’s degree from ISU, he plans to attend graduate school, with a career goal of becoming a plant breeder.

“Prior to owning the farm, I wasn’t sure how my ideas for my career would come to fruition,” Norris said.