Griffin Kubicki had already built two businesses before he ever set foot on a college campus.
By the time he enrolled at the University of New Hampshire, he'd generated more than $250,000 in client revenue through paid ads and conversion funnels — working as a media buyer, head of operations, and founder of his own agency, Kube Marketing. He wasn't arriving at UNH to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He already knew.
So why bother with a marketing degree?
He wanted the credential, sure. But more than that, he wanted to meet other young founders — people who understood the particular hunger of building something before most of their peers had held a real job.
He figured college was where he'd find his people.
The loneliness problem no one talks about
UNH has a lot to offer. For most students, its tight-knit Greek community is exactly what they're looking for. But Griffin was wired differently.
"I want people who want to wake up early in the morning and go get s*** done."
Opportunities kept coming in — founder events, clients, deals. He'd return to his dorm excited to share the news, and find his roommate gone. Everyone was out socialising. It wasn't the kind of connection he was after.
He became a regular at UNH's award-winning ECenter, treating it like a second home. His businesses were growing. His social circle wasn't.
"I was just so lost. You almost feel like you're missing out if you don't find your people."
The trip that almost ended his degree
Then came Miami.
Griffin was flown out to meet other young founders — exactly the kind of trip that should have felt like validation. Instead, he spent the weekend being told to quit college. That it was a waste of time.
He came home half-convinced they had a point.
"I was pretty set after that, like, okay, I'm going to drop out. Dude, I'm going to go buy a Porsche."
But a few days later, an admin at the ECenter who'd watched Griffin practically live there saw a LinkedIn post from Whop's John Hill: "Tag a university student entrepreneurship leader. I'll choose one to visit our offices in NYC."
She tagged Griffin. He applied and tried not to think too much about it.
Two days later, an email landed in his inbox: "Are you game?"
What changed his mind
He walked into Whop HQ and found college students who were enrolled, building, and setting goals. Not telling him to quit anything.
"Holy crap. There are college students doing business who have goals like mine, and it's a real thing."
It reframed everything. He wasn't the odd one out, he'd just been in the wrong room.
"It gave me clarity of like, okay, I have goals, I'm going to go get those goals."
Griffin flew home with direction he hadn't had before. He was staying in school, keeping his businesses running, and for the first time since arriving at UNH, he wasn't searching for his community. He knew where to find it.
Building it for others
In the weeks after his visit, Griffin was contracted to create Whop communities for both Harvard and Yale. Then he turned closer to home, becoming the administrator of the UNH whop and helping fellow students build their own.
One of the first people he brought in was Colby Chase, a digital marketer who films car content and teaches creators how to go viral. He then hired a freshman to work alongside him — someone he still works with today.
The community he'd spent his first year searching for, he was now creating for others.
"If people want to go start their businesses, they can go on the whop at the University of New Hampshire and I'm the admin of it. There's an ecosystem built, slowly but surely, it's getting populated."
The bigger picture
Griffin's story isn't an isolated one. According to a 2025 Quizlet survey of 2,000 US college students, more than half of Gen Z students maintain a job or business alongside their studies.
The ambition has never been the problem. What's been missing is infrastructure that doesn't require a co-founder with connections or a family friend with capital — and a community that gets it.
Whop's Higher Ed program has now reached more than 100 universities, with almost 4,000 student businesses launched. The goal for 2026: 1,000 universities and 100,000 students.
At Michigan State, Professor Ken Szymusiak rebuilt his entrepreneurship curriculum around a five-week sprint — and more than 350 students have since built real businesses through it:
"What has become very clear is that my students now have the ability to build at superhuman speed. What used to take weeks now takes hours. Entrepreneurship education has to be about experimenting, not case studies of the past."
Business as community
When Facebook launched from a Harvard dorm room in 2004, it connected people who already knew each other. Whop is doing something different: connecting people through what they create.
Students in New Hampshire are building alongside students in South Carolina, Michigan, and California. A freshman at UNH is learning from a sophomore at Yale.
For builders like Griffin, the business isn't separate from the community. It is the community.
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