by kleinbl00

​Ticket for Coffee Shop Frustration: Ordering Black Coffee

No One Wants a Printer, but Everyone Wants to Print

Where there’s a problem, there’s a business opportunity. Tyler Eshleman was wandering through a dorm at Michigan’s Grand Valley State University his freshman year when he came across two intrepid roommates. They’d purchased a color printer and were charging students to print out term papers, reading assignments, even entire textbooks.

They weren’t doing people’s homework. Just printing.

“I wish I would have gotten in on something like that,” Mr. Eshleman says, noting the pair was turning a profit.

Now 21 and living in Troy, Mich., Mr. Eshleman is mostly envisioning a printer-free life for himself, like many young people I talked to.

“Some point, you buy an apartment, house, car, second house or a boat. Then maybe you think about buying a printer,” he reasons.