Raising Entrepreneurs

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Young entrepreneur, Kunal Gupta, founded Impact in 2004

The Impact Entrepreneurship Group is flourishing since the economy soured. Its programs target university and high school students and include a national annual conference, an entrepreneurship week campaign, a leadership summit and a Microcredit Competition that gets underway later this month for which teams of students from 200 high schools receive $100 to launch a business idea and make as much money for charity as possible within a week.

“There’s been a significant increase in interest,” says Kunal Gupta, who founded Impact in 2004 while attending Ontario’s University of Waterloo. “There are opportunities in the market for young entrepreneurs that would not be seen in a good economy.”

Mr. Gupta, who launched Polar Mobile after he graduated, a company that develops a proprietary content and advertising platform for mobile devices, still serves as chairman of Impact’s board and says the breadth of students participating has grown to include those from arts and other studies outside business.

In the past year, Impact — which bills itself as Canada’s largest, non-profit student-run organization — opened offices in Calgary and Vancouver.

The organization has acquired the support and sponsorship of corporate leaders and entrepreneurs who pioneered successful businesses in Canada.

Alex Shipillo of Vancouver, heads Impact’s Microcredit Competition and co-founded Youth Canada to help high school students navigate university scholarship programs. The two groups amalgamated in 2006 to promote entrepreneurship to young Canadians.

“This is the first recession of my lifetime,” says Mr. Shipillo, who plans to start a business after graduating from university. “There’s no longer any guarantee we’ll get a good job after university.”

Ray Cao started EightyTwenty Group, a software company that is poised to double its staff in the coming months. He served a term as president of Impact while studying at University of Waterloo and remembers a survey of high school students Impact conducted to assess their perception of entrepreneurship; 70% responded it was a path of last resort for those who had dropped out of school or failed to find jobs.

“When you’re in high school, a small business does look like the last resort but one of the key reasons is because of the way it’s taught,” Mr. Cao says. “Most teachers have not been entrepreneurs.”

Impact has focused on how it communicates its message to enhance their interest in entrepreneurship and provide hands-on experience. “It’s really about making a paradigm shift,” he says.

Read the full story in The Vancouver Sun.

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Author Donna Fenn shares her insights into Gen Y entrepreneurs – their strengths and weaknesses.

Ypulse: What are some of the recurring themes you’ve seen among Gen Y entrepreneurs?

Donna Fenn: I think there are several recurring themes and Upstarts is organized around eight of them. This generation of entrepreneurs is fundamentally different from their older counterparts. Their use of technology is very important, of course, and that’s the first thing that people typically mention about them. But I think that misses the most important point about this generation, which is that they are, first and foremost, highly collaborative – I call them “Extreme Collaborators.” They’re accustomed to team work and I see that in the way they start and grow their companies. It isn’t just that they tend to start companies with partners, but also that they draw upon a huge pool of resources that just weren’t available to older entrepreneurs – college professors who teach entrepreneurship courses (a relatively new phenomenon), parents who are supportive of their entrepreneurial ventures, older entrepreneurs who are willing to mentor and sometimes invest in them. So these resources are readily available and Gen Y entrepreneurs are eager to use them. They’re not afraid to say “I don’t know how to do this; help me.” I think that previous generations prized the romantic image of the “lone wolf entrepreneur.” But the world has changed and Gen Y intuitively understands the power of collaboration and collective knowledge. And yes, they know how to use technology to harness that power. But it’s important to remember that technology is a tool.

YP: How will the economic downturn affect existing and future millennial-run startups?

DF: We’ve seen increases in business startups during the last two recessions and I think this recession will be no exception. In light of massive corporate layoffs, not to mention decreasing levels of trust in large corporations, I think we may see a record number of startups in the coming months. And I think Millennials will lead the way. Because they’re young and relatively unburdened by the financial obligations of their parents’ generation, they’re great at bootstrapping. They don’t mind eating Top Ramen and sleeping on a futon at the office. Recession startups are typically bootstrapped startups, and not companies that need significant amounts of investment capital right out of the starting gate. I don’t think capital has completely dried up, but it’s wildly difficult to get in the current economic environment.

As for existing millennial run companies, I do think that they have a remarkable ability to be agile and flexible and to react quickly to market changes. Their expertise with technology allows them to operate leanly and efficiently. That’s all critically important when money is tight. But in the final analysis, they’re in the same boat as everyone else. They’ll need to find creative ways to cut back expenses, create value for their customers, and differentiate themselves in the marketplace. If they can do that while their competitors are going under, they’ll be well-positioned for success when the economy recovers.

YP: How do Gen Y entrepreneurs differ from entrepreneurs from previous generations?

DF:I think it all starts with, as I mentioned above, collaboration and their use of technology. But there are other notable differences. I’ve noticed that GenY entrepreneurs are more likely to have some sort of social mission right out the gate. Like Tom Szaky, they’re “Social Capitalists.” While older entrepreneurs tend to wait until their companies are established and profitable, young entrepreneurs often want to make a commitment to a social mission right away. For instance, Happy Baby Food pledges to feed a child in Malawi for a day for every package sold. This generation wants to change the world and they’re using entrepreneurship to do it.

Also, I think Gen Y really understands the power of brands and is creating some memorable ones, sometimes in industries that we don’t think of “brandable.” Yes, we’ve got The Hundreds and Johnny Cupcakes – fabulous GenY brands. But there’s also Sittercity, a brilliantly branded web-based company that matches babysitters with families; and Meathead Movers, which uses its employees – mostly college athletes – to distinguish its company from its many competitors.

Gen Y entrepreneurs are also what I call “Workplace Renegades.” Typically, they reject traditional, hierarchical workplaces in favor of more participative, flexible, meritocratic corporate cultures. That doesn’t mean people don’t work hard at their companies; in fact work and life appear to be a kind of 24-7 mash up. They’re treating their employees the way they want to be treated: they’re training them; they’re making the office fun and engaging; they’re providing frequent feedback and meaningful incentives. Frankly, I think Gen Y entrepreneurs and employees are giving us all a new definition of work.

Read the full interview on YPulse.

Thanks to one of our readers, Cassandra Jowett, for passing on a link to this blog post. Apparently there is hope yet for the Millennials!

Many people have wrongly classified Millennials and other young professionals as lazy and self-centered, but I believe this stereotype results from this generation defining success differently than previous generations.

Unlike their predecessors, this group has been taught to push the envelope and not simply define success as receiving the golden watch after 25 plus years of service at a company. Millennials have watched their parents work 9-5 each day, only to be later downsized and out of work 20 years into their careers, and as a result, young professionals have expanded their definition of success to places outside of work.

A young professional’s accomplishments in their career are only a small piece of the total picture, which now encompasses personal growth, constant learning, a strong family life, and a sense of accomplishment when everything is said and done. Millennials want to blaze their own path and most especially control their own destiny. As Mr. Michael Malone writes in his article “The Next American Frontier” (Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2008), the Millennials have become a generation of entrepreneurs.

For the first time in American history, according to Mr. Malone, 18 to 24 year olds are starting companies at a faster rate than 35-44 year olds. I think this fact demonstrates how wrong the general perception of Millennials is. Young professionals are not lazy, they are trail blazers, and they are innovators in its purist form: entrepreneurs. Mr. Malone has finally given voice to what this generation wants: that it is ok to want more, to look to new horizons, to constantly expand your knowledge base to stay competitive, and to say no to the regular corporate job.

Read the rest of this blog post at BrettHummel.com.

The younger generations are different, sure – but then, were the workaholic, emotionally repressed men who were raised in the 50s and 60s really happy? And do the Gen X women trying to do a full-time corporate job and provide decent parenting to their kids really believe we have cracked the happiness code?

I know, for me, that being in control of how I spend my time is thre single greatest factor in my happiness. An extra $50,000 per year (which I could earn if I wanted to work that hard) wouldn’t compensate for the relationships that would have to go on the back burner while I worked.

The only work I am prepared to do these days is work that sets up more passive income, or work that I find intrinsically fulfilling, like teaching, counselling and coaching – and even that I limit very strictly.

I can absolutely sympathise with any young person who decides that they won’t play the corporate game – and I don’t think that makes them lazy or unmotivated!

I remember my first employer telling me that if I was only willing to work 10 hours a day then I obviously wasn’t ambitious. Fortunately, I had the nerve to walk away from someone who was not only a workaholic, but a pusher.

Time will tell.

For now, we look at the Millennials, and we hear them described:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Quote originally from Socrates (469 BC -399 BC)

The more things change, the more they stat the same …

hen John F. Kennedy told baby boomers to “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” they ran with it. That generation, born between 1946 and 1964, had a collective fascination with butt-kicking, entrepreneurial achievement.

So-called millennials, born between mid 1970s and 1990s, have received a radically different message–one captured in part by President-elect Barack Obama’s stance on the benefits of “spreading the wealth around.”

The oft-raised question–and it’s a big one for the U.S.–is whether millennials (also known as “The Everybody Gets A Trophy” generation) have been so coddled, so inoculated against insults and injury, that they are now too, well, soft to achieve entrepreneurial success.

I admit I harbor some concerns about the country’s evolving entrepreneurial ego. Joseph Schumpeter, the famous economist who coined the term “creative destruction” and likened entrepreneurs to nothing less than “heroic” innovators, believed that self-made men and women possessed a “rugged individualism” and a “will to conquer”–not exactly millennial DNA.

Not that millennials are damaged goods. Corporate recruiters drool over them for their ability to adapt and fit into bureaucratic enterprises. Overachieving, nobody-tells-me-what-to-do entrepreneurial types don’t go so gently into that good night.

Researching the payment processing marketplace and learning how it could be improved were key to gaining their clients’ trust. “If you know your stuff, you don’t have to wear it on your chest,” says Peter J. Burns III, chancellor of the College of Entrepreneurship at Southern States University. “[When] you’re quietly confident, that speaks legions.”

While gaining trust is never easy, Burns notes that because entrepreneurship has become so popular with young people in recent years, clients may be more accustomed to doing business with younger business owners. “I believe the total framework for doing business with all ages is a lot easier today than it was before, but you still have to overcome the hurdles of people taking you seriously,” he says. “Your performance [overcomes] their lack of trust in doing business with you.”

To up your credibility quotient, Burns suggests networking with business leaders in your community and industry to learn and share knowledge. “You get into the mix and just sound smarter,” he says. “You can accelerate your learning.”

Dan goes into meetings knowing that often people are surprised by his age—but he goes in confidently, armed with knowledge of his industry. “Anytime you’re trying to build trust with someone, the key is to be honest with them,” says Dan, whose company expects sales of $5 million this year. “Normally there’s a bit of hesitancy in the handshake, but within a minute or two, I’m able to create a rapport just by the honesty, openness and knowledge I’ve built in the industry.”

Read the full story in The US News.