Tap into teen entrepreneurs
Tap into teen entrepreneurs – and maybe find the next million-dollar business idea
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The all-American passion for invention is finding new fuel these days. Call it the little engine of can-do: More and more youngsters are eyeing careers as entrepreneurs.
Likely inspired by the success of Facebook and the astounding $1.65 billion YouTube deal, Gen Y kids of all colors and class are increasingly interested in running their own for-profit shows.
A recent nationwide poll of nearly 1,500 Junior Achievement students, ages 13 – 18, indicated that 71% wanted to be self-employed at some point. In addition, research from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Entrepreneurship found that among children as young as 9 – 12, more than four out of every 10 (41%) would like to start their own business.
What’s this mean for you? Think ahead. Do you know what your customers will want in 2010? Betcha Gen Y has a pretty good notion.
This is prime time to tap up-and-coming talent. It’s also an opportunistic time to nurture a youngster who might just return the favor by nurturing your business in the years to come.
To help you tap into the teen entrepreneur pool, we're providing information on some national nonprofit programs, along with 10 easygoing ways you can help aspiring young entrepreneurs. We'll also introduce you to a pair of award-winning teen CEOs. Mentor a young entrepreneur today and you may reap the rewards of next-gen innovation tomorrow.
Get involved in the first EntrepreneurshipWeek USA
In response to the upsurge in youngster interest, the Kauffman Foundation, based in Kansas City, MO, is sponsoring its first-ever EntrepreneurshipWeek USA in 2007, from February 24 - March 3. The theme is “What’s the Big Idea? Take It On!”
The initiative got underway in late summer, and by Thanksgiving, more than 300 governmental, non-profit and corporate organizations in 44 states had joined as partners and sponsors. A roster of high-profile achievers also signed on, including Maxine Clark, founder of Build-a-Bear Workshop; Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko’s; Randall Pinkett, season four winner of The Apprentice; and Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST and inventor of the Segway.
“We need to show kids it’s more fun to design and create a video game than it is to play one,” said Kamen, announcing his involvement.
During that week, the partners will host hundreds of official events in cities around the country designed to educate young people, 14 to 25, about what it takes to become an entrepreneur. Venues include peer forums, speaker engagements, activities in high-school classrooms and on college campuses, business plan competitions, community events, mentoring sessions and more. The March 3 finale is set for Washington D.C., in order to underscore entrepreneurs’ concern with national policy-making.
“Creativity, curiosity and looking for unique opportunities are what drove me to become an entrepreneur,” said Kinko’s Orfalea, explaining why he joined the initiative. “EntrepreneurshipWeek USA provides the opportunity to show youth that these are skills to use and to grow.”
For more details, visit the EntrepreneurshipWeek USA site (www.entrepreneurshipweekusa.com).
Learn about next-gen business models and moguls
Meantime, many established programs already have ongoing national networks that support and motivate young entrepreneurial hopefuls. For example, the small-business lobbying and research organization NFIB is running a teen competition for 2007 (visit www.nfib.com for details).
Then there’s Steve Mariotti, a former business exec who has also taught in New York’s South Bronx. He founded nonprofit National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (www.nfte.com) in 1987 as a way of keeping at-risk students engaged and attending classes. NFTE now has classroom programs in some 16 countries and 45 states and, to date, the group has reached more than 150,000 young people and trained over 3,700 Certified Entrepreneurship Teachers.
Recently, NFTE hosted its first annual National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. Competitors included 28 teen entrepreneurs who had won regional business plan contests around the country. During elimination rounds in New York, each teen made a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to a panel of judges, just like the real deals.
The teen competitors delivered honed elevator pitches and defended their ideas against probing questions from the likes of William Donaldson, co-founder of Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette as well as a former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Allan Houston, the former NBA All-Star who now runs Allan Houston Enterprises, an investing group.
Top prize of $10,000 seed capital (or college expenses) went to 17-year-old Abagail Lewis, a high-school senior from Wichita, KS. Lewis came up with The Scribbler, a brush-tipped nail polish pen applicator that avoids the muss and fuss of bottle-and-brush applications. She dreamed up the idea so her mom would quit yelling at her about dripping polish on the living room carpet. In a spiffy 30-page business plan, including a spreadsheet of income/outgo and an organizational staff chart for the first year of operation, Lewis’ executive summary says:
The Scribbler, manufactured at Humaneering Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio, is a nail polish applicator that holds .3 more ounces than the average nail polish bottle. Polish is held in a more durable container than that of a glass bottle, polish does not get chunky like nail polishes tend to do, it is faster to apply, has a variety of brush trips for different designs, and has virtually no waste. The Scribbler is highly marketable because it appeals to a wide range of women and has proven to be a timeless trend.
Lewis is planning to plow her prize money back into the business.
One of two runners-up, Thomas C. Dant, Jr., also 17, from Silver Spring, Md., was awarded $5,000, for Fine Foto, a digital art photography business. “I’ve been doing digital imaging since I was eight years old,” says Dant, who is now getting a few calls from gallery agents in D.C.’s swank Georgetown and from New York.
“I don’t really believe it,” says young Dant, “but one businessman who saw my work said I could get $5,000 per photo. Still, I have been offered hundreds to $1,000.” Sounding every inch the entrepreneur, he says: “The thing people don’t realize is how much I love to do it. I first began photography to touch people, to send a message with my artwork.”
Like most newbies, Dant is still considering pricing.
How to find America’s next top entrepreneur
There are lots of ways to get involved, from getting in touch with the programs mentioned here, to calling a local community college dean or the nearest Small Business Development Center (SBDC), run by the SBA, to volunteer time or resources.
The EntrepreneurshipWeek USA site offers a couple of big ideas, with step-by-step instructions you can download. First is setting up a teen entrepreneur competition in your own community, with or without a school’s involvement, and there’s also a 10-day plan to move kids to launch.
If you seek real improvement, you need to set goals and devise a reasonable strategy for achieving them. With that in mind, Hunnicutt offers the following seven-step program. Visit the WELCOA Web site (www.welcoa.org) to find the resources you need to carry out your own plan.
10 more ideas to bootstrap a young entrepreneur:
1. | Invite local students or a youngster community group to sit in on your company’s marketing or strategic planning meetings. |
2. | Mount and advertise your own competition, giving teens the challenge of creating a project or a solution that will help your business. This is good for your company image as well as for the kids. Don’t forget to offer a prize. |
3. | Set up an intern program for your business. |
4. | Organize a seminar or workshop of industry gurus at the local school or a community venue to explore the challenges of launching, either in your field or generally. Make sure to allow for a freewheeling Q&A for the kids afterward. This is a good opportunity for you to network as well. |
5. | Create a weekend entrepreneur boot camp that educates teens about running a business, perhaps getting local owners and merchants to pitch in services and funding. This can be held at a YMCA or a local hotel—you don’t need to head for the woods. |
6. | Set up a student board of advisors who are charged with creating solutions and ideas for your company’s top issues or challenges. |
7. | Adopt the idea of the entrepreneurship week to your locale. Get local leaders and business owners involved in a town campaign, maybe just for one day. |
8. | Offer to teach a class at a high school or business college about creating and running a business. This is your chance to star in your own story. |
9. | Identify one teen entrepreneur to mentor and set up regular breakfast or after-school meetings to help him or her shape a business. |
10. | Post an online competition and forum on your company site – perhaps a game or a business plan submission – to encourage kids to think about starting a business. |
All of these activities will not only inspire teen entrepreneurs, of course. They are also terrific ways to boost your company’s profile.
 | Joanna Krotz |