A Salute to Young Entrepreneurs
Submitted by andrew on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 19:19
By Mike Del Ponte, Founder of Sparkseed, and Samantha Given-Dennis, Venture Support Intern
A few months ago I had lunch with a friend who, in a few short years after college, built and sold an online company. I asked him what it was like to have already had such a large success. He referenced something that I had never considered before, but have thought about quite frequently since then: the Mark Zuckerburg Effect. The concept is simple, having witnessed the unbelievable success of young entrepreneurs like Mark, we all have a skewed view of success. For example, the new benchmark for peak achievement is building a multi-billion dollar company before your 25th birthday.
The landslide of attention on young founders has also distorted our understanding of entrepreneurship. BusinessWeek recently reported a statistic that defies the popular image of a daring young kid being the typical American entrepreneur. In fact, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity comes not from our nation's youth but from the 55-64 age group--the 20-34 age bracket actually has the lowest rate.
So why is this important? As Nick Leiber of BusinessWeek points out, ''Not only are these [young] entrepreneurs navigating the toughest economy many of us have ever lived through, they're also vastly outnumbered by older, more experienced competitors, who usually have more contacts and capital."
Building a successful enterprise – especially a social enterprise – is much harder than most people assume. For first-first entrepreneurs, the challenge is even greater. Fortunately, young social entrepreneurs have two things going for them. First, their passion, raw talent, ability to take risks, and technical savvy positions them for success in a way that older entrepreneurs envy. Second, they have the support of organizations like Sparkseed that believe in their ability to change the world.
The BusinessWeek article notes that the amount of competition and the current economic landscape renders taking the future into one's own hands a daunting task. And yet, "That's even more reason to continue to give young entrepreneurs the encouragement, respect, and awe that they've received since becoming cultural icons during the dot-com boom."
At Sparkseed, we salute all of the young entrepreneurs who are taking risks, working hard, and following their dreams to build something valuable. We look forward to the coming years when Sparkseed's social innovators will be featured in BusinessWeek's Top 25 Young Entrepreneurs of the Year.
