The Making of an Entrepreneurial Generation

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But this year's honorees are also experts at using technology as a competitive tool to start and grow businesses in traditional industries: they sell shoes to tall women; bling to urban youth; houses to middle-market buyers; cookies to college students. Count on them, too, to use blogging and social networking to boost brand awareness of their products and services. They're much more likely to rely on word of mouth and viral marketing than on traditional advertising and promotion. It works for them not just because they're wildly social animals, but because they've grown up with the concepts of team work and collaboration. Nothing illustrates that more succinctly than the number of partnerships in our 30 under 30 list: more than half of our young stars started their companies with one or more partners.

You might also note that these entrepreneurs are particularly savvy about serving the needs of their own generation. There are approximately 73 million people in Gen Y -- close to the number of baby boomers, and far more than Generation X, which weighs in at around 50 million. That's a huge market filled with people whose buying habits and frames of reference are far different from previous generations. Their entrepreneurial peers are capitalizing on that by starting companies with a distinctly Generation Y point of view: IceOutGear.com, Mental Floss magazine, Insomnia Cookies, myYearbook.com, Interview Stream, and Mophie are all companies whose primary customer base is, like their founders, young.

But baby boomers, take heart: this is not an ageist generation. Some of our most successful 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs realize that there's just no substitute for experience when it comes to growing a company, so they've brought on a few seasoned managers to help them navigate entrepreneurial waters. Mophie's Ben Kaufman fired himself and hired a CEO in his 40s; Benjamin Sann runs BestParking.com with his step father; the three founders of Inogen all ceded senior management roles to their older investors. The generational mix isn't always easy or comfortable, but it gives young companies gravitas, the kind of perspective on growth that might otherwise elude them for years, and the freedom to do what they do best -- keeping their companies on the cutting edge of technology and market trends and, of course, conceiving ideas for more cool companies.

1. Ben Kaufman, Mophie
2. Sean Belnick, BizChair.com
3. Bo Menkiti, The Menkiti Group
4. Sam Altman, Loopt
5. Katie Kerrigan, Kathryn Kerrigan
6. Byron Myers, Inogen
7. Ali Perry, Inogen
8. Brenton Taylor, Inogen
9. Raj Lahoti, Online Guru
10. Geoff Cook, myYearbook.com
11. Dave Cook, myYearbook.com
12. Catherine Cook, myYearbook.com
13. Brian Taylor, Kernel Season's
14. Miles Munz, Interview Stream
15. Randy Bitting, Interview Stream
16. David Levich, Icedoutgear.com
17. Dan Gershon, Icedoutgear.com
18. Eric Liberman, Icedoutgear.com
19. Ben Goldhirsh, GOOD
20. Seth Berkowitz, Insomnia Cookies
21. Alison Barnard, in-jean-ius
22. Will Pearson, Mental Floss
23. Mangesh Hattikudur, Mental Floss
24. Nick Kenner, Just Salad
25. Rob Crespi, Just Salad
26. Hayden Hamilton, GreenPrint
27. Benjamin Sann, BestParking.com
28. Jason Wright, Feed Granola Co.
29. Jason Osborn, Feed Granola Co.
30. Alexis Demko, Lil Bogies

Donna Fenn is a contributing editor at Inc. and the author of Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become a Leader of the Pack.

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