Jul 25, 2007

The Making of an Entrepreneurial Generation

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.

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.

Donna Fenn is the author of Upstarts! How Gen Y Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit From Their Success (McGraw-Hill, 2009), about ways Gen Y is changing the entrepreneurial landscape. @donnafenn

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Ben Kaufman empowered customers to design their own iPod gear. Sean Belnick sells chairs to the likes Microsoft and Google. They're just two of the young entrepreneurs helping to shape the future of business.
30 Under 30 - 2006
From Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to plant-food mogul Tom Szaky, some of the honorees on our inaugural 30 Under 30 list have become household names.