Cool, Determined & Under 30

Tweet

Millennials are the most globally minded generation since the one that invented Earth Day. Making the world a better place is sometimes an element in their mission statements, sometimes their founding principle. Meraki, for example, which is backed by Google, builds mesh Wi-Fi networks that provide free or low-cost Internet service to poor communities. MIT student Sanjit Biswas tested the model in a low-income housing development in San Francisco; Meraki is now expanding into India, Africa, and Latin America.

The Millennials may resemble their '60s counterparts in idealism. But unlike counterculturalists, they do trust people over 30. Accustomed to the nurturing and guidance of their parents, Gen-Y entrepreneurs are receptive to the advice of older, successful company founders who were minted in droves during the '80s and '90s.

Brendan Ciecko, founder of Web design firm Ten Minute Media, has three mentors, all more than a decade older than he is. One helps Ciecko think about the business of technology. Another one advises him on intellectual property issues. A third is his social responsibility guru. "It was really surprising to me that people like this would be willing to take time out from their own businesses to talk to me once or twice a month," says Ciecko. Smacks of entitlement, doesn't he?

So Millennials get by with a little help from their friends, their parents, and their mentors. But they also draw on an unprecedented formal support system that grew up, like them, in an era of fascination with entrepreneurship. This infrastructure now serves a demographic that is intellectually prepared and temperamentally inclined to exploit it.

Much of that support system, not surprisingly, is university-based. Millennials start companies in dorm rooms while studying the subject of starting companies in classrooms. Approximately 2,100 colleges and universities offer at least one class in entrepreneurship, according to a 2006 study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and the discipline has sprouted more than 400 endowed chairs. Many schools also sponsor business plan competitions. Nate Alder, a student at Brigham Young University, has won first or second place in 11 competitions over the past year for his company, Klymit, which has developed a way to insulate outerwear and outdoor gear using argon. Alder racked up $200,000 in prize money, potential strategic partnerships, and recognition in the national business press before he even had a product to sell. (See: Gen Y, impatience of.)

Business incubators, too, are contemporaries of the Millennials. Though incubators have been around since the 1950s, there were only 12 in the United States in 1980 -- but more than 1,400 by 2006, according to the National Business Incubation Association. Some newer incubators are particularly conducive to the kind of support and collaboration on which Gen-Y entrepreneurs thrive. For example, Y Combinator, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, funds start-ups in batches. Each class starts and finishes at roughly the same time, encouraging group learning and support. The founders of Xobni are among the promising Y Combinator grads.

"One thing that differentiates the young founders is who they can connect with early on," says David Cohen, executive director of TechStars, a Boulder, Colorado, incubator that works with Millennial company founders. "People are starting companies at young ages. They fail fast, learn a lot, and keep going."

That's another trait of Gen-Y entrepreneurs: They are comfortable with a business world in constant flux. For Millennials, change isn't something to manage; it's something to relish.

Profiles reported by Max Chafkin, Donna Fenn, April Joyner, Ryan McCarthy, Kate Pastorek, and Nitasha Tiku

 PREV  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6  NEXT 

Read more:

Donna Fenn

Inc. contributing editor Donna Fenn is the author of Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit From Their Success (McGraw-Hill, 2009). Both this blog and the book examine the ways in which GenY is changing the entrepreneurial landscape with new approaches to starting, growing, and managing their companies. Learn more at http://www.upstartsrock.com/.

Sign-up for our Small Business Success Newsletter

Email Address: