How Generation Z Is Altering the Face of Entrepreneurship for Good

For the longest time, my generation, the Millenials, were touted as the Entrepreneurial generation. For the most part, we have lived up to the billing. However, as the world evolves, the art of business evolves with it, and it turns out that Generation Z has more to do with this evolution than many care to admit. 

Generation Z entrepreneurs are springing forth at such a startling rate that a recent Gallup Student Poll found that 40 percent of students surveyed from grades five to 12 stated they wanted to run their own business. Then, 24 percent said they have already started. At this rate, it isn’t at all challenging to see Generation Z take over as the most Entrepreneurial Generation. Read more at entrepreneur.com.

What I’ve Learned From Working With Gen Z Entrepreneurs

Born between 1997 and 2010, Generation Z succeeds millennials, and while they’re similar in some ways (their facility with digital media, in particular), their approach to business and entrepreneurship is very different.

Gen Z is rapidly becoming known as the most entrepreneurial generation ever, with 62 percent of Gen Zers indicating they have started—or intend to start—their own business. And those who have already started down this path are not only embracing entrepreneurship but also transforming it with unique approaches to brand building, upskilling and operations. With their oldest members just a tender 24 years old, Gen Z is already finding widespread success with their entrepreneurial exploits, from apps and YouTube channels to beauty products and hand-made bow ties. Read more at worth.com.

What Generation Z Entrepreneurs Are Like

If you think Generation Y is the most entrepreneurial generation, think again. The newest generation of workers, Gen Z, shows great promise as the next wave of entrepreneurs. Born between 1994 and 2010, Gen Z is about 21 million strong in America alone, with the oldest being juniors in college and the youngest about five years old.

In a new study by my company and the third-largest staffing organization in the United States, Randstad US, we found more Gen Z’s (17%) than Gen Y’s (11%) want to start their own business and employ others. Another study that I did with Internships.com in February 2014 shows 72% of Gen Z’s want to start their own business someday. Only 64% of Gen Y said the same in the study. In addition, 61% of high school students and 43% of college students said they would rather be an entrepreneur than an employee when they graduate college. Read more at Forbes.com.

Two Ways Entrepreneurs Can Turn Perfectionism Into Progress

Over the last few weeks, two friends (who are also entrepreneurs) decided to finally launch new websites for their businesses. The problem is, each of them had been kicking around the idea for months and still had nothing to show for it.

The problem wasn’t their motivation, abilities, or that they were too busy. Rather, perfectionism was preventing them from making progress. Perfectionism caused them to get distracted by all the potential details and decisions that could be made in the process of creating a website. In the end, this lack of focus prevented them from making progress. Read more at yfsmagazine.com.

“I have a view that if you build something that’s good, and you keep making it better, it lasts.” – Adam D’Angelo (Quora)

Today’s Young Entrepreneurs See the World in a New Way

Every generation likes to thinks it’s special, just a little bit “different” than the generations that came before. I know my generation, the baby boomers, sure did. Caught up in the unbridled optimism of youth, we thought we were so different that we were going to change the world.

I thought about this a few weeks ago while attending the Future of Entrepreneurship Education (FEE) Summit in Orlando, Fla. I met many driven young entrepreneurs under 30 who are determined to fix the mess the previous generations have made of the world (which kind of reminds me of what my generation used to think).

Don’t get me wrong. I hope they can do what we boomers couldn’t. And one thing this new generation, known either as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y, has going for it is the prevalence of entrepreneurs in the world today. In my day, most people aspired to get a good job and start climbing the corporate ladder. (Heck, most women aspired to get any job at all.) Today, it’s obviously a different story. Entrepreneurship is taught at hundreds of colleges, and programs like the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) provide entrepreneurial education to at-risk teens. Read more at allbusiness.com.

A Message from Acceler8Success Founder, Paul Segreto

The following is from a social media post I shared seven years ago as a tribute to my Dad, a long-time business owner and entrepreneur who had recently passed away…

“Tonight I’m especially honored to be the host (and founder) of “What Keeps You Up At Night” as this podcast focuses on small business and my Dad, who passed away this past Sunday was a small business owner for over 50 years. He was a business owner through a time when most men got jobs and worked for a steady paycheck, incremental raises and a gold watch. Instead, he started a business, was very active in the business and opened multiple locations.

Through good times and bad, he stayed the course. I cannot recall a day when he stayed home sick. I do remember when he broke his hip that required surgery. It left him on crutches and with a brace all the way down his leg screwed into his shoe. Well, within days of surgery he was back at work, standing non-stop all day long with the crutches under his arms taking care of customers and his business. Truly he was an entrepreneur and I know there were many things about owning and operating his business that kept him awake at night. So, Dad, tonight’s show is for you!”

Why Start-ups Fail

If you’re launching a business, the odds are against you: Two-thirds of start-ups never show a positive return. Unnerved by that statistic, a professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School set out to discover why.

Based on interviews and surveys with hundreds of founders and investors and scores of accounts of entrepreneurial setbacks, his findings buck the conventional wisdom that the cause of start-up failure is either the founding team or the business idea. The author found six patterns that doomed ventures. Two were especially common: bad bedfellows & false starts.

Other parties besides the founders—like employees, strategic partners, and investors—can play a major role in a firm’s demise. Quincy Apparel, for instance, was undone by weak support from its investors and factory partners and inflexible employees.

Many overlook a crucial step in the lean start-up process: researching customer needs before testing products. Like Triangulate, an online dating start-up, they keep rushing to launch fully functional offerings that don’t fit any market needs.

The good news is, firms can avoid that pitfall by rigorously defining the problem they want to solve, getting one-on-one feedback from potential customers, and validating concepts with real customers in real-world settings. Read more at hbr.org.

Is This the Biggest Myth in Entrepreneurship?

“I’m glad you could make it!” he said. “I’ve got an idea I want to run by you.”

I’d just arrived at a birthday party for one of my daughter’s kindergarten friends. If you’re a parent, you understand the kind of party I was at. It was one of those “invite everyone from your child’s class” parties where the parents stand around and make small talk with each other while our kids consume all the junk food and juice boxes we’d never feed them at home.

Since becoming a father, these little kid birthday parties have taken over my weekends, and the parent who was excited to see me was a father I’d been chatting with during a similar party a couple weeks prior. I felt a bit awkward because he was excited to see me, but I couldn’t remember his name. However, he clearly remembered me. And, judging by his statement, I knew what was coming next. He wanted my feedback on a business idea.

This kind of thing happens a lot. When people find out I teach entrepreneurship, they love telling me their business ideas. And I don’t just mean typical entrepreneurs pitching their venture-style tech companies. I mean my neighbor, my hairdresser, my bartender, and even, one time, my mailman. Read more at medium.com.

Seven Steps These Entrepreneurs Wish They Would’ve Taken Before Starting Their Businesses

Information can be a valuable resource, and having enough of it is key to helping business owners make smart decisions. But lack of information or experience can also have an impact. Even seasoned entrepreneurs have regrets or moments when they wish they had done something differently if they knew at the beginning what they know now.

Here, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council reflect on their current knowledge and business experience in order to share some of the steps they wish they would have taken before starting their businesses. Read more at forbes.com.

This is What the Small Business Model of the Future Looks Like

Ten years ago, I remember standing in a large corporate board room of one of the world’s largest pet product manufacturers explaining this new thing called “Facebook“. There really shouldn’t have been a reason for me to be there. I worked for a small local fish store that a year prior was virtually unknown outside of extreme hobbyist enthusiasts. But it was what happened between 2010 and 2011 that got me in that boardroom. My small company created a following on Facebook, which at the time measured around 40,000 followers and a YouTube viewership of over 1 million.

We can’t even imagine a world without the internet literally available 24/7 in our pockets anymore. What that means is that the biggest single asset any small business has is its access to people through the internet. Small businesses can foster connection through followings on social media, visitors on a website and even through the people who look up to the business as a thought leader or industry expert. Powered by the internet, social media and influencers have turned marketing and product offerings and owner priorities upside down. The business model of the future is here and with it comes an all new way of doing small business. Read more at entrepreneur.com.

If you’re a blogger or an author interested in having your articles, posts, book excerpts, etc. included in our daily newsletter, please reach out to us via email to info@Acceler8Success.com.