Over the past 5 years I’ve had the exhilarating job of working with hundreds of young entrepreneurs, mostly under 30 first-time CEOs, to launch over 80 startups. I’m unique in my role because I am, like the entrepreneurs I’m helping, also learning the ropes and learning how to best assist them.
In doing this I’ve spent over 10,000 working hours helping young entrepreneurs get going, from that very first coffee chatting about an idea to getting that first customer and investor.
These young founders have made some incredible achievements, invented world leading tech — such as new type of cancer treatment, new bone-regenerating gel, effective mental health care app and unloseable sunglasses to name a few— and raised millions of dollars from investors.
I’ve learnt it’s really, really hard launching startups. Nothing interesting in business and innovation is obvious, it takes a lot of effort, time, sweat and tears. And this is before the self doubt or negative comments from others start rolling in.
After all this effort and essentially 5 years of trying to help entrepreneurs there are still a lot of failures, around 50% won’t survive 12 months. There are no million or billion dollar company sales, or household brand-names I can point to. No obvious global successes.
So, given these early results, my biggest question is whether helping all these young entrepreneurs is worth it or is it a waste of time? Should they just go get a “real job”?
I’m just about to hit 30 years old and I’m both optimistic and extraordinarily pessimistic about the future. On one hand I know we millennials and Gen Zs, are the smartest, most educated, connected and entrepreneurial generation to ever have the privilege of gracing earth (and I say that in the most carefree millennial way possible). On the other hand I believe we’re not properly supported to rise to our full potential by any significant means. Sure, there are few amazing successes stories (founders of Apple, Facebook, Airbnb, Microsoft all under 30 when they started) but by and large most of us are met with scepticism and indifference when trying to convince people richer, more experienced, powerful or influential to take our ideas seriously.
“Young entrepreneurs should get a real job” is the undertone of nearly every argument I face when trying to convince people more senior than me to back them. Which, privately, usually follows with complaints of them for being too lazy, unreliable or untrustworthy.
Did you know 44% young people across 45 cities are currently trying to start their own business? And that only 6% of them are actually running one? How do you think people (teachers, parents, professionals) react when they ask them what they do or want to do?
My work starting one of Australia’s first university startup accelerators, INCUBATE, has inspired me — I’m on a mission to support the next generation of entrepreneurs because I believe we, as a society, don’t foster entrepreneurship in young people.
I believe we teach young people to not be entrepreneurial — we provide ‘anti-support’. Why? There are very little personal and financial incentives because of the risks; they’re inexperienced, they have naive ideas that are not grounded in reality, they don’t have the ‘right networks’, they don’t know how to manage responsibility (or a balance sheet), the list goes on and on.
For example in Australia’s latest government report on innovation, Australia 2030, “young people” are mentioned only three times. Think about that, three times in a report about the future of a country. And the times they are mentioned its about teaching them skills, not helping them execute on innovative ideas.
I’ve observed:
- Experienced, successful people would prefer to have smart young people work for them rather than back them to start their own ventures
- Even if they do want to back them they often can’t provide the robust, tailored support required to meaningfully contribute beyond capital (which unnecessarily increases risk)
- There is unique value, benefits and opportunities, only gained from the process of building something and trying to get it out there
What to do with these pesky entrepreneurial millennials?
I believe we need a new model for combining education and entrepreneurship and that is what I want to test in Australia. Australia is already a great test bed for the world, tech giants like Apple and Facebook regularly release products early or test things to see what sticks.
Education is an important aspect of life for youth in Australia, with the Census data revealing 58% of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 (or 1.7 million people) were attending an educational institution. University is becoming such a popular choice there is a shortage of labour skills and apprenticeships in Australia.
From an economic perspective, Australia is at an interesting turning point. Our economy is extraordinarily one sided, the industries that have fuelled our incredible growth are slowing and declining or possibly inflated (property bubble anyone?). And we’re falling behind in the innovation race.
“Australia has entered the race from a good position but we lag behind our competitor nations in the amount we invest in innovation, and in the level of our ambition. We need to accelerate our pace now to catch the leaders of the innovation pack, or risk falling further behind.”
— Australia 2030: Prosperity through Innovation Report
However, I believe Australia has a extremely important role to play in the future as a global superpower. Our cultural diversity, inventiveness, lifestyle, research prowess and egalitarianism foster worldly individuals that will provide an important bridge between East and West.
When faced with serious future economic uncertainty and potential geo-political conflict I believe we have only one option;
Support and grow the amount of young entrepreneurs today, so we can reap the benefits of a more innovative nation tomorrow.
How do you create more young entrepreneurs?
Young entrepreneurs are vitally important but how do we create more of them?
My thesis is simple:
- I believe entrepreneurship, in all its forms, is humanity’s most powerful change agent — It’s a defining characteristic of homo sapiens
- I believe we can scale entrepreneurship beyond outlier success
- I believe we’re only now learning how to teach, leverage and support entrepreneurs
- I believe everyone is born ‘entrepreneurial’, we’re conditioned not to be through rigid one-size education and remnants the post-industrial world
- I believe the most important entrepreneur segment is the young entrepreneur
Thus, I believe any model that tries to help young people become successful entrepreneurs at scale needs to consist of:
- Robust education and research opportunities that fosters entrepreneurial thinking
- Experiential programs, helping young people execute on ideas and solutions
- Accessible, value adding seed funding for high potential solutions
- Tailored support for young entrepreneurs
These topics I’ll explore further in future posts.
What I’m doing this year:
- Testing a new model for helping young entrepreneurs at universities across Australia and New Zealand — I’m launching Galileo Ventures and currently fundraising one of the world’s biggest seed funds dedicated for young entrepreneurs, with a target of $20 million
- I’m helping students at The University of Sydney develop and launch their startup ideas with University of Sydney Union’s INCUBATE program
- I want to help thousands more online through this blog, video interviews and podcast to come
- I’m a big supporter of embedding entrepreneurship in education and happy to help if you’re in that space
What you can do:
- Sign up here for blog updates and join the Galileo community
- Help a young founder by investing, offering experienced free advice and encouraging someone else to do the same
- Share this article 🙂
Over the coming year I plan to share more stories and learnings every week so tune in!
