The New Entrepreneur

My school:
To characterize the students here at SMU and not rely on the usual stereotypes, I would have to say we are privileged.Privileged more in the sense of the opportunities available to us. Each student here is unique and has a different upbringing and different family circumstances so adhering to the basic "rich kid" assumptions that many people make about the students here would be misleading. But nevertheless we are a lucky group of students because of where we go to school and the resources we have.

Not only do we go to school in a big city with lots of networking capabilities, but we also have an amazing faculty that works hard to give us the education and skill-set needed to prepare us for entering into the business world. This is why I say that we are privileged.

Becoming an Entrepreneur:
I am in the last few weeks of my junior year of college and the inevitable onslaught of the question “so what do you want to do after college?” has begun to haunt me. I of course have plans, but those plans really only extend as far as grad school, but after that is a very ominous blank in the blueprint of my life.

In the “land of opportunity” which I consider myself so blessed to be raised there is a myriad of career paths to take, and that fact I find very daunting. How do I know what the perfect job is for me unless I try all of them? Let’s face it, that is an impossibility. So I need to follow what I know, and what I know is the advice of my father which is thus: be your own boss. Weather it be a private PR firm or law office, or even owning my own business, I know that being an entrepreneur is the most lucrative (if not financially then emotionally) career to have.

So where do I start in this road to entrepreneurship? I am not a business major so the opportunities that SMU’s Cox School of Business offers through classes such as its courses in becoming an Entrepreneur are not accessible to me. My father owns his own business, but he didn’t start that until well into his thirties. So I look around me at my fellow Mustangs and realize that within my own community there are entrepreneurs that seized advantages and took the (in my thoughts scary) step in starting their own businesses.

The Challenge:
This young entrepreneur is an up and coming phenomenon in our society. Not only are entrepreneurs beginning at younger ages, but they are successful as well. For my class we were presented with a challenge from Look-Look network, www.look-look.com, an L.A. based company that track trends within today’s youth, to research the “new entrepreneur”, and how this new breed is beginning to redefine how our generation sees business and what that means for the future of business.

Success Stories:
This generation has really stepped up and started a shift in the attitudes of business. Having your own business now doesn’t require years of experience in the field, it only requires a vision and the means necessary to implement it. Here at SMU we can boast of not future entrepreneurs, but active ones. A classmate of mine, Scott, regaled me with stories from his ventures in the oil industry and how he actually financed his own way into the business and began his search for oil. Another example is my father’s Dallas-based real-estate agent graduated from SMU only a few years ago, and now owns his own Real-Estate firm, Mustang Realty.

David Hanson is another SMU student who started his own company, Conduit Internet Systems, which is a software company that he has started alongside his consulting work. He learned the value of owning your own company from his self-employed father. At 17 Hanson was running his own software consulting firm. Read more of his story at: http://smu.edu/newsinfo/stories/entrepreneurs-29march2007.asp.

Another success story is an SMU student named John C. who started his own business because he saw a need as a music fan to find a more reliable source for concert tickets.The company is called FollowMyBand which notifies clients, through phone or email, about concerts from their favorite bands. Check out John C.'s website for his business at www.followmyband.com.

The Attitude Shift:
These are only a glimpse into the under recognized successes of young entrepreneurs in the business world. These New Entrepreneurs are the people who don’t wait for opportunities to find them, they create their own opportunities and thus their own successes. The great thing about these young entrepreneur's is a refreshing outlook on business. The companies they start are often unique and something that they see a need for. Like John C. and David Hanson, they often create a business out of passion which further lends to its success.

Changing the Future of Business:
What exactly does this shift signify for the future of the business world? Other than ambition and an earlier start toward becoming an executive, I can’t really say. I can’t predict future so I don’t know if our generation will continue on this path successfully or not, but I do know that we are not a generation deterred by slight set-backs, so the future of private businesses seems like a gem in our national economy and I am looking forward to contributing to that.