Entrepreneurship in the 21st century has become nearly synonymous with tech startups and the gig economy. Tech startups and the gig economy are powered by millennials.
A new piece in Fortune turns this idea on its head. “Millennials are Actually the Least Entrepreneurial Generation” posits that young adults don’t start businesses at nearly the rate of their elders.
Part of this can be chalked up to the old (and true) adage that it takes money to make money.
“EY and the Economic Innovation Group discovered that 44 percent of millennials believe staying with one company is best for their career, compared to only 22 percent who want to start a business,” the article reads. “Nearly half of millennials in the survey cited insufficient financial means as keeping them from entrepreneurship.”
If you’re one of the 44 million Americans with student loan debt, you are focused on paying down that debt before stashing a little money away to build the next Netflix (or even to buy your own Netflix account… shared passwords for the win).
Dan Schawbel, author of the Fortune piece, is himself a Millennial entrepreneur. He sees a more entrepreneurial future for our generation as we find our footing in the world and start to build up savings that can be used to start businesses.
“As millennials gain more experience and progress in their careers, they will eventually have the capital, intelligence, and network required to start a sustainable company,” Schawbel writes. “Expecting that of them now, though, is unrealistic.”
Schawbel is working with a narrow definition of entrepreneurship – starting a new entity that becomes a source of income and a full-time job – that excludes the main ways that young adults mobilize their resources to make extra money.
We are the “side hustle” generation.
A CareerBuilder survey found, “Forty-four percent of those ages 25-34 and 39 percent of those 18-24 have a side gig, compared to 29 percent of those 35-44, 22 percent of those 45-54 and 19 percent of those ages 55 and older.”
A babysitter, Uber or Lyft driver, or Airbnb host operates somewhere in the space between a standard office employee and an entrepreneur. These people may never hire employees or own a company, but these workers provide the startup material (the car or home), set their own hours, and are responsible for their own success. A babysitter or part-time photographer didn’t invent child care or photography, but those are businesses. A company of one is still a company.
Entrepreneurship is a time-honored tradition in America, and millennials are carrying the torch in one hand, as we juggle school and nine-to-five jobs with the other.
