Career or goals in life. Just have to have faith that it will happen for you!

Millennials as Entrepreneurs, Part 10 of 10: Where To Get Started

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In the end, as I mentioned in the last part, the decision is yours to make in whether or not being an entrepreneur is right for you.

 

A few good questions that I’d recommend asking yourself can be found in this article:

 

  • Are you comfortable with uncertainty?
  • Are you willing to put off good for the great (even though the great isn’t guaranteed?)
  • Can you wear multiple hats when needed?
  • Can you deal with a daily emotional roller coaster?
  • Can you stay committed to building a successful business even though there will be plenty of barriers set before you?

 

If you answer yes to all of these, then you’re good to go. If you realize that life is not a practice run, I don’t see how you can’t say no. Everyone deserves an adventure in their life to find out what they’re made of.

 

Personally believe that we only live life once and we should all at least try going solo once. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn’t and it’s a big learning experience. Either way, at least you’d know.

 

Figure Out Your Type of Business

 

As we’ve explored, there’s plenty of business opportunities out there. Which one will work best for you? The main thing that I want you to think about is that there’s really no true offline business anymore. I mean, you can be, but you’ll be doing yourself a major disservice.

 

Even if you decide to go towards starting say… a daycare, for example, you should probably be adding some sort of online element. Parents would love to check up on the activities that are going on with their kids and what adventures they’re going on from day to day. Heck, if you get something like a GoPro, then perhaps you can strap one on to them from time to time and see what they see? Or heck, start writing a blog about tips and tricks to correspond with what they did during the day (This is just me thinking out loud.) Can you imagine how many customers/kids this daycare would get vs those that didn’t?

 

Educate Yourself, Leaders are Learners

 

Remember, as a business owner you need to be a leader. One thing I learned out of being in LTD was that Leaders are Readers. However, you don’t need to actually read books. You need to be learning. Whether or not you’re learning from audio books or listening to podcasts, or watching educational videos, you need to be learning regularly.

 

The best thing you can do is not look at it as a chore, but as part of your strategy. Start utilizing a filing method (Evernote or something similar would be useful) so that when you have say a post or doing something new, you can fall back on that information. That fresh perspective on the topic will make you look good to your customers.

 

Affiliate – Find a Community that Supports Your Decision

 

Another thing that will help is affiliation. Learn about your potential community before you dive into it. There’s different ways you can do that. You can mingle with potential customers, or you can mingle with other like minded people who are in charge of their own startup. Both have huge benefits in being involved with!

 

B2C Groups – Going to groups that have potential clients is a great way to figure out what products you need to develop. For example, if you’re wanting to start that daycare, find out from other parents what kinds of things they do or don’t like about daycares that are available to their kids. You can ask these parents individually or host an event. Either way, you’ll be getting valuable information that will give you a leg up on your competition.

 

B2B Groups – In Indianapolis, I like to think we have a huge tech startup community. Obviously, not as big as certain places on the west and east coast, but still something pretty strong. I think a big part of that is Verge and the The Speak Easy.

 

As I’ve seen these groups grow up, the party has just gotten bigger and bigger. Groups like these support tech startups – which is huge in Indy. However, there’s groups like Fizzle.co that support online businesses.

 

If you’re wondering if there’s a nearby group interested in what you’re wanting to do, check out meetup.com – you’d be surprised on what’s on there. If there’s nothing there, then perhaps you should start a group? Here’s a recent SPI podcast that illustrates how important masterminds are. Perhaps a good place to find people to be part of your mastermind might be reddit?

 

Next Step? Take Action.

 

If starting a business is something that you want to do, start as soon as you can. Is there something you need to get trained in first? Assuming that you’ve talked to people in that field and that you really want to be a part of, that might be your first step.

 

If there’s no special training required, perhaps your next step is to start looking into hosting your site. Or if you want to start in the real world, perhaps your next step is figuring out how you can start finding customers.

 

Whatever it might be, it’s time to start your adventure.

Millennials as Entrepreneurs, Part 9 of 10: A Generational Decision

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“The choices we make today are going to have impact on at least two generations after us. That means our kids and our grandkids.” – Campbell Haigh at an LTD Rally in 2007

 

I’m not sure about you, but that kind of frightens me a bit. As of right now, I don’t have kids (they’re in the not too distant future), but you know, I want to be a good example for them. Personally, with all of the political stuff that we’ve been through as of late with more people getting on welfare and believing that society owes them… I’m somewhat worried about my kids getting an influence from that thinking.

 

However, I realize that I can’t protect them from that fully, and potentially one of the biggest things they can see me do is struggle to get New Inceptions to what it has the potential to be in the future.

 

History is Written by Winners – How Will You Impact History?

 

Perhaps the business that you start will only be known about by your family in the future. Or, like Steve Jobs, your name will go down in infamy. That’s luck of the draw.

 

But really, as we’ve eluded to, you have to be a leader to get due credit – bad or good.

 

Something I also heard from the rally I quoted at the start of this section was this: A majority of people who are on their deathbed always wonder about their legacy. If they are going to be remembered. What could they have done differently?

 

This is something else that has driven me to make a mark in the sand. I don’t want to live the rest of my life wondering “What If?”. What if I had actually taken the time to start something? What would I have done? Where would I have gone? What would my family had been able to experience?

 

I know that if I do nothing, then nothing will happen. I know that if I work for someone else, they’ll get most of the credit for what I’ve done. We, as people, have the need to be recognized. At what level varies from person to person. I want to be remembered as someone who did something during a time that I could have chosen to mail it in with so many of our generation or do nothing. What’s the opposite of caring? No, it’s not hating. It’s indifference.

 

I’m simply suggesting that you do what Brendon Burchard talks about all the time: Live, Love, Matter. And personally, I don’t think there’s any better way of doing just that than by being an Entrepreneur.

 

Making the Big Choice

 

As I’ve been trying to make the case for as many Millennials to start their own business in this series, I realize that it’s going to be an individual choice for everyone. For me, it’s never really been a question on whether or not I’d go down this path, but when.

 

Personally, I’ve always kind of struggled with authority and even my the most influential people in my life have always asked when I was going to start my own thing. I guess my main problem was that I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do as a business. It wasn’t until I found fizzle.co that I felt that I had the backing and the proper check points in place to start.

 

So that’s one of the things that I would recommend is that if you’re looking to start something, see if you can’t seek insight into that world from people who are already there.

 

Another thing that kind of kept me back was wondering if I knew all I should about whatever it was that I was going to build NI on. Probably just like you, I don’t necessarily feel that I’ve accomplished much. However, when I ask others if I’ve been successful, they say that I have. In fact, they’ve even pointed out a few products that I can make right away.

 

Your hurdles might be completely different. Maybe they’re financial hurdles. Maybe they’re time issues. Everyone will have different things to get through. However, you need to make the choice. It’s either yes or no. And you need to live with and accept that choice.

 

Again, personally, I think it’s much easier to accept a choice when at the end you can at least say you HONESTLY tried.

 

You’re Unique: Share Your Voice, Your Passion, Yourself

 

You’ll probably have the same question as I did. What have I achieved? What do I know? How can I add value to others? The simple truth is that we’re all different – each of us has a story. Even someone that does car maintenance will do it differently compared to another mechanic. Does he see it as something that “needs to be right”? Or does he see it more as an art form? Does he work on cars for historical significance? Or is tinkering simply his passion?

 

When you think of your skill sets, what makes you different? When other people see something as a task… how do you see it? Perhaps it is something like car maintenance. Perhaps it’s something so niche and focused that many people will instantly see you as the expert because before you came, there was nothing.

 

Either way, your individual take and expertise is needed!

 

So below, I’d like you to think of and share at least 5 things that you believe is no big deal that you could 1.) be able to teach others to do or 2.) be able to do for them.

 

What passion and interests do you have that you could share with others and add value to their lives?

 

Millennials as Entrepreneurs, Part 8 of 10: Leading is An Ideal Goal for Us

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In part 1 we discussed some statistics about what Millennials want in the work place. I’ll share them again:

 

  • 64% of them say it’s a priority for them to make the world a better place.
  • 72% would like to be their own boss. But if they do have to work for a boss, 79% of them would want that boss to serve more as a coach or mentor.
  • 88% prefer a collaborative work-culture rather than a competitive one.
  • 74% want flexible work schedules.

 

Look at that second number. 72% of us want to be our own boss. To do that, we have to run our own business. And to do that, need to have some sort of leadership skills.

 

The World is Full of Followers who want to Lead

 

In the 6th installment of this series, I talked about The Prussian Education System contributing to why Millennials are Lost. How it has been used to create a population of soldiers who follow the oligarchy of the Progressive Movement that originally installed it. They want and continue to want followers.

 

The other contributing part to the Lost Generation can be found in part 1, when we saw how Millennials generally want a lot out of life.

 

The catch is that these two ideas contradict each other. One of them is going to have to yield to the other.

 

So far it seems it seems that many of us don’t know which to choose. In fact, many of us are even pushing back our internal clocks to have more time to develop “Me”. It seems like a whole lot of confusion. Do we invest in a job that might have the conditions we’re used to or do we invest in ourselves and create that atmosphere for ourselves?

 

Leaders Get The Credit Through Failure

 

If there’s one thing that we’ve learned from our role models growing up is that leaders get the credit. From our coaches in high school, to athletes in the pros, to politicians, and award winning actors, we see that those who succeed get the most credit. It is almost intolerable for us to be unsuccessful. We have grown up most of our life believing that we CANNOT and MUST NOT fail.

 

The problem with this is that we now have a generation of people who don’t really know that failing is a part of learning. That we can’t really learn something until we’ve tried to apply knowledge and screw up.

 

Many of us have not heard of all the failures that successful people have had before they were successful. However, it’s true.

 

As it’s suggested then, we need get out there and fail quicker! Otherwise, the alternative is taking a seat and job hopping in the new economy – something that personally I don’t want to do. I’d prefer security.

 

Leadership is Something Learned

 

Leadership for most of us is appealing and scary at the same time. We know that if we want things to go our way, that we must appeal to others to follow our plan. If we’re successful with spreading the idea, then we find ourself leading. At the same time we know leadership can be lost as quickly as it can be gained if we’re not careful with our followers. So we need to learn how to lead with purpose.

 

A big key in being a leader is actually studying it. Seeing what other people have done successfully before us and actually studying those actions. We can do that through case studies, or the hard way through personal experience OR we can cheat and read books by authors like John Maxwell.

 

Once you have successfully gained influence of others and can wield it successfully, then you are on the path of being a true leader. But just like anything else in the self development world, it’s something that you’ll need to continue to study.

 

Leading By Example

 

In the comments below, I’d love to hear about your experiences at being a leader. Whether you’ve had success or have failed at it, let us know below. Also, if you did fail, what did you take away from the experience?

 

Next week, in part 9, we’ll discuss making the big choice. Those that succeed in building a business will be the ready made leaders after 2020. Will you be a leader or a follower? We’re in a perfect place in history to make our collective mark for other generations to follow!

Millennials as Entrepreneurs, Part 7 of 10: Easiest Method of Self Expression in One’s Career

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In the last session of this series, I had a little tough love for our generation. But there was a reason for that. A lot of us ARE lost. Not lost as in a lost cause but lost as in confused. It is said that when people are confused, they lack clarity on what action to take – so they take none. The secret on taking action is to first find out where you are.

 

Just like when you’re lost geographically and you want to get somewhere, you need to know where you’re at so that if you had a map, the map could actually be of use to you.

 

Part of finding out who you are includes finding your personality. Another part includes finding your purpose in life. To Millennials, these are highly important. We are very self expressive. (You might not think you are personally, but then again we are the Generation of “Me!”.)

 

When you find your purpose in life, life gets that much easier. You start making choices that reflect where you want to go. It’s a life hack that is well worth the search.

 

On the other hand, when a person hasn’t found their purpose, there’s a good chance that they’ll jump from occupation to occupation or vise to vise hoping that they can fill the void in their life.

 

How to Find Your Purpose

 

Personally, I’ve learned a lot about myself since I’ve gotten out of grad school. I’ve had time to figure out what makes me tick and what I’m good at. This has helped me clear the view of what I want to accomplish in life. In other words, I’ve found my purpose.

 

Before you start on your path of finding your purpose, you might need to deprogram yourself. I did this with the book The Four Agreements. I highly recommend this book, however it might come off a little out there. So if you want something that’s more down to earth, try this. It has a longer list of things to remember… but it’s still useful.

 

Once you deprogram yourself, the first part to finding yourself is to recognize your personality. Finding your personality helps you learn how you naturally interact with the world around you. Do you live for the future? Do you live for the now? Or do you live based on where you’ve come from? How do express yourself? How do you think? These are questions that can be answered by figuring out your personality.

 

Once you find out who you are including your strengths and weaknesses (and acknowledging them) then you can start looking at finding your passion. Your passion is basically the concept of what you’re naturally interested in. What do you do with your spare time?

 

People might have similar strengths and weaknesses. They might have similar personalities. But the chances for them to have the same strengths, weaknesses, personality, AND interests is a pretty small chance. This is what makes you valuable. You just need to know where you fit. Once you’ve discovered your passions, you’ll be onto finding your purpose.

 

Your purpose is finding out how you fit into the world. And my biggest recommendation is: Don’t try to force it. If you’re a circle, don’t try being a triangle. If you’re a connector of people, don’t try being a super geek.

 

If You Don’t Program Yourself What To Think, The World Will Do it For You.

 

The mistake of not finding your purpose will more than likely land you in a situation you don’t want or appreciate. I’ve seen several people struggle with themselves through a midlife crisis. Yeah, you remember that phrase? It’s not used as much as it used to be, but people still go through them. Why?
Because they have been living someone else’s dream for them. They didn’t take the time to figure out what they wanted in life… until they realized they were a certain age and it wasn’t what was supposed to happen… to them. They might be really successful if compared to others, but in reality, they should have been doing something else the whole time. Have you ever heard of the expression in regards to a person’s career: “I found that I was climbing a ladder but realized that it was on the wrong building”?

 

Believe it or not, this has happened to a number of our parents. It’s one cause for people suddenly seeking divorce after being married a long time.

 

Have Full Reign to Follow Your Purpose

 

As an employee, we’re told what to do, when to do it, and possibly how to do it. Of course, as an employee this is what we signed up for. We’re selling our most valuable commodity, time, for money. If you have a problem with any of that… you should probably be a business owner.

 

However, if you’re an entrepreneur, there’s obviously risk involved. But there’s also risk if you’re an employee as well. As an entrepreneur, you might find yourself not needed. As an employee you might find yourself… not needed.

 

The difference? When you first started your job, you were guaranteed income. You knew you were going to get paid. As an entrepreneur, that might not be the case. However, as an entrepreneur, you have full control on your career. For some that’s a little hard to handle. Yet for others, that’s all we want to handle. We want to be personally responsible for our own success.

 

In the comments below, let me know if you’re on the path that you feel is right for you. If it isn’t right, say why not. If it is right, let me know how you found this path. Did you go through the above process or simply stumble into it?

 

Next week in part 8, we’ll be discussing Leadership by means of being an Entrepreneur. We touched briefly on this in part 6, but we’ll be looking more at why being a leader gets you closer to your ideal self.

 

Millennials as Entrepreneurs, Part 6 of 10: The 2nd Coming of the Lost Generation

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It is said that we are a generation of victims. That we feel that someone has wronged us in the past. And due to that, many of us feel that we are entitled to some sort of compensation.

 

For many of us, that wrong was when our elders told us that there would be a job at the end of our college years. For others, that wrong was being told that they needn’t worry about a job because they would be taken care of.

 

Either way, we were told about something that wasn’t there. Many of us are still looking for the cheese at the end of that maze.

 

The Rich Get Richer, and the Poor Get Poorer… Right?

 

We’ve heard this many times before. But have you ever thought why this is the case? If you’re not familiar with how Washington works, then you might not know that there are people called Lobbyists who contribute to a campaign (read: bribe) for members of congress to do favors for them. Supposedly there’s supposed to be all kinds of regulation for this, but in reality it doesn’t seem to be that way.

 

What works for the rich in Washington generally works for the rich elsewhere. Obviously, money talks. So those that have money have the power. Those without money are fight a losing battle daily.

 

The Poor get poorer because they try to play by a system that doesn’t cater to them.

 

Let’s pretend that I’m poor with a young family to support. I don’t have a great education (didn’t have the resources to pay for it after high school) and I don’t have a great paying job. So chances are, I’m getting all kinds of subsidies from the government… or not (I might have moral standards that prevent me from applying for welfare).

 

Anyhow, I finally luck out. I get an offer for a decent job. However, the job is half an hour walk away. I’d drive, but I don’t have reliable transportation. I don’t have a bike either. So I’m going to hoof it.

 

Well, I’m doing this job for a couple of months and I finally have a little bit of money put away. It’s getting to be cold out so I consider buying a car. Why? Because I don’t want to spend a half an hour walking in the snow everyday (especially after work)! So, I get the least expensive car I can.

 

I’m doing pretty good, now. However, because I did pay for a cheaper car (with many miles already on it), I’m finding myself having to do repairs on said car. Well, crap. Now I got to pay for that!

 

Ok. Well, this rat race sucks. Maybe, I need to go to school and get a better job. Then I could get more income.

 

I start going and I’m doing fairly well, but it sure is tough having to balance work, school, and a family.

 

So I’m going and suddenly one of the kids gets sick. We don’t have the best insurance, so now I have to pay for that out of pocket. Oh and let’s not forget the car breaks down again.

 

Well crap. Now I have to figure out how to pay these two bills. I pick up a second job and now I’m finding it hard to study for school. Ugh… Ok. So do I struggle through the rest of the semester or quit and come back when I have the time for it again?

 

Hard decisions… hard decisions…

What would you do?

 

The previous story is actually the story of one of my past students who posed the question to me. They tried to play by the rules that society taught them. But due to lack of time and resources, they had a ton of issues. Luckily, this story had a happy ending… but many don’t. For most, it really isn’t as simple as pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

 

The current economic system keeps them out not because they didn’t try but because they were told to do something that doesn’t cure what their symptoms are suggesting is their ailment. It would be like a doctor prescribing a hormone for acne treatment. It might work… or it might make the problem much worse.

 

What About the Middle Class?

 

This is currently where things stand for the rich and poor. And the middle class is stuck somewhere in the middle. With inflation and the cost of living going up, more and more people who once were considered stable middle class are finding themselves sinking lower and lower. How do the poor and middle class fix their situation?

 

By playing a different game. Two books that I’d recommend listening to (or actually reading) would be Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Robert’s book with Donald Trump Why We Want You To Be Rich.

 

In these books, you’ll learn mainly theory on how rich thinking is different than poor thinking. Ever since I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad in 2001, I’ve been looking for as much content that I can find that is applicable for people who need low overhead to start a business. (The results of that will be in another post.)

 

Formal Education is A Dinosaur

 

I grew up always kinda thinking that I was going to be a teacher of some sort. I always wanted to make an impact in other’s lives. In high school, I realized that it wasn’t going to be kids. A lot didn’t seem to take the information they received as vital information.

 

When I got to college, I thought “eh, this might work.”. So when I got the opportunity to finally teach, I realized it wasn’t going to be college students because of the administration.

 

I thought about this for awhile and with the help of a few videos and audios, I figured out that it wasn’t the kids in primary school. And it wasn’t really the administration’s fault in the secondary setting. It was the simple fact that the system itself is out of date!

 

The main part of this, I believe, is due to the Prussian Education System that our current education system is largely based off of. The main thing you need to know about the system is that it consists of a ton of a standardized testing AND one of the main results being that it creates a lot more followers than it does leaders.

 

With the internet completely giving everyone their own way to express their voice, the system is failing miserably. It just doesn’t fit today’s needs and culture. This is one reason I believe we’re seeing Millennials question early on whether or not college is worth going to. What’s the point if you don’t need it to do what you want to do?

 

The Choice is Yours

Again, I’d say that all Millennials are victims in one way or another. Whether or not you stay a victim is up to you. If you choose to stay one or think that you will forever stay one, then you’re probably right.

 

If you think that you’d like to get some wealth (not just money, but in relationships, health, etc.) into your life, then I know you have the ability to do so. I’m glad to be on that journey with you. We need more people like you involved with New Inceptions.

 

Below I’d like for those of you who would like to stop living paycheck to paycheck, quickly tell me why you’d like to get out and if you can, what you’ve done in the past to get out. If you haven’t tried before, I’m glad that you’re making the decision to now – welcome aboard!

 

In the next part of this series, we’ll be discussing Self Discovery. Personally, I think it’s one of the most important things you need to figure out to have success with not only business, but with life as well.

Millennials as Entrepreneurs, Part 5 of 10: The Economy is Changing Rapidly

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You can make positive deposits in your own economy every day by reading and listening to powerful, positive, life-changing content and by associating with encouraging and hope-building people.

– Zig Ziglar

 

When I was in grad school, one of my entrepreneurship professors hit us with this Did You Know? video. This was back in 2008, right before the economy tanked. It really opened my eyes to what the future was going to hold.

 

Two things in that video completely blew me away when I first saw it:

  1. Half of what technical students study their first year of college will be obsolete by their 3rd year.
  2. There are students earning their degrees for jobs that don’t exist yet because the tech used to do them doesn’t exist yet.

 

It’s been nearly 7 years since I first saw this video. Wow. If you think it’s bad in college, time really REALLY does fly when you get out of school.

 

When I think about these two points now, I think “Well, duh.”

 

That’s the thing. Not even 10 years ago it was common to think that everything we had was going to stick around a few years (decade?) as the premiere technology. That’s the way it had always been. However, as we’ve explored already, the world is speeding up.

 

People are Going to School for Jobs That Don’t Exist

 

As a society, the US has been focused on more kids studying STEM majors – Science Technology Engineering and Math – for at least a decade now. On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with this. There are still a lot students that don’t have a secure knowledge of these topics. Also, with the economy being tech driven as much as it is, it only makes sense that individuals have a strong.

 

However, with the two statements above, it’s easy to question “what’s the point of going to school if I’m not going to be taught what I really need to know?”. That’s a good question. The truth is that you should never stop learning. If one does go into a STEM major for college, just realize what college actually is: a way to get a certificate that proves that you know the basics. Don’t ever think that it stops there, or you’ll find yourself quickly behind the rest of the world.

 

More Customers Than Ever

 

Something else I want to point out from the video is the part when it was talking about major technologies getting 50 Million users faster and faster. This is true but it’s only one side of the coin. The other side is that technologies are coming faster and faster. It was a much longer time between the radio and TV than it was between the internet being utilized for residential use and Facebook coming online.

 

In 2007, I heard an Amway CD that talked about both sides of the coin. However, the speaker looked at it from another perspective. He viewed the users as potential customers. If you think about it from a business point of view, he was right.

 

More Game Changing Technologies X Users Using Them Quicker = Even More Eyeballs Seeing Things for Sale.

 

You see companies capitalizing on this all the time. Especially if you have multiple types of media coming in to you. Might be one reason why we’ve stopped paying attention to ads on TV? We’ve already heard about the new sandwich at Arby’s!

 

The Next Best Thing: Defining Our Buying Habits

 

Many people are about the next best thing. It’s simply the culture we live in. Much of this is driven by a culture where big advertisers are part of the main stream. I mean, how many Chevy ads do you see on a regular basis? Or a phone commercial? Plenty, apparently.

 

As Millennials, we’re starting to see that this might not necessarily be the best thing for our culture. We are starting to purposefully cut out the next best thing because frankly, many of us, I believe, feel that something is wrong with being materialistic. We feel that we’re being taken advantage of. Many of us are choosing to be Retroists or even Minimalists.

 

A Retroist, chooses to live in the past (and loves nostalgic everything) where a Minimalist chooses to cut out extra stuff in general. Neither one of these is inherently bad. It just doesn’t seem like either one is moving forward. If anything, they seem like a step backward.

 

That being said, I think it’s human nature that we want to move to the next best thing. Many would believe that our economy won’t survive if we move away from our current form of commercialism. But many would also argue that we can’t keep our materialistic ways up or we’re asking for some major hurt.

 

So how do we keep our economy growing but at the same time start limiting our buying habits? It’s something that, I believe, our generation is going to have to figure out. But I think it starts with defining our buying habits and that entails even more customization.

 

Personally, I think just as the internet has helped people share their voices, I think it’s also starting to help people distribute the wealth (not by taxation) that only a few big brands have had control of in the past. Just as the major media companies are no longer the go to sources for media, I think we’re going to see more and more companies starting out of a house or garage.

 

No longer must we worry about keeping up with the Jones’ in spending. We need to start figuring out how we’re going to make our own products. How do we become part of the Sharing Economy?

 

Setting the Curve

 

Obviously, the economy has changed drastically in the past couple of years. We need to start thinking about how we can use it to our advantage. What kinds of things do you see switching from big brands to more localized ones? What kind of company could you see yourself starting that would give those around you more value than the national brands? Leave your thoughts below!

 

Next week we’re going to be driving home even more. We’ll be exploring the phrase: The Lost Generation and the mindset that goes along with it.

 

 

Millennials as Entrepreneurs: Part 4 of 10 – Growing up as Tech Natives

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Have you ever been with family or older friends and someone says they need help with their phone? You’re like “Sure. I’ll look at it.” and you help them figure out whatever their problem was without hardly thinking about it? Not to mention the next thing you know you’re now their personal tech support?

 

This has happened to me plenty of times. Personally, I love helping when I can with tech. I’ve always been a natural at it – even before it was considered normal. Back then I was labeled a geek of sorts, but it’s totally acceptable today.

 

The Rise of Social Media and Texting

 

Back when I was entering college, social media and texting didn’t exist as it does today. We were using AIM and ICQ as our messengers and texting ran up your cell phone bill like no tomorrow.

 

The first Social Media platform that I was aware of, wasn’t really even a social media platform persay. It was collection of member pages based around message boards, personal blogs, and funny videos (which were based on video game characters). You might have heard about it – Rooster Teeth.

 

Today, while it might not be up there with Facebook, they’re doing pretty well in their own way. When I started watching their videos back in 2001-2002, (and when they were known as Cock Bite – there’s a trivia answer for you!) I along with a whole bunch of other Halo players flocked to their site where they hosted their Red Vs Blue series. It was hilarious. But it was also signs of what was to come.

 

Since then, they have added on several side communities and series (Rage Quit is hilarious – if you can take the swearing!).

 

I used RT regularly until Facebook started becoming the behemoth that we know it as today. The longer I stayed at RT, the more I realized that I was being surrounded more and more by fans of the company. They weren’t using it as a tool like I was. No, they were fanatics about it. So much so that they even went to conventions that the company puts together.

 

I don’t think I could ever be that big into something now that I didn’t have ownership in. 🙂

 

 

I think this story kinda holds true for a lot of other Millennials. While I never used them, Xanga, Tumblr, and LiveJournal are a few blog sites that lots of people flocked to early on but now have been replaced by today’s big names.

 

The Current Kings of Social Media

 

In marketing, there’s a handful of social media sites that need to be considered when building a brand. Obviously, you have Facebook. Then there’s Twitter and LinkedIn. Next you’d see sites like YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest.

 

Unlike the previous generation of social media sites, one can see the current top sites as tools that fill an inherent need to socialize. Typically people use them because their friends do.

 

When Facebook added the ability to let anyone into the site in 2006, not to those just in colleges, numbers shot through the roof. As of 2013, the count for Facebook users was considered to be half of all online users.

 

As tech savvy Millennials, we’ve been able to use these sites as they’ve evolved. Due to that fact alone, we’ve been able to keep up with the latest abilities that each site has given us.

 

On Facebook, marketing tools really shot up when apps came online. After apps, we had Pages. Now it’s less Pages and more shareable content. It’s always changing.

 

As millennials, we’re used to technology always changing. So really, we have the upper hand when it comes to these platforms. They’re part of who we are and how we communicate.

 

However, as we’ve seen, this comes at a cost as we depend more and more on the newest of technology.

 

In with the New, Out with the Old

 

In 2014, pretty much half of all internet users were using the web through the use of smart phones or a tablet. Personally, I think it’s by design. Companies know that their potential customers like to be on the go. If they can get themselves in front of their audience as they are on the go, then they’re going to get a higher ROI than if their audience saw their ad at home.

 

The cost of acquiring these new mobile devices has been a constant distraction. Even though people have as much time as ever, they feel that they’re life is faster paced.

 

Why? Because the distractions are constantly giving them a to do list. See this, laugh at that. Poke that button.

 

People are spending less and less time creating.

In this new world, if you have enough will power to create, you can build an audience and therefore a business.

 

Building Will Power

 

In the comments below, let me know about some of your tricks in keeping your technology induced distractions down. If you’re having problems with distractions, let me know too! I’d be glad to help you come up with a plan to keep them from influencing you!

 

Also, stay tuned for next week’s post in which we’ll be exploring the changing economy and why Millennials are in the right spot to make their mark on it.