Starting a business when you are in
your 20s or 30s has lots of advantages most young people are unaware of. This
year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google will each turn 41 while
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft will turn 59 and same for Steve Jobs,
co-founder and CEO of Apple.
You must have been thinking that the
best time to become a Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Lary Page, or some other business
magnet, is when you will be in your 40s, 50s or 60s, but surely you have not
taken time to consider when these people started their businesses.
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Come to think of it. Steve Jobs
(1955) founded Apple in 1976 when he was 21; Bill (1955) founded Microsoft in 1975
when he was just 20; Larry (1973) and Sergey (1973), founded Google in 1998
when they were each 25; Zuckerberg (1984) founded Facebook in 2004 when he was
turning 20. Mike Lazaridis (1961) founded BlackBerry in 1984 when he was 23;
Byung-Chull Lee (1910) founded Samsung in 1938 when he was 28; Sir Richard
Branson (1950) founded the Virgin Group that currently owns more than 400
companies including Virgin Records, Virgin Airways, Virgin Mobile, in 1970 when
he was only 20; etc.
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The above list is endless. These are
entrepreneurs who have made their mark, are still doing so and will forever
impact the world. The common denominator for all of them is that they started
young. They all knew what it felt like, to start at an age which very few
people believe is cut out for adventuring into very challenging grounds like business and
investment.
The good news is that they all
succeeded. I know you will be asking, what about those who failed? The answer
is simple: Those who failed did not fail because they were young but because
they did not do the right things. But every success is punctuated by failures.
Are you considering starting a
business and you feel it is too early? Do you consider yourself too young to
start a business that will succeed? Pause and think again. Young adulthood is
the most ideal time to start your business. When Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey
Brin, Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg and the others thought to start their businesses,
they were probably your age or perhaps even younger. You have no excuse not to
start that business today. These are ten strong advantages of starting young.
1. You Still Have
Tons Energy
Business needs energy on a daily
basis for it to run. Some of it is mental while some is physical. Every work
that is done daily on any business is only possible with the expending of
energy.
If you are young, you will still be
able to stay awake late and sleep for just a few hours a day and go on fine;
you will still be able to travel five days a week for business and have no
problem with it; you will still be able to handle many responsibilities at the
same time on the business without breaking down. This is not possible at an
advanced age.
2. You Are More
Creative & Dynamic
Creativity is the wings on which
businesses thrive. The difference between many business successes and failures
is creativity.
Young brains have a far higher
potential to think sharp and harness creative ideas than the experienced brains
of the old. Behind the successes of many businesses is always a young creative
brain. A dynamic business is only possible when there are lots of new ideas
daily and this is possible only when the brain is young.
3. You Are More
Adventurous
To a very big extent, most
successful people are good adventurers. They know how to try out things that
most other people fear to try out. They more readily shun fear and take risks.
Business is a big adventure and the
young are more likely to dare it. In your 20s and 30s you will adventure many
times on different grounds while someone in his/her 50s and 60s will be trying
to play safe. Let business be one of those grounds on which you adventure.
4. You Are More In
tune to Technology
With the 21st century computer age,
the business stage has gone wild. No one does good business today and doesn’t
go online. Here again the young brains thrive.
You have surely watched that teenage
guy in your home as he manipulates the computers, ‘twitting’, making free calls
online, sharing ideas and linking up to people all over the world with so much
ease. As a young adult, you have an edge over any one older in your world
because you can easily understand technology and use it optimally to link your
business up to the rest of the world. What are you waiting for?
5. You Got More
People & Connections In Your World
Have you ever paused to consider the
number of persons you are connected to through one forum or the other? Friends,
colleagues, acquaintances, family and others, all make up the hundreds and
thousands of people in your world. As you grow older, you will lose many of
these people because you will want to focus on the fewest possible people that
really matter to you.
Young adulthood is a time of
relationship. Young people are very relational and this is a very big advantage
to anyone who goes into business, young.
6. You Got Fewer
People To Live For
Starting a business and having to
keep up with the demands from family can be very challenging. When you have a
family, you have people who need you very much and you start trying to share
yourself amongst many people. Apart from that, you have many people to consider
in decision making and risk-taking. This typifies the life of the aged family
people.
As a young adult you have yourself
and maybe one or two other persons to think of. You are not under any
pressures. You have maybe just you, to bear the responsibility and outcome of
your decisions and actions. This is just the best time to dare and dare more.
7. You Can Easily
Be Tolerated
When you are young you can easily be
tolerated by the society when you fail. In fact it feels normal to fail. No one even expects you to succeed. You feel
secured in failing again and again and then succeeding. It is no news when a 20
year old tries on an idea that ends up a failure as it is for a 40 year old. If
you are young, realize that you have fewer eyes looking at you and expecting
you to succeed.
More people around you are willing
to encourage you than to condemn and criticize you. Take full advantage of this
and get all the support you need from the people you have so as to make the
success you desire. You don’t have to worry about failing because no one cares
very much whether you fail or succeed.
8. Time Is On Your
Side
Starting a business in your 20s or
30s, offers you the resource of time, which many people who start in the later
part of their lives, lack. You have enough time to try out different things,
make mistakes, learn, grow, gain expertize and flourish.
In most parts of Africa, people
start businesses and before their business can emerge powerfully, they are
either too tired to carry it on or they die and the businesses follow. If you
are still youthful, time is one of the biggest resources you have in your
favour. Take advantage of it and start now!
9. You Can Better
Handle Pressures
Business can be very challenging
some days. Some days it feels like closing down and giving up. Such days are
not funny. It takes a resilient/persistent person to keep going when debts keep
increasing and workers’ salaries are due but there is no money to meet up with
the needs, coupled with the complaints from customers and resignation of
workers.
As a young person you have better
shock absorbers to face difficult moments and pressures that happen on the
business. You will hardly come down with hypertension as the old. In fact to
some extent, you thrive best in the face of challenges. That is a strong point
in your favour and you must grab it.
10. You Can Easily Access Support
Financial, moral, material and
technical support are all very necessary when building up a business. But these
are not always very easy to get especially when you are advanced in age. The
reason is that people assume that you have all in control and don’t need help.
You are more likely to have people trying to lean on you for support than
helping you out.
As a young adult, you stand a
greater chance of being supported by many people if you are open. You will have
many people wanting to offer you advice, financial support, materials and other
forms of support, just because they think you are young and need encouragement.
If you are a sharp young person, you may not spend anything to start your
business. Take full advantage of this today and start. But make sure you come
back and let me hear your success story.
Now you have found out why you need
to start that business now that you are young. What’s left is for you to wake
up and stop procrastinating. The advantages you have today are gradually
slipping off your fingers and sooner than later you will find it very hard to
start your business. Waste no time. Go for it. Success is not as far away as
you imagine!