America's Top Entrepreneurs: To Be Or Not to Be?
Youth Should Pursue the Entrepreneurial Dream or Focus on Studies?
Young Americans are coming up with intuitive ideas to start up their own business ventures from their bedrooms, while the rest of us are struggling to pay our debts; these youngsters are making mega bucks. By the time they get to their twenties, they are self-made millionaires. Perhaps you can sense the tinge of jealousy in my tone! Well you'd be right!
America's Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007 was revealed by Businessweek.com, proving how America's "youngsters" between the ages of 16-25 are earning their millions in a very short time frame. This study revealed how many start up businesses are based on the internet, with some exceptions in retail and publishing. Nevertheless, these young entrepreneurs are developing fantastic new ways of earning money, while still at school or university. It begs the question:
- Should we be encouraging our kids to combine intellectual studies and external activities?
- Or should we be encouraging our kids to stay at school and university?
- Or neither?
It seems to me that young people are not afraid of failure or of risk and hence why they are finding it so easy to make their millions at an early stage. Should we encourage our kids to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams, even if it clashes with their educational curriculum?
I think I’ve answered my own question- we should encourage the entrepreneurial spirit in all of our kids, but keep a careful eye on their studies. A combination of both seems to work just fine!
Are franchisees Entrepreneurs?
While, we realize that franchises are sold to potential franchiSEES on the basis that they wlll be successful entrepreneurs, it is really the franchiSORS who are the entrepreneurs and the franchisees just lease the brand and plan and don't really own and operate "a business of their own."
It is the entrepreneur franchisors who use the cheap labor and capital of franchisees to prove their new and old ideas and concepts in the market place and this is why franchising has grown and become such a durable business model in our economy.
Even the SBA recognizes that franchisees are not Entrepreneurs and this is perhaps why they and the FTC are only concerned with protecting and encouraging franchisors who are the entrepreneurs who stimulate the economy.
This article poses questions as to "where will our children work in the future?" and "will their educations in universities that do not prepare them for professions get them good jobs when they graduate from school?"
We should certainly warn our kids of the dangers of franchising that are not disclosed to franchisees and inform them, perhaps, of the advantages of becoming as franchisor and selling their idea and plan to potential franchisees.
We should certainly inform our children that there is no substitute for a good education and the time to get it is when you are young and have no other responsibilities. While a good education is not always a guarantee of making a lot of money, it is a guarantee of a better quality of life in terms of what is going on around us and in the world and raises our consciousness, hopefully!
Parents who finance children as Entrepreneurs in their own businesses should not confuse a franchise offering as being a solution to a job for the kid, as has been indicated on this Site by others -- unless they do killer due diligence on the frsnchise offering and on their kid.
None of these Entrepreneurs thought about franchising?
It is interesting to note that all of these new startups covered by the magazine were financed and were not financed through franchising.
Applebees was not a franchise but was bought by IHOP who is a franchisor.
If investment money is available for startups, what is the advantage of franchising over the advantage of owning the idea, the product, and the physical structure that houses the business?
Franchise Owners Are Entrepreneurs
Franchisees are NOT entrepreneurs?? Not in my dictionary.
Community, we have been insulted. Franchisees are most certainly entrepreneurs - whether you speak English or French.
Yes. We should warn our kids about the dangers of being an entrepreneur and the various types of entrepreneur venues. They need to understand that being an auditor for the IRS is much safer.
Consider the likelihood
Young motivated people are wonderful. Young smart motivated people are wonderful. Young motivated smart and intuitive pepople are wonderful. Young smart motivated and intuitive people who also have the ability to take a concept and try to execute it are wonderful.
Every time you add one of these attributes to a person, the number of people in the new category of those possessing all the group attributes shrinks drastically.
While the notion that innovators should be encouraged is, in general terms, an up beat sentiment, the risk of new ventures not being realized by young enthusiastic people is simply very very high.
The very unusualness of the occurence bespeaks risk.
With extreme risk, one might not be so happy to condone or counsel leaving an educationsl curriculum. If the student is doing well, perhaps continuation to completion is itself a measure of the person's ability to commit, to complete projects.
Genius is too rare to suggest that people consider high risk career commitments in lieu of completing education. Education provides discipline, and - in a paraphrase of Edison's words, genius is 99 % perspiration - the discipline to execute usually counts for more than the ability to conceptualize. The reason that dropouts becoming great successes is news is that it usually doesn't happen that way.
If a young person really is of the belief that they have found the magic elixir, your encouraging them to stay the course in the educational process won't disuade them from their decision to go for it. Part of the test of the seriousness of what they intend to do is for them to hear the negative recommendations and then decide that despite sage counsel, they are going to go for it anyway.--
Richard Solomon, FranchiseRemedies.com, has 44 years experience with franchise litigation and crisis management. He is a graduate of The Citadel and The University of Michigan Law School
Franchisees are not Entrepreneurs
Even the Office of Advocacy of the SBA indicates that Franchisees are not Entrepreneurs and that a franchise is merely a leased business opportunity where the frasnchisor controls the business and the relationship. It is not a "business of your own" as those who want to sell franchises indicate to potential franchisees. The contract has finite terms that are controlled solely by the franchisor.
But if you are happy considering yourself an entrepreneur, so be it!