I Love Young Entrepreneurs

In my second year of university myself, along with four other individuals had to come up with a business concept and develop a full business plan, complete with executive summary, projected statements, a five-year plan…the works. Our group ended up taking on an existing business that one of our members had already started working on, which was basically a not-for-profit targeting youth voter apathy. Our business was to be the liaison between the federal, provincial and even municipal governments and Canadian universities to increase youth voting participation. Our thought was that it was not that students were uneducated, or uninformed, but that there were certain administrative barriers in place that prevented students from voting.

In one instance, there was a residence on campus where students had showed up to vote at an in-building voting station but were unable to because they didn’t have a piece of registered mail. The students lived in the building, but could not vote at the voting station IN THE BUILDING because they did not have a piece of mail. One of our solutions was to provide a residents list where polling station volunteers could verify place of residence at the station without mail, or allowing students in the building to sign up for a free postcard reminding them of voting time, location, and this would also serve as their proof of residence. There were some of the barriers that we wanted to break down.

The idea was great. We put a ton of work into it over the year, had a great working relationship with the individual who started Student Vote, and were even in contact with the Globe and Mail and some past Prime Ministers of Canada. Once we submitted the final business plan, each group had to present to their respective classes, and the class would then vote once every group had presented, and one group would move on to “the next round.” Not only did our group compete, but our class selected us to move on and we made it to the semi-final; eventually losing to a group that attempted to re-design the age-old vending machine – in my opinion, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but I digress.

Here’s the thing: This was a cause that all of us were incredibly passionate about, really exited. We spent hundreds of hours coming up with new ideas, staying up late dreaming about how great this thing could become, driving to Toronto to set up meetings with student voting organizations, contacting key stakeholders at the largest Canadian universities; it had become so much more than a business project, in our minds it was a plan that was really going to happen. We were figuring out how to get grant money so that we could do this, full time that summer. We didn’t.

What happened? Life. We’re students. We got “distracted” by exams, we went out with our friends, we got offered summer jobs that paid well, we went home for the summer to see our families, and the idea died. We’d e-mail periodically and say “We really need to get this thing going…seriously!” But it never happened. We were so enthusiastic about it, so involved in it, we put in hundreds of hours into it, and it just died.

I see this happen all the time during this same project. Groups come to me to ask me how best to develop the idea, how to improve it, monetize it, and after all the work, all the passion that they show me during the meetings, they forget about the project after they drop it off at the teachers desk.

This bothers me…a lot.

Often these business ideas simply stop because other things come up or because these young entrepreneurs really do not know how to bring the idea to “the next level.” There is no shortage of sites out there trying to match entrepreneurs with investors, but to be honest they seem so “administrative”. They seem so overly ambitious, and often portray the typical idea of a huge venture capitalist, like the panel of dragons on The Dragons Den, and I imagine they get the typical reaction of the Dragons Den Dragons: “No thanks.”

I want to change this. I want to have a user-friendly site that truly does want to help these individuals who are passionate about these really great ideas. I want to let them come together in a group setting and meet other people just like them who don’t know how to get to “the next level”. I want a pool of talent that is wiling to help these young entrepreneurs take these ideas and develop them, critique them, and make them stand out. I want these individuals to make a summer job, or even a post-graduate full-time job out of these ideas that they’ve slaved over for hundreds of hours just like I did.

There are too many amazing ideas with passionate management teams that simply go nowhere. I don’t want to force the service on anyone. I don’t want people to half-ass the commitment, and try to seek help just so that they can make a quick buck. I want to find the people who are committed to fulfilling their dreams and are willing to take that leap and finally follow their entrepreneurial spirit, just like I eventually did.

I’m not preaching, but from my experience to become successful as an entrepreneur you need to take that leap of faith. Don’t let the idea die, go out there and find the people that you need to help you take your idea to the next level, let them help you find the funding that you require to make your dreams a reality.

I can’t wait to help these individuals get to the next level. I love young entrepreneurs.