I spent a few hours this past week at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business Entrepreneurship event. Apart from making fun of them on day one (typical business school — they’d figured out the sponsors, glossy handouts and lots of events, but no-one had thought to put signage up outside the building to help attendees find the event) there was some interesting stuff going on.
By far the most interesting part to me was the energy and enthusiasm of several of the undergrads/recent grads. I like to call them DYP’s — Damn Young Punks — and I mean it as a compliment.
My favorite word-site, dictionary.com, has the following definition for the word "punk" (emphasis added by me):
"a style or movement characterized by the adoption of aggressively
unconventional and often bizarre or shocking clothing, hairstyles,
makeup, etc., and the defiance of social norms of behavior, usually
associated with punk rock musicians and fans."
The social norm pretty much anywhere except Silicon Valley is to take a job with a company, preferably a big one. DYPs laugh at the very idea. They are smart, eager to learn, even more eager to try and unshackled by the fears and concerns that experience brings.
That last part is particularly important. I was at a meeting earlier in the year with a group of venerable local entrepreneurs. I was the youngest in the group (a rare thing), and I have never met a more jaded group of entrepreneurs in my life. One even went so far as to espouse the idea that nothing significant can be created by two guys in a garage anymore. If there was ever an industry that proves that idea wrong, it’s tech. And it’s often the DYPs that do the proving.
Some of the DYP’s I’ve met lately have already founded multiple companies, built real products, raised Angel and VC funding from prominent firms and attracted national press. All of them were 23 or younger.
The core of being an entrepreneur is mostly about risk tolerance. If you are highly risk averse, entrepreneurship is not for you. As a wise man once told me "you should always respect risk, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should avoid it." If DYPs have a flaw, it’s that they are risk blind because they don’t yet have the experience that comes with failure. But that experience can easily turn in to baggage that slows you down.
It’s easy to write off DYPs — "come back when you have experience" — but doing so is foolish. Just as they have plenty (good and bad) to learn from those of us with more years behind us, we can learn from their drive and relentless pursuit of new ideas.
I strongly believe that the most innovative companies are built by combining the strengths of experienced entrepreneurs and DYPs.
My only concern is that most of the DYPs I talked to are already making plans to leave the area. But that is something I hope disruptorMonkey and other local startups will help to change.