This past week, I attended the Young Entrepreneurs Alliance (YEA) tradeshow at the University of Rochester. If you’ve never heard of YEA (I hadn’t prior to this), it was founded on the belief that teens from all walks of life have innate talents, waiting to be discovered. YEA helps low-income teens realize their economic potential and take steps toward financial independence by owning and running viable businesses.
As I walked around from booth to booth, I was amazed at the ingenuity, talent, and aplomb of these young adults. Some of their businesses were truly groundbreaking!
There was one young woman, Gwen Le, who has solved such a common problem that she deserves to be a millionaire. Gwen had the idea for a light strip to put inside purses. The lights are waterproof LED strips that run on a very small but powerful battery. These light strips automatically light up when opened and turn off after the purse is closed. She realized that every woman struggles to find things in the bottom of their purses, so she designed this concept and it is already being manufactured inside purses.
Another young woman had the idea for a cooking show for kids. She realized one day that there were all these popular cooking shows for adults but none that catered to young people. Ahhh, an underserved market. She has already raised over $30,000 to produce the first few episodes of the cooking show. She filmed it at the Canandaigua Wine & Culinary center in their classrooms and her DVD came complete with outtakes (or bloopers) from the filming!
There were several non-profit startups, as well. One young man purchases children’s sweaters, scarves, and hats made out of Alpaca wool and other natural materials from Peruvian women. He resells the items here and sends over 75% of the proceeds back to Peru.
There was a business that created an all natural cough and sore throat remedy that contained gum inside a throat lozenge (think of a Blow Pop but with medicinal qualities).
There was a girl who designed a cooling bra because her mom was always complaining how hot she got in her bra!
There were business ideas to get kids reading, to help parents screen video games, and even an exercise video series just for kids.
All of these great business ideas and some are already turning a profit!
So as I walked among these future entrepreneurs, it occurred to me that these potential start-ups have come about during a recession. None of these young people were talking about how tough it would be to start a business now. None of them complained that it would be impossible to get funding “nowadays”. They had an idea, saw the opportunity, and seized it.
How different that attitude is from many people as we plow through this sluggish economy.
As is the case with everything in life, your perception creates your reality. If you think now is the worst time to do something daring and different, that you would have to be crazy to change jobs or start a business – then you’re right. Or if you’re like these young people and you think that the right people, resources, and ideas will come to you when you need it – then you’re right.
It’s like Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”
Your response will create your outcome 100% of the time. The beauty of experiencing an event like the YEA tradeshow is to see young people taking control of their lives and believing that they alone control their destiny – and trust me, some of these kids have it much worse than you or I.
I’d like to write more but I need to go online now and buy myself a lighted purse!
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