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Young Entrepreneurs Creating Their Own Job Security
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Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
The interviewer scanned Joe Keeley's résumé. Why, he asked, would
Keeley give up his own budding company to work for a billion-dollar
corporation where he would have little autonomy?
Good question, Keeley thought. So when he graduated in May from the
University of St. Thomas, he bypassed a more traditional path to give his
all to the business he began crafting during his sophomore year.
His business card says he's president and CEO of College Nannies &
Tutors. But it might as well say janitor, recruiter, marketer and
accountant. He works 10-hour days and weekends. Four months ago, he
paid himself for the first time in 2 1/2 years.
At 23, Keeley is part of Generation Y -- those 72 million Americans
born between 1977 and 1994. The best-educated, most-affluent
generation ever, they're also sometimes described as disaffected
slackers.
But Keeley is part of a less-talked about part of his generation -- young
entrepreneurs.
Today, one in every six young men and one in every 18 women ages 18
to 24 is involved in starting or running a new business, according to an
annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey by the London
Business School and Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.
"People like Joe see themselves as able to make a difference and to act
on the larger society, as opposed to being a victim or at the whim of a
major company," said Michael Sarafolean, owner and managing partner
of Orion Corp. of Minnesota and an instructor in St. Thomas'
entrepreneurship department.
Hockey-playing nanny
Growing up in Grafton, N.D., Keeley was an honors student, hockey
coach, black belt in tae kwon do and actor in a dozen community plays.
His dad has worked at the Bremer Bank in Grafton for 30 years. His
mother returned to school to become an American Express financial
adviser after the three kids started school.
Kay Miller, Star Tribune
Published October 26, 2003
ENT26
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So when Keeley began as a business major at St. Thomas in 1999, he
assumed he would seek a corporate job at graduation and climb the
executive ladder. Although St. Thomas is ranked among the nation's top
departments for entrepreneurship, Keeley doubted that it could be
taught.
Halfway through his freshman year, Keeley grew disillusioned by
corporate layoffs and frustrated by the frenzied competition among
business students for unpaid internships.
"I put a higher value on my time than that," he said. Instead, he
responded to an ad by two Edina physicians seeking a nanny for their
sons, ages 7 and 9. That summer Keeley and the boys became fixtures at
the Edina swimming pool, golf course and tennis courts. When other
parents asked whether he had college friends they could hire as nannies,
Keeley saw a chance to make a little money.
By February of his sophomore year, he had incorporated College
Nannies and was regularly seeking advice from professors in the
entrepreneurship department. By year's end he had placed a dozen
nannies, grossed $3,600 and changed his major.
"The only secure job is one you create for yourself," he said.
Early stigma
Keeley is an example of a multigenerational shift in how young people
regard entrepreneurship, said Jeff Cornwall, former chairman of St.
Thomas' entrepreneurship department who now holds the Jack C.
Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville.
Cornwall met tremendous resistance when he started an entrepreneurial
program in the University of Wisconsin system in the 1980s, he said.
"Students were afraid to tell classmates they were thinking about doing
this," he said. "Parents would call me, furious about putting these
notions into their children's minds."
Stung by a generation of layoffs, however, parents began viewing the
field as legitimate. Meanwhile, there was an explosion of college
entrepreneurship courses.
In 1970, 16 entrepreneurial courses were offered at various business
schools nationwide. By April 2003, when Entrepreneur magazine ranked
college entrepreneurship courses, it had 700 to choose from -- from
single classes to full degree programs.
Students now can join entrepreneurial clubs and live in dorms dedicated
to like-minded peers. Graduates are supported by mentors, networking
groups and online peer chat rooms.
Page 2 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
"There are so many more resources out there for people who want to
start a business now," said Matt Mladenka of the Young Entrepreneurs'
Organization in Alexandria, Va., a nonprofit that has seen a five-fold
increase in membership in eight years. Its 5,000 members are all
younger than 40 and run businesses with revenues of at least $1 million
a year.
Traditionally, 25 to 34 is the peak age range for starting new businesses,
said Paul Reynolds, principal investigator of the annual GEM Survey.
But today, young men ages 18 to 24 start more businesses than any other
age group, according to the survey. It found that 15 percent of American
men ages 18 to 24 were engaged in entrepreneurial activity in 2002, a
"dramatic rise" from 8.8 percent in 2001.
But young entrepreneurs also fail at greater rates.
"They don't know anything," said Reynolds, an entrepreneurship
professor at Babson and the London Business School. "You have to
know how to negotiate a a lease, identify and hire people, negotiate with
the bank. And 22-year-olds don't know how to do that."
Peers out partying
Reynolds is right about how much young entrepreneurs have to learn.
"The biggest surprise is the amount of hours and number of roles I have
to play," said Kristin Raether, 24, who bought a Culver's Restaurant in
Rice Lake, Wis., after graduating from St. Thomas two years ago. "You
have to deal with everything -- the marketing, hiring, firing, the payroll,
accounting. Your life is not like the typical 24-year-old."
Raether was astonished by employees who skip work or arrive late. "I
don't think a lot of my peers have to discipline 50-year-olds," she said.
Unlike those who say they are fearless, Jillian Perez Garcia, 23, said that
the spectre of failure drives her. In April she opened Woof Dah!, a
doggie day care center in Burnsville.
To save money, Garcia devised her own advertising and Web site, which
allows owners to view Web-cam pictures of their pooches all day.
"In hiring people, I get a lot of new high school and college graduates
who can't find work," Garcia said. "They're just settling and not going
anywhere personally or professionally. They go out and party. They
don't care if they're renting. If they're working, they're living day to day
and having fun -- a lot more fun than me."
Over the summer, Heather Turk, 21 and a graduating senior at St.
Thomas, ran a College Pro painting franchise in St. Paul. She spent long
days supervising painters and longer nights scheduling new jobs and
Page 3 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
doing the books.
"One customer wouldn't listen to a thing I said," Turk said. Some male
employees were dismissive of a young female boss. Once shy, Turk
grew assertive. Her nine-person crew painted 42 houses over the
summer, grossing $87,000, and she was nominated for quality College
Pro outlet of the year.
While a communications major at St. Cloud State, Jenny Nies, 24, was
named 2002 Great Lakes Collegiate Entrepreneur for her New Wave
Aquaria business that she co-founded while in high school. She has
designed aquariums as large as 500 gallons and travels between Sauk
Centre and Maple Lake maintaining tanks for 15 clients.
"My biggest mistake was not starting with a formal business plan," Nies
said. "It's hard to create goals if you don't have a starting point."
In June, she bought out her partner; she hopes to earn enough in six
months to quit her job at St. Cloud State.
"People leave fish at my door. I open my door and expect a newspaper
and find a bucket with fish and a note: 'Please give Oscar a good home.'
"
Compensating for age
When he started College Nannies, Keeley was living in a house with
four other guys. He remembers interviewing prospective clients on the
phone and cupping his hand over the receiver to muffle the sound of
partying downstairs.
Keeley would show up at a house to interview parents, only to be
greeted by surprised looks: "Are you our nanny?"
"Some people in our undergraduate program are constantly having to
compensate for their age," Sarafolean said. "There's a bias there on the
part of lenders. We end up having people compensate by establishing a
board of advisers to give their organization more credibility."
A major turning point for Keeley came last spring when he won both the
St. Thomas Pentair Prize for the best student business and the 2003
Minnesota Collegiate Entrepreneur Award. At the CEA award banquet,
he met business turnaround specialist Peter Lytle, managing partner of
the Business Development Group. Lytle offered to provide access to
capital, contacts and technology enough to franchise College Nannies --
in return for a share of the business.
Finding a balance
In July, Keeley left makeshift digs at St. Thomas for a small office in
Page 4 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
Lytle's well-appointed Wayzata building.
"There are days that I'm just flying off the wall because everything is so
great. Then there are days that I need to be picked up because this isn't
going to work and I feel so alone."
Lytle is bringing in former executives from other companies to supply
expertise. But for the most part Keeley is alone with his computer,
sparsely filled cabinets and a new diploma.
He just got engaged to Anne Rude, whom he has dated since their first
day at St. Thomas. He lives with three of his best buddies in a home that
one of them bought.
"You try to balance work, personal relationships and friends," he said.
"But the business never leaves you. I can go home and I'm still thinking
about how did that interview go. Or that I need to recruit people."
Keeley doesn't want to fail. He's said that out loud.
"Anne has reminded me that when I started this, I never thought I would
be doing it after I graduated," he said. "It was just a business card out of
my dorm room. But I know if I went and got another job, I would be
disappointed that I didn't give this everything I've got."
Kay Miller is at [email protected].
Return to top
© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
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Page 5 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
doc_605104998.pdf
Young Entrepreneurs Creating Their Own Job Security
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features
random kinds of
factness
news of the
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q & a on the
news
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art
tv/radio/video
diversions
Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
The interviewer scanned Joe Keeley's résumé. Why, he asked, would
Keeley give up his own budding company to work for a billion-dollar
corporation where he would have little autonomy?
Good question, Keeley thought. So when he graduated in May from the
University of St. Thomas, he bypassed a more traditional path to give his
all to the business he began crafting during his sophomore year.
His business card says he's president and CEO of College Nannies &
Tutors. But it might as well say janitor, recruiter, marketer and
accountant. He works 10-hour days and weekends. Four months ago, he
paid himself for the first time in 2 1/2 years.
At 23, Keeley is part of Generation Y -- those 72 million Americans
born between 1977 and 1994. The best-educated, most-affluent
generation ever, they're also sometimes described as disaffected
slackers.
But Keeley is part of a less-talked about part of his generation -- young
entrepreneurs.
Today, one in every six young men and one in every 18 women ages 18
to 24 is involved in starting or running a new business, according to an
annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey by the London
Business School and Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.
"People like Joe see themselves as able to make a difference and to act
on the larger society, as opposed to being a victim or at the whim of a
major company," said Michael Sarafolean, owner and managing partner
of Orion Corp. of Minnesota and an instructor in St. Thomas'
entrepreneurship department.
Hockey-playing nanny
Growing up in Grafton, N.D., Keeley was an honors student, hockey
coach, black belt in tae kwon do and actor in a dozen community plays.
His dad has worked at the Bremer Bank in Grafton for 30 years. His
mother returned to school to become an American Express financial
adviser after the three kids started school.
Kay Miller, Star Tribune
Published October 26, 2003
ENT26
Relate
More in
Utilities
Email t
AIM thi
Print th
Make u
homep
Search
More search
News
Find it!
Page 1 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
fun & games
archive
contact us
item world
comics
crosswords
horoscopes
stories
reprints
projects
corrections
feedback
So when Keeley began as a business major at St. Thomas in 1999, he
assumed he would seek a corporate job at graduation and climb the
executive ladder. Although St. Thomas is ranked among the nation's top
departments for entrepreneurship, Keeley doubted that it could be
taught.
Halfway through his freshman year, Keeley grew disillusioned by
corporate layoffs and frustrated by the frenzied competition among
business students for unpaid internships.
"I put a higher value on my time than that," he said. Instead, he
responded to an ad by two Edina physicians seeking a nanny for their
sons, ages 7 and 9. That summer Keeley and the boys became fixtures at
the Edina swimming pool, golf course and tennis courts. When other
parents asked whether he had college friends they could hire as nannies,
Keeley saw a chance to make a little money.
By February of his sophomore year, he had incorporated College
Nannies and was regularly seeking advice from professors in the
entrepreneurship department. By year's end he had placed a dozen
nannies, grossed $3,600 and changed his major.
"The only secure job is one you create for yourself," he said.
Early stigma
Keeley is an example of a multigenerational shift in how young people
regard entrepreneurship, said Jeff Cornwall, former chairman of St.
Thomas' entrepreneurship department who now holds the Jack C.
Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville.
Cornwall met tremendous resistance when he started an entrepreneurial
program in the University of Wisconsin system in the 1980s, he said.
"Students were afraid to tell classmates they were thinking about doing
this," he said. "Parents would call me, furious about putting these
notions into their children's minds."
Stung by a generation of layoffs, however, parents began viewing the
field as legitimate. Meanwhile, there was an explosion of college
entrepreneurship courses.
In 1970, 16 entrepreneurial courses were offered at various business
schools nationwide. By April 2003, when Entrepreneur magazine ranked
college entrepreneurship courses, it had 700 to choose from -- from
single classes to full degree programs.
Students now can join entrepreneurial clubs and live in dorms dedicated
to like-minded peers. Graduates are supported by mentors, networking
groups and online peer chat rooms.
Page 2 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
"There are so many more resources out there for people who want to
start a business now," said Matt Mladenka of the Young Entrepreneurs'
Organization in Alexandria, Va., a nonprofit that has seen a five-fold
increase in membership in eight years. Its 5,000 members are all
younger than 40 and run businesses with revenues of at least $1 million
a year.
Traditionally, 25 to 34 is the peak age range for starting new businesses,
said Paul Reynolds, principal investigator of the annual GEM Survey.
But today, young men ages 18 to 24 start more businesses than any other
age group, according to the survey. It found that 15 percent of American
men ages 18 to 24 were engaged in entrepreneurial activity in 2002, a
"dramatic rise" from 8.8 percent in 2001.
But young entrepreneurs also fail at greater rates.
"They don't know anything," said Reynolds, an entrepreneurship
professor at Babson and the London Business School. "You have to
know how to negotiate a a lease, identify and hire people, negotiate with
the bank. And 22-year-olds don't know how to do that."
Peers out partying
Reynolds is right about how much young entrepreneurs have to learn.
"The biggest surprise is the amount of hours and number of roles I have
to play," said Kristin Raether, 24, who bought a Culver's Restaurant in
Rice Lake, Wis., after graduating from St. Thomas two years ago. "You
have to deal with everything -- the marketing, hiring, firing, the payroll,
accounting. Your life is not like the typical 24-year-old."
Raether was astonished by employees who skip work or arrive late. "I
don't think a lot of my peers have to discipline 50-year-olds," she said.
Unlike those who say they are fearless, Jillian Perez Garcia, 23, said that
the spectre of failure drives her. In April she opened Woof Dah!, a
doggie day care center in Burnsville.
To save money, Garcia devised her own advertising and Web site, which
allows owners to view Web-cam pictures of their pooches all day.
"In hiring people, I get a lot of new high school and college graduates
who can't find work," Garcia said. "They're just settling and not going
anywhere personally or professionally. They go out and party. They
don't care if they're renting. If they're working, they're living day to day
and having fun -- a lot more fun than me."
Over the summer, Heather Turk, 21 and a graduating senior at St.
Thomas, ran a College Pro painting franchise in St. Paul. She spent long
days supervising painters and longer nights scheduling new jobs and
Page 3 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
doing the books.
"One customer wouldn't listen to a thing I said," Turk said. Some male
employees were dismissive of a young female boss. Once shy, Turk
grew assertive. Her nine-person crew painted 42 houses over the
summer, grossing $87,000, and she was nominated for quality College
Pro outlet of the year.
While a communications major at St. Cloud State, Jenny Nies, 24, was
named 2002 Great Lakes Collegiate Entrepreneur for her New Wave
Aquaria business that she co-founded while in high school. She has
designed aquariums as large as 500 gallons and travels between Sauk
Centre and Maple Lake maintaining tanks for 15 clients.
"My biggest mistake was not starting with a formal business plan," Nies
said. "It's hard to create goals if you don't have a starting point."
In June, she bought out her partner; she hopes to earn enough in six
months to quit her job at St. Cloud State.
"People leave fish at my door. I open my door and expect a newspaper
and find a bucket with fish and a note: 'Please give Oscar a good home.'
"
Compensating for age
When he started College Nannies, Keeley was living in a house with
four other guys. He remembers interviewing prospective clients on the
phone and cupping his hand over the receiver to muffle the sound of
partying downstairs.
Keeley would show up at a house to interview parents, only to be
greeted by surprised looks: "Are you our nanny?"
"Some people in our undergraduate program are constantly having to
compensate for their age," Sarafolean said. "There's a bias there on the
part of lenders. We end up having people compensate by establishing a
board of advisers to give their organization more credibility."
A major turning point for Keeley came last spring when he won both the
St. Thomas Pentair Prize for the best student business and the 2003
Minnesota Collegiate Entrepreneur Award. At the CEA award banquet,
he met business turnaround specialist Peter Lytle, managing partner of
the Business Development Group. Lytle offered to provide access to
capital, contacts and technology enough to franchise College Nannies --
in return for a share of the business.
Finding a balance
In July, Keeley left makeshift digs at St. Thomas for a small office in
Page 4 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
Lytle's well-appointed Wayzata building.
"There are days that I'm just flying off the wall because everything is so
great. Then there are days that I need to be picked up because this isn't
going to work and I feel so alone."
Lytle is bringing in former executives from other companies to supply
expertise. But for the most part Keeley is alone with his computer,
sparsely filled cabinets and a new diploma.
He just got engaged to Anne Rude, whom he has dated since their first
day at St. Thomas. He lives with three of his best buddies in a home that
one of them bought.
"You try to balance work, personal relationships and friends," he said.
"But the business never leaves you. I can go home and I'm still thinking
about how did that interview go. Or that I need to recruit people."
Keeley doesn't want to fail. He's said that out loud.
"Anne has reminded me that when I started this, I never thought I would
be doing it after I graduated," he said. "It was just a business card out of
my dorm room. But I know if I went and got another job, I would be
disappointed that I didn't give this everything I've got."
Kay Miller is at [email protected].
Return to top
© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
Advertiser Links
Rich Dad® & CASHFLOW®
Buy Your Favourite Rich Dad® books & CASHFLOW® Games on Sale Now.
www.Cashflow-Store.com
Build Wealth From Home
Meet a multi-millionaire. Ask him any question you want.
www.AskMarkRadford.com
Ads by Google
Page 5 of 5 Young entrepreneurs: Creating their own job security
11/4/2003http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4174643.html
doc_605104998.pdf