The youth of today are the entrepreneurs of tomorrow
Sheena Amin - 05 August 2009
It's established that historically, entrepreneurship, the practice of being an entrepreneur, is counter-cyclical. In other words, entrepreneurship has been shown to be at its best when the economy is at its worst. In a recession, this applies both to the established professionals who decide to set up on their own following a job loss, and to graduates who are coming out into the job market with a desire to do things their way. The latter - the new wave of entrepreneurs - hold the key to the smaller companies of the future.
The recent financial crisis and current recession have not led to a dramatic increase in the numbers of entrepreneurial start-ups in Britain. However, it has certainly inspired a new British entrepreneurial spirit, particularly amongst the student and graduate population. You could say that so far, this recession has increased entrepreneurialism, the reference to being an entrepreneur, rather than entrepreneurship itself.
This is impressive when you consider that these people's lack of access to capital, coupled with their underdeveloped skill-sets, can turn out to be insurmountable obstacles preventing many from realising their entrepreneurial dream. Right now, with graduates facing the toughest job market in years, it's great to see that so many of them are trying to forge ahead with their own plans, rather than scrambling over each other for jobs in traditional professions. You may call it youthful idealism but we call it entrepreneurialism!
Graduates' new found entrepreneurial spirit has two aspects. Firstly, they're eschewing traditional recruitment fairs and ‘milk-rounds', preferring instead to take the initiative, and gain access to unique job opportunities that are not advertised, through building relationships with head-hunters and graduate recruiters directly. Graduate recruitment agencies such as Freshminds, UniVentures and the Graduate Recruitment Bureau have all reported a growing dynamism amongst graduates who, now more than ever, are being highly proactive when it comes to sourcing potential job vacancies.
Secondly, there's a marked change in the kind of jobs that graduates are going for. Chris Stainton, a fellow recent graduate from Oxford University [BA Geography, 2008], reports that, "rising disillusionment with City jobs in particular, coupled with slowly changing societal perceptions around being an entrepreneur, has spurred students to cast their employment-seeking nets far wider than previously".
Rajeeb Dey, ex-President of Oxford Entrepreneurs, the largest UK student-society for the promotion of entrepreneurship, has recently set up Enternships to cater for this growing entrepreneurial sentiment among graduates. Enternships acts as a portal for current students and recent graduates to find entrepreneurial work placements in start-ups and SMEs worldwide. Since Enternships' soft launch public beta site went live in June 2009, the company has seen record success with over 500 companies advertising entrepreneurial vacancies and over 1500 applicants registering an interest for a placement.
A key challenge facing the British economy is the transformation of this entrepreneurialism into successful entrepreneurship. HM Treasury has identified innovation and enterprise as two of its five ‘drivers of British productivity' and has launched a number of initiatives - R&D tax credits; university-science partnership grants; youth enterprise education initiatives - to encourage innovative enterprise. Meanwhile, within the private sector, new companies with entrepreneurial-coaching business propositions - TriStart; Business Boffins; Doug Richard's School for Startups - are focused on the growing demand for entrepreneurial mentoring. Even entrepreneurial associations are doing more to inspire entrepreneurship amongst the young. This September; The Indus Entrepreneurs UK Chapter - TiE UK - is launching its newest business education programme aimed at empowering and motivating the next generation of young entrepreneurs. The winning team will be invited to attend the TiE Global Conference in Silicon Valley in May 2010.
Octopus is also doing its bit to encourage entrepreneurship. Octopus Ventures backs Oxford Entrepreneurs and has joined its Advisory Board. As part of its ongoing support it leads workshops for members and sit on the judgement panel for the OE Ideas2Market annual competition. It also supports the Bright Ideas Trust, an organisation designed to assist young people between the ages of 16 and 30, who are not necessarily in education, employment or training, to set up businesses. It's all about helping young entrepreneurs gain access to the support and guidance required to turn their ideas into the commercial success stories of the future.
So, a lot of progress is being made. The next step now is to increase the level of collaboration between parties. In this way, we might be able not only to raise awareness of the importance of entrepreneurship but crucially, break down any preconceptions concerning the risks and instability that are associated with being an entrepreneur. A collaborative ‘big push' is needed from the government, the private sector and entrepreneur associations alike, to encourage and equip entrepreneurially-minded individuals so they can exploit the hidden opportunities for innovation and enterprise that may lie behind the current recession.
Sheena Amin joined the Ventures team at Octopus in July 2009 as an intern, helping with potential deal screening and investment recommendations. Sheena graduated from Oxford University with double first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. She is also a successful entrepreneur having co-founded UniVentures Ltd., a graduate recruitment consultancy and marketing agency, and having served as the Managing Director of a Young Enterprise Company, Cocktail, which she led to win the Marketing of the Year Award at the 2005 HSBC Young Enterprise Awards.
