Look-Look at Young Entrepreneurs!

Entrepreneurs are everywhere, including our very own college campuses! Look-Look, a Los Angeles-based company that reasearches and studies youth culture, remains fascinated by this new breed of young people. Detecting this entrepreneurial spirit, Look-Look posed a challenge for our class to observe the many embarking on these independent ventures.

Not surprisingly, I know my very own "new entrepreneur". I asked my former highschool classmate, Andrew Wiggins, a couple of questions about his experience.

Andrew Wiggins, along with a friend, Taylor Caby, founded a successful poker training website.

Taking his concept from the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Andrew gave the following conclusions about young entrepreneurship:
-A high degree of difficulty exists to get ahead on the standard path.
-It's easy to get into a “rat race” where as you move up the corporate ladder, buy more things and never truly get ahead. In a nutshell, people go to school, learn to make money, but never really learn how to make their money work for themselves. "Some people are realizing that if you go a different route and learn to make your money work for you rather than work for money, you can get ahead," he says.

He notes another probably motivation for this shift as the competitive work environment that has developed last 20 years or so. It's difficult to climb the ladder these days, and if you do, it requires much additional time and effort. Someone can do everything right in their career, but if they are unable to catch the right breaks, they will never make it to the top.

Driven by a love for gambling, Andrew actually stumbled into a self-employed career after discovering a talent at online gambling in college. He launched a website for members to enjoy instructional videos, a private poker forum, strategy articles and guest pro instruction focused on improving one's poker game.

Considering the amount of boys who gamble, it sounds like a lucrative concept to me.

Andrew originally saw the website as an opportunity to gain business experience. He realized he didn't want to do accounting for the rest of his life and considered running the poker website as a business after college. Though risky, he has much more freedom in his life by owning his own website.

Andrew pointed at American culture for influencing the proliferation of young entrepreneurs. Those who are glorified in the media are people like Jay-Z, who run multiple businesses and have made it big on their own.

Although we will probably see more entrepreneurs in the future, Andrew believes there are still plenty of people wanting to play the corporate ladder game. Thus, it might be a while until the shift towards entrepreneurship has a full effect on businesses in America.

http://www.cardrunners.com
http://www.look-look.com