Are You Up To The Challenge To Be a Millennial Entrepreneur?

The Millennial Generation today is more mobile, worldly, impatient, and more tolerant than generations in the past. All of those elements shape their ideas and opinions towards their future actions. Millennials have seen the struggle with family or friends owning businesses during the recession, or finding a job after college, but does that really set them back from being an entrepreneur?

After looking at what two Millennials had to say about their life as an entrepreneur, seeing past tribulations has not set them back from pursuing this type of career. By looking at a younger and older Millennial entrepreneur, there are obvious differences, but they both share the same mindset when it comes to their businesses.

As a young Millennial, Heather Hawke, founder of Decorated Youth magazine, went through the struggle of not knowing what to pursue after high school like many today. After working at another magazine, she finally got the courage to start her very own publication in 2011. Decorated Youth is an online and print magazine that focuses on music, cinema, and photography. Their mission is to motivate and educate the public about a variety of artists and what they do.

Philip Nowak, a more experienced entrepreneur, founded Firmology, a technology focused news and information site for small businesses and online startups, after seeing how much money his father spent on software for his own business. With an Economics degree from Indiana University, and entrepreneurship in his blood, Philip wanted to create a resource that the everyday small business owner could relate to, read quickly, and understand clearly.

These Millennial entrepreneurs have both been through the excitement and faced the issues with creating their own businesses. Heather Hawke thrives on being able to share people’s stories and being able to connect with them. Philip Nowak enjoys meeting so many inspirational, visionary, and courageous people, who have the audacity to create something out of nothing. With any business, trials and tribulations are bound to happen. For both Hawke and Nowak they explain how being an entrepreneur can be a lot for one person. Hawke talks about how being independent can be lonely, and the fact that she can be her own worst enemy when it comes it putting pressure on herself. Nowak confirms that due to the constant questioning if he is wasting his time or not. Both entrepreneurs have their successful companies to show that their hard work pays off, but there are always roadblocks along the way.

The decision of becoming an entrepreneur can be difficult for anyone, but for these two Millennials they received quality advice to make the next step in their careers. Hawke interviewed Justin Zoradi, the founder and CEO of These Numbers Have Faces, and he said “if you have one of those moments of obligation where you feel like there is just something that if you don’t do no one else will do, you have to start it.” For Nowak, he was told to launch a business that he is passionate about and solves a problem for people.

Both Millennial entrepreneurs have experienced the same positive and negative aspects of becoming entrepreneurs. They both pursued careers they are passionate about and pushed back every negative, stereotypical thought about entrepreneurship. Millennials today have no problem striving for the top, and these entrepreneurs are perfect examples of that.

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