Hooray!

I've been very outspoken here about my belief that the only way out of our current economic morass is by encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit that has historically made America great (and not by propping up our largest corporations and hoping that they start hiring again). In my mind, it's no coincidence that Mark Zuckerberg was named Time's Person of the Year for 2010; if we are to bounce back as an economy, we are going to need many more people with Zuckerberg's entrepreneurial spirit (if not his ethics).

So I cheered this article in the New York Times, which indicated that an increasing number of recent college graduates are turning to entrepreneurial ventures rather than traditional "real job" paths, which have largely been closed off for years now.

Five years ago, after graduating from New York University with a film degree and thousands of dollars in student loans, Scott Gerber moved back in with his parents on Staten Island. He then took out more loans to start a new-media and technology company, but he didn’t have a clear market in mind; the company went belly up in 2006...

Still in debt, Mr. Gerber considered his career options. His mother kept encouraging him to get a “real” job, the kind that comes with an office and a boss. But, using the last $700 in his bank account, he decided to start another company instead.

With the new company, called Sizzle It, Mr. Gerber vowed to find a niche, reduce overhead and generally be more frugal. The company, which specializes in short promotional videos, was profitable the first year, he says.

Mr. Gerber, now 27, isn’t a millionaire, but he’s paid off his loans and doesn’t have to live with his parents (he rents an apartment in Hoboken, N.J.). And he thinks his experience can help other young people who face a daunting unemployment rate.

In October, Mr. Gerber started the Young Entrepreneur Council “to create a shift from a résumé-driven society to one where people create their own jobs,” he says. “The jobs are going to come from the entrepreneurial level.”

The council consists of 80-plus business owners across the country, ages 17 to 33. Members include Scott Becker, 23, co-founder of Invite Media, an advertising technology firm recently acquired by a Google unit; Lauren Berger, 26, founder of the Intern Queen, a site that connects college students with internships; Aaron Patzer, the 30-year-old who sold Mint.com to Intuit for $170 million; and Josh Weinstein, 24, who started CollegeOnly.com, a social networking site that is backed by a PayPal founder.

The council, which has applied for nonprofit status, serves as a help desk and mentoring hotline for individual entrepreneurs. People can also submit questions on subjects like marketing, publicity and technology, and each month a group of council members will answer 30 to 40 of them in business publications like The Wall Street Journal and American Express Open Forum, and on dozens of small business Web sites.

Good. Too many people (myself included at one point) are daunted by the prospect of starting one's own business, overestimating the risks involved and underestimating their own abilities. A vibrant entrepreneurial community is a vital ingredient to making self-employment seem viable as a career choice. Too often, people pass up the opportunity to start their own company in search of a "safe", "real" job.

But all jobs are real (whether you're paid by a company or directly by your customers), and no jobs are safe, as the massive spate of layoffs from 2007-2009 should have taught us. I hope this trend toward entrepreneurship keeps up, because in my mind the companies that will lead us into and through the 21st century are not the names we already know, but the names we haven't yet heard of. That's capitalism at its very best.


[New York Times]