Ypulse Guest Post: Five Things I Learned At [Teen!] Tech Titans Of Tomorrow
Posted by meredith on 05-14-2009Today's Ypulse Guest Post is from Jennifer Carole, President of Listen2Youth, a Ypulse Mashup exhibitor. Yesterday Jennifer attended the SDForum conference in Palo Alto called Tech Titans of Tomorrow: Teens Plugged In. We asked her to write a recap for Ypulse readers…
Five Things I Learned at the SD Forum: (Teen!) Tech Titans of Tomorrow
Imagine this; you are cooking dinner and your 15-year-old comes downstairs to ask you to write a check to pay her software developers in Mumbai. Sound familiar? Will they accept a money order? Where’s Mumbai? Yep, all reasonable questions and yet hauntingly familiar to the parents of today’s teen entrepreneurs.
On Wednesday, May 13th, SD Forum hosted an amazing conference on Tech Titans featuring teens who are coming up with business ideas – and making them happen – thanks to the power of the internet, computers, social networking tools and their ingenuity.
I met two young women – just entering high school – who have ideas they are ready to bring to market.
Anika Radiya-Dixit (pictured here) has created "My Nutrometer" based on an algorithm (her words) that calculates the health value of the food you eat matched to your body's unique requirements. If you have a higher BMI or glucose level, that pasta dinner you are considering has a different health value for you than it does for your lithe partner with the non-stop metabolism. Anika not only figured out the calculations but is sophisticated enough to know making the results easy-to-understand was an essential ingredient for market adoption.
Anika Ayyar started a website called Skip-a-Birthday aimed at motivating kids who have plenty, to "skip a birthday" (from a presents and overspending perspective) and donate what they would have received to a charity. Moved by her frequent family trips to India, she couldn't believe the disparity between the children there and the children here. She came up with an idea, took it to Camp BizSmart where she fleshed it out and is now starting to market her business.
Along with the kids, we adults shared our perspectives on the youth market and what it takes to be a teen entrepreneur. It was a great balance of educating Silicon Valley business leaders while encouraging young people to follow their passions. Here are five things I left with that I hope help inspire both young and old!
1. The best way to know you are truly an entrepreneur is if no one can stop you. You just won't quit. Tim Draper spoke to the passion he's seen in his successful entrepreneurs and their drive and commitment are what stands out most.
2. What happens in the teen market will influence your business. So even if you don't market to teens, you need to be aware of the trends and behaviors because they are coming your way. The Marketing to Teens panel discussed how behaviors and technology, from a very early age, are shaping the way families and then peer groups communicate.
3. If you are in college, slow down. Take time to maximize internship opportunities or take a semester off. All the college panelists spoke about the competitive job market and how internships have really given them an edge when it comes to looking for "real" work.
4. As an entrepreneur, be ready for your idea to morph. It can come from pressure from the competition, new partnerships that will extend your reach or influence from your investors – all these factors and more will require you be adaptive in growing your idea. The teen owners of Increo Solutions had plenty of war stories and advice about the evaluation of their online products.
5. Get out of the house. Attend conferences, events like this one, start talking to people. I was amazed at the networking going on – even the eighth graders were learning how to talk with business people. From what I could see, new relationships were forming everywhere and there was a palpable "buzz" as young and old started talking.
About Jennifer
A self-proclaimed pundit in the area of youth, culture and technology, by day Jennifer is a principal at Listen2Youth, a marketing research firm focusing on kids and technology. While shepherding The Worldwide Teen Lab for her client Alcatel-Lucent, she writes a blog helping techies stay focused on the youth user-experience. By night she morphs into cyber-mom, blogging about the strange intersection between parenthood and technology. You also can find her on Twitter, chirping about the juxtaposition of her professional and personal life.
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