6 Reasons You Should Start a Business When You're Young

Starting a business can be a daunting process at any age, but with youth can come an unfounded bravado that can come in very useful as an entrepreneur. Although with age often comes more experience and resources, young entrepreneurs will tend to find they have less to lose and more to gain. The risky nature of entrepreneurship will find a lot of young people being discouraged and steered away from the life of business by older peers; however, there are many reasons this can be a great career path for young and ambitious individuals with great ideas.

There’s Less at Stake

When you are younger you tend to have fewer commitments which makes taking risks, such as starting a business, that little bit easier. As you get older you are more likely to have committed to car payments, a mortgage and have kids to pay for, making it harder to leave a steady job and work for yourself. When you have just left college, or even during, is the perfect time to start building on your idea and see your business come to life before you have become too settled and too committed to other areas of your life.

You Are More Flexible

The fact that you have fewer commitments when you are younger also tends to mean you are more flexible and adaptable; you are less likely to have family and mortgage commitments meaning you will find it much easier to get up and move wherever you need to be, such as closer to investors or mentorship programs. When you are younger you are also less likely to have picked up bad habits from the workplace and be less committed to entrenched workplace ideals; this will make you much more versatile to new ways of working and to adopting new technologies in your chosen industry.

You Have Plenty of Time

An obvious benefit of starting a business when you are young is that time is on your side. Not only do you have more time to learn, adapt and become an expert in your chosen field, but you also have more time to change your focus and move into pastures new should your business not go to plan, or entrepreneurship is simply not for you. It’s less of an issue if your business doesn’t work out in your early twenties as you still have plenty of time to retrain and go into something else.

You Know Your Technology

In today’s internet-centric world almost every business has some form of online presence. The fact you will have grown up with the internet and technology means that it comes much more intuitively to you, meaning you are much more likely to adopt new technologies which will benefit your business and growth. You are also much more likely to understand the benefits of social media and how it can connect with potential customers along with knowing the kind of posts your audience wants to see.

There Are Lots of Funding Opportunities

Although you are less likely to have the same kind of capital to put into a business as you would when older, there are a lot of mentorship and funding schemes which focus on helping young entrepreneurs. The likes of the Prince’s Trust, for example, focus on helping those aged 16-30 and offers free mentorship and grants to young entrepreneurs with potential. There are also lots of ways in which you can save money and cut back on your spending to create a little saving pot to help you get started; there are also lots of digital financial assistants and apps you can use which will help you track your spending and make financial projections for you based on your current spending, making saving that little bit easier.  

You Are More Resilient

When you are younger you are much more likely to be more resilient to rejection than when you are older and have more to lose. In your late teens and twenties, you are also more likely to well-accustomed to rejection from university application, job interviews, and dating. However, no matter what age you are, stress and rejection can be a lot to handle, especially a lot of it at once, so make sure you are well-equipped to deal with it and have a strong support circle around you.