Millennials making their mark in small business
Posted On December 26, 2014
When Bank of America issued its semi-annual report on small business owners this fall, the focus was on generations, specifically Millennials. That may have surprised many of you right off the bat – Millennials are the youngsters, how do they have sufficient trends as small business owners? Remember, they aren’t all fresh out of college anymore (the oldest are in their early thirties), their parents are often Boomers who are ready to retire and pass down the family businesses, and they are very entrepreneurial as a whole.
As with everything they do, Millennials are approaching business ownership differently. When reviewing the report, the statistics on lending sources really stood out. While Boomers and Gen X were more inclined to assume personal debt in order to build their business (25 percent and 18 percent, respectively) only 10 percent of Millennials were willing to do so. Instead, Millennials are more interested in alternative lending sources, such as online crowd-funding from services such as kickstarter.
This is a significantly different approach to business ownership. It could be inferred that Millennials are therefore less personally vested in their small business ventures or, less charitably, that they are expecting others to foot the bill on building their dreams. Perhaps, though, it’s simply a reflection on where this generation places its trust – in people over institutions.