The Startup Spouses

In a previous post, I attempted to wage a battle between Gen X and Gen Y entrepreneurs, a largely unfounded one it turns out. What I uncovered, though, is that my question had less to do with age and the ambiguous borders of Gen X and Gen Y, but more to do with the value of traditional work experience against new entrepreneurism. It’s essentially a question about the value of experience, which interestingly is at the center of the current presidential primaries, and the subject of March 10th’s Time magazine cover story. So what is the value of experience?

Despite my alt-outlook on most things, I have a soft spot for the old school, and nowhere else as much as when it comes to education. For most of elementary school, I went to Catholic school. The nuns drilled us on our times tables and sentence diagrams, and I attribute any subsequent academic success to that experience. As an educator, I’m into experiential and project-based learning, but think it has little value if the students don’t have the basics mastered. As a teacher in a great inner-city high school, I saw otherwise bright, creative, and insightful students fall short of expectation consistently because they hadn’t mastered basic grammar and vocab. Why is this important? Well, there is a business equivalent to paying your dues and learning the basics. And while I rejected the traditional path of climbing the corporate ladder, I learned from the work experience of doing menial labor, of trying to fit in, of following orders. Even if what I learned is that I hate it.

But does this learning put me at an advantage or disadvantage as my own boss? How do I size up against a teenager with a great idea, energy, and ingenuity? From my perspective, the pros of starting a business, sans experience:

• Thinking out of the box. Wait, it’s more than outside the box. It’s what happens when there is no box. And it’s pretty cool.
• Risk-taking. The younger and less experienced tend to be less risk-averse, which can be an asset in the startup environment.
• Ego. Confidence can take you a lot of places, and youngsters who haven’t experienced rejection and humiliation in the workplace have plenty.
• Energy. Imagine what you could get done if you could still pull all-nighters fueled by hope and Red Bull.

The pros of starting a business after putting in some time in the corporate world:

• Communication skills. Working with people beyond the ones that live in your dorm often makes you practice communicating effectively.
• Knowing how to play the game. Like it or not, there are definitely rules and etiquette in the business world, and knowing them can improve relationships with other businesses.
• Humility. Nothing like sending out dozens of resumes only to be rejected or being ignored in meetings to make you realize no one thinks you are as smart as you do. And that’s not a bad thing.

My thoughts clearly aren’t very decisive; neither was the expert opinion in the Time article. Experience was not a strong indicator of future achievement and success. In the political realm, there are too many new variables for experience to mean much. The same could be true in the startup environment. There are models of success, but no gaurantee that they can be replicated. The author of the article, Von Drehle, says, “To a keen student of human nature, all life offers lessons in how to lead, inspire, and endure.” Indeed, it is all of our experiences, and our ability to learn from them, that can be lessons in how to start a business.

My husband and I are attempting to start our own business just as we are about to hit the big 3-0. So as a late-twenty something in a decade that has seen many entrepreneurs in their teens and early twenties, I feel almost ancient as I begin. I question the value of working in more traditional environments in my twenties, and wonder if the learning experiences provide a long-term competitive edge against the younger entrepreneur, or if I’ve just essentially lost time. With that question as the starting point, I set out to compare the Gen X vs the Gen Y entrepreneur.

As I began researching, this became harder than expected. A big reason is that according to some sources, I technically belong to Gen Y. The boundaries between Gen X and Gen Y are pretty hazy and the starting point ranges from 1976 to 1981. As someone who was born in 1979, I could be in the midst of a major identity crisis right now. But I know who I am. I love Winona Ryder and Jon Cusack movies; I was 12 when Nevermind was released; I wore flannel as a pre-teen; I was pretty apathetic and angsty throughout high school and college; I had a computer when I was five, but I didn’t use email until my study abroad in college. I identify with the Gen X set.

These Gen Yers, or Millennials, get a lot of media attention, and rightfully so. It seems everyday another 19 year old drops out of college after getting millions in VC. With all the creativity and technology acumen, do these Gen Y entrepreneurs have staying power? The experts characterize the Gen Y entrepreneur as:

• The entrepreneurial generation
• Value work/life balance
• Disenchanted with corporate model
• Enjoy taking risks (who doesn’t under 30?)
• Able to leverage technology (they are, afterall, digital natives.)
• Good at teamwork and collaboration
• Want to make a contribution
• Relentlessly optimistic
• Non-stop experimenters
• Confidence, independence, enthusiasm, and impatience

OK, not looking good for Gen Xers. I mean, we’re known for being grungy slackers, for being disloyal and lazy, and worse, apathetic. So what do the experts say about Gen X entrepreneurs? While there are fewer search results, the findings are interesting. Guess what an author said about Gen X in 1998:

• Gen X considered the most entrepreneurial generation
• Disenchanted because of broken homes, downsizing
• Value work/life balance
• Able to leverage technology
• Legacy will be individualism and entrepreneurship
• More collaborative and comfortable with teamwork
• Less hierarchical, wants to be involved in decision-making process
• Self-reliant, candid, rule-shy

Huh. So, besides the cynical vs. optimistic outlook and the tremendous size of Gen Y versus the smaller numbers of Gen Xers, there is virtually no difference between us. Really. So my “faceoff” might be for not? Meredith Bagby said of Gen X, “Whether we like it or not, we’re sort of a transitional generation. We grew up with computers, but we still grew up in a traditional world. What’s interesting about Generation Y is they not only have computers but they also have the Internet. And those who’ve been really immersed in that technology have a completely different way of thinking - it’s more chaotic and random.”

Ok. I’ll take transitional generation, as long as we’re clear that “transitional” means that Gen Y has been riding our coattails, following on the trail that we blazed, except with the addition of their gushing optimism and care for social change. So how does the Gen X collision of technology and tradition stand against the digital natives? Part II talks about tradition, experience, and chaos – should you learn the rules of the game before you break them, or write your own rule book?