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- The kids are alright
The kids are alright
20-somethings are building not whining
Rob Norris
May 07, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes
Table of Contents
Pull to Eject
The vast majority of Launch Key subscribers are over 50 years old, experienced, late career professionals and entrepreneurs.
Our networks are legit.
Our resumes are solid.
We’re still adding to our career portfolios.
We may buy or even start another business.
But we’re not quite finished.
This issue isn’t about us.
Who’s Got Next?
They’re our kids, their peers and Gen Alpha.
As this subscriber base has grown (now 2000+), we’ve gained some next gen Launch Key readers.
Born in 1963 – I loathe the ‘boomer’ label – and not just because I’m on the margin of that age bracket.
Similarly, my 3 sons all push back on both ‘millennial’ and ‘Gen Z’ tags, and despise the ‘live-in-your-parents basement’ meme.
And they’re right.
My dealings with that cohort has been the opposite.
They’re motivated.
They’re entrepreneurial.
They’re leaders.
And they hate bureaucracy.
These kids have been digital their whole lives.
Given the right opportunities, they can help your business … or they’ll leave to start their own. Like the millennials described in this Entrepreneur article.
Create Their Own Path
I recently told a friend who has pre-teen kids, that I was glad mine are all out of college.
His response was, “why would my kids go? unless they wanted to pursue engineering.”
And he’s right.
He’ll be looking to augment schooling with possible apprenticeships and some combination of real life experiences, peer work projects and online software development.
They’ll be entrepreneurial teens.
The best and brightest might even find themselves getting seed money from Peter Thiel to drop out of home school and pursue world-changing ideas.
We’ve been pushing them all toward college for a couple of generations - and that’s not working out.
If you haven’t used them, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) began as a way for organizations to offer free courses worldwide. Thousands of people can take the same course.
They became an excellent way for 9-5ers to learn new skills.
The first MOOC on edX was MIT’s Circuits and Electronics. More than 500,000 students have completed it so far.
But MOOCs aren’t just for technical courseware.
Subjects range from architecture to business & management, food and nutrition, law, computer science, data analysis & statistics, engineering, math, literature, philosophy, science, and more.
In 2015, college credit was offered for certain online courses. Soon, complete master’s degrees were offered for far less than the price of on-campus study.
Who would ever go back to school for an MBA when you can take selective classes from top tier schools on a schedule that works around yours?
Work experience is far more valuable than 2 years off - and a new pile of debt.
This trickled down to undergraduate courses.
And teens with sense have enrolled.
The options for next generation kids to learn on their own is almost unlimited.
Send the grandkids to MOOC.
Now go launch something 🚀
Subscriber Stories: Brooks Lockett
Meet Brooks Lockett: Conversion Copywriter | Enterprise SaaS clients
I first met Brooks when he phone interviewed me about my satisfaction with Crowdhealth. (Side bar: this company is worth researching if you are self employed and need health care coverage).
When we realized we were both in Charlotte, we met for coffee.
And in walks what could be another one of my boys.
Brooks realized in his early 20’s that he didn’t fit in the corporate role.
He started a freelance writing business.
He hustled up a few clients. He niched down to SaaS businesses. He gained a reputation. He was featured on the Human Cloud podcast. He was able to build a retainer business.
2 Months ago he started interviewing the B2B SaaS Marketing Leaders he was working with and publishing the results in a Substack newsletter.
Not only does it create interesting content, it gets distribution for both Brooks and the client.
Brooks has edited, grown, niched down and extended his brand — all in the first 5 years creating his career portfolio.
He’s just getting started.
Every hour I get with 20-year-olds is very encouraging.
Ready to build your own digital product?
This Launch 🚀 kit guides you through market validation, customer definition and messaging examples to use your uncommon knowledge and create a standout product.
Frame up your unique experience and authentic voice.
Modern Tools
Video short form has blown up.
And one of the people just killing that game is 18-year old Jenny Hoyos. Giving away inexpensive ideas, she had over 600 million views last year alone.
Her vids are averaging 10 million views.
Read that again.
She has a LOT of reps at this for a teenager.
Shaan Puri interviewed her on how she got 100 million views on just one short.
She is a legit young person to learn from.
Plus, she’s made her mom a star! 3.6 million YouTube subscribers, and 93k Instagram followers might be on to something.
Work With Daymond? For FREE →
BREAKING NEWS: 5 days of FREE value from Russell Brunson, Daymond John, and 20+ other elite entrepreneurs!
We’re hosting a virtual 5-day challenge called, Your First Funnel Challenge!
In the challenge, we’ll walk you through step-by-step on how to launch your business idea into the world with a funnel!
⏰ But hurry! Seats are filling up fast and this is a closed-door event.
Old School Wisdom
Marc Andreesen is old school enough that he helped create the modern browser we take for granted today. He was also a seed investor in Facebook and early in Twitter, Airbnb and GitHub.
He’s in his early 50’s now but he’s clearly not finished.
His optimism about Gen Z and Gen Alpha is in direct contrast to the lazy story. He thinks 20-year old entrepreneurs are better than his generation.
There’s a lot to unpack, but this entire interview is worth your time.
Recorded at a16z’s 2024 American Dynamism Summit, Tyler and Marc Andreessen engage in a rapid-fire dialogue about the future of AI, including:
the biggest change we’ll see in the next five years
who will gain and lose status with the rise of LLMs
why open-source is important for national security
the best and worst parts of Biden’s AI directive
the most underrated energy source
what the US can do to speed up AI deployment
what gives Marc optimism about Gen Z
which thinker helps him make sense of American capitalism, and more.
Free Knowledge
Will your startup need venture capital? Or just need to know how VC’s invest?
Confluence.VC has the background info you are looking for.
Started by one of my sons as a way to organize all the tools his first analyst job did not provide, Confluence.VC has grown into the community for investors and founders.
Lots of free info, including newsletters and a YouTube channel with archived investor and founder interviews from 4+ years of side hustle.
Kids today 😉 … (full disclosure: he encouraged me to start a newsletter 🚀 )
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