Embrace your youth: Prove your intellectual capital

Every entrepreneur faces a unique set of challenges depending on their industry, experience, and community. For young entrepreneurs, these challenges are even more pronounced, but I have discovered a few strategies, through trial and error, to achieve success as a young professional.

Intellectual capital

Ask a seasoned business professional their number one hesitation about working with young entrepreneurs. Did they say that young people simply don't possess the years of necessary experience to be competent in their field? I will hedge a bet that they did, since this is what I experienced at nearly every meeting I landed in the early days of running Soshal Group. The beautiful thing about this stereotype is that there is no grey area - it's black and white. You either do possess the intellectual capital to provide the best product or service to your customers or you do not.

The blunt statement I've made above illustrates both the positive and negative angles of being a young entrepreneur. But should you really be running your own business if you don’t possess the intellectual capital and thought leadership necessary to deliver a great product or service? This is the fundamental question you need to ask yourself before starting up. If the answer is yes then you have no reason to let this generational stereotype hold you back!

It will be to your benefit, then, to demonstrate the intellectual capital you possess. One of the easiest ways to do this is to set up a simple blog on either Tumblr or Wordpress. Our company blog, Soshalize, has been a key element in our marketing and business development strategy since day one; in fact, we landed our first national client through a thought-provoking article we wrote about their business and tweeted them to get their feedback. Had it not been for our blog we may have never been able to demonstrate that we understood their business challenges and could offer an opinion and strategy to assist them.

If you’re able to defend your intellectual capital, embracing your age should not be a problem. In my next post I’ll discuss ways in which your growing experience as a young entrepreneur can be viewed as a benefit.  Be sure to check back next week!