If you regularly read top business publications, you might be confused — and rightfully so. Are millennials becoming more risk-averse, launching fewer startups than before? Or are they “bullish on entrepreneurship,” embracing the make-or-break stakes with open arms?
Not only are both of those stories from last month’s Entrepreneur, but they’re written by the same person, underscoring the fact that even within a single newsroom editors and experts can’t agree on what millennials are actually thinking when it comes to starting their own companies.
The Kaufmann Foundation offers a thoughtful and balanced look at the issue in its 2015 State of Entrepreneurship report, noting that while millennials report strong interest in starting their own businesses, in fact they generally have not. The report notes that there are still reasons to be hopeful that millennial business building will pick up but they face a number of obstacles, including debt from their college educations and the lingering impact of the economic recession.
Still, others report that entrepreneurship is indeed on the rise among millennials. In 2014, 18 percent of Americans aged 25 to 34 were starting or running new businesses, compared to 15 percent in 2013, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Report. And the Huffington Post reports that 60 percent of millennials consider themselves entrepreneurs and 90 percent recognize entrepreneurship as a mentality.
Moreover, entrepreneurs of older generations seem to be “leaning in” when it comes to coaching millennials to startup success. Stanford lecturer Amy Wilkinson recently interviewed more than 200 CEOs about their secrets to entrepreneurial success, published in her new book The Creator’s Code: The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, abstracts of which are featured in a recent story by FastCompany.
It’s unclear how this “paradox” between millennials’ entrepreneurship potential and their exorbitant student-debt burden will play out in reality, says Forbes, “but the future of how millennials will be remembered — as a lost generation or the new great one — will rest on it.”
April Lane is a freelance writer.