🔒More CT youth are starting/owning their own business. Here’s why and how.

Elijah Livingston showed an early interest in starting his own business.

At age 12, he posted a sign on his lawn mower to attract new clients in his Simsbury neighborhood. By the time he graduated from high school last year, he’d earned enough money from working a variety of odd jobs to purchase a rental property.

Today, at 18, he’s putting in over 60-hour weeks as the new owner of a Pet Stop dealership, which installs electronic dog fence systems. He’s learning not only how to manage a business but living out his love for dogs, interacting with people and working outdoors.

Though Elijah said he’s benefited from business courses he took at Simsbury High School, he decided going to college wasn’t right for him, unlike his twin brother and two older sisters, who have pursued higher education degrees.

The decision was supported by his parents.

“With the cost of college, our whole philosophy these days is a lot of kids go not knowing what they want to do,” said Josh Livingston, Elijah’s father, also an entrepreneur who owns a toy importing business and real estate ventures.

Another option was helping his son buy a business, Josh Livingston said.

“You have to have the right kid who’s ready to take that on, and Elijah is unique in that way,” Josh Livingston said.

But Elijah’s not alone.

In fact, according to a recent survey by Junior Achievement USA, two out of three teens between the ages of 13 and 17 want to be their own boss rather than take a regular job as their future career path.

Nearly two in five teens surveyed said their inspiration for entrepreneurship mostly comes from social media influencers and celebrities. Teen entrepreneurs, for example, launched famed companies like Facebook, Dell, Microsoft and Yankee Candle, among others.

Shows like “Shark Tank” and advances in technology, which have made it easier and more affordable to set up a business, are feeding Gen Z’s entrepreneurial spirit, said Jeremy Race, president of Junior Achievement (JA) of Southwest New England.

While JA has been around for more than a century teaching kids about entrepreneurship, the digital age is providing new opportunities to kids to go big in their hustle.

“Technology is making it easier for young people to access mentors, research and sell their products,” Race said.

Gen Z’s entrepreneurial aspirations and energy are also good news for the economy, since small businesses are the biggest engine of new job growth, accounting for two of three new jobs created, according to the Small Business Administration. Connecticut, like the rest of the nation, has also seen a boom in new startups over the past year, with a recent CTData Collaborative analysis of business registration data finding a 20% increase in new business starts in 2021 through the month of November, compared to an average 5% growth rate from 2010 to 2020.

But Connecticut’s economy continues to lag other states, with higher unemployment, at 4.9%, and lower job growth, 3%, than the U.S. averages of 3.8% and 4.8%, respectively, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Tech influence

While the pandemic has been hard on the state’s small businesses, it’s also forced more to embrace technology and move online, which works to the advantage of teen entrepreneurs.

“I get technology easily,” said Elijah Livingston, who is expanding CT Pet Fence’s business by marketing online to support a customer base spanning northwestern Connecticut and Hartford and Litchfield counties.

And it was through an online broker website that the Livingstons found the 40-year-old CT Pet Fence business for sale in the first place, realizing they already knew its owner, who previously installed a Pet Stop brand fence and services to contain Elijah’s two dogs, Daisy and Rosie.

After alerting the owner to his interest, Elijah worked as an apprentice at the business for almost a year to learn “the tricks of the trade,” he said.

Within his first few months as its new owner, Elijah has already hired several new employees to cover growing demand.

“He’s really taking the business to a new level,” said his father.

For teen entrepreneurs, there’s growing opportunities to learn more about starting and nurturing their own businesses.

In fact, over half of the colleges in the U.S. have at least one course about entrepreneurship, according to Crimson Education, a college admissions consulting firm.

“Several Connecticut-based colleges and universities have robust programs to support student entrepreneurship and business ventures,” said Joe Ercolano, director of the Connecticut Small Business Development Center.

That includes UConn, the University of Bridgeport, Fairfield University, University of Hartford, Quinnipiac University, Sacred Heart University, and Western and Eastern Connecticut state universities, among others, he said.

College prep

For teen entrepreneur Corrine Clark, who launched her own hair salon two years ago, college is helping her better develop her business even as an undergraduate.

“I really believe going to college teaches you things that you would have never thought of before, it changes your mindset and allows you to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it,” said Clark, a senior at Quinnipiac University in Hamden.

Though Clark comes from a long line of women business owners, including her mother and grandmother, the latter encouraged her to go to college after high school, despite the fact she was moving forward with her goal to own a hair salon, something she and her best friend Dominique Fredericks had dreamed about since they’d been adolescents.

After graduating from Platt Technical High School in Milford and becoming a licensed hair stylist, Clark worked at various salons before launching The Loft Salon in Branford, which is co-managed by Fredericks. While balancing work and college is stressful, she said, the knowledge she’s gaining about marketing, management, business law, finance and entrepreneurship, are giving her cutting-edge business skills to run her salon more efficiently and even consider future expansion.

“In Branford alone there are over 100 hair salons and over 5,000 in Connecticut — it’s an extremely competitive business,” she said.

This year, Quinnipiac is also launching a new two-week summer program devoted to developing entrepreneurial tools and knowledge for high school students as young as 14 years old.

The program is currently recruiting about two dozen students who will explore topics like website development, business planning, problem solving, project management, team dynamics and leadership, said David Tomczyk, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac, who will be an instructor.

“Applicants don’t have to come in with a business idea but be open to learning new things,” Tomczyk said.

Such summer programs can be pricey, however, with Quinnipiac charging fees of $3,360 for students who are campus residents and $2,400 for commuters.

In comparison, Connecticut nonprofit Youth Entrepreneurs, which is supported by grants, is providing free tuition for eligible Latino and Black high school students in the New Haven area seeking a similar summer educational experience.

Last year, the nonprofit launched its first six-week summer program at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, with 25 students attending sessions to enhance their entrepreneurship and leadership capabilities and help them put together a business plan from start to finish, said Founder Laquita Joyner-McGraw.

Social justice is also incorporated into the curriculum, which gives the program a unique focus, she said, as part of its strategy to enhance the entrepreneurial spirit with teens living in underserved communities.

“We want to spark and ignite their interest and hope to provide them not only with access but resources, including guest speakers,” she said. “Young entrepreneurship may seem trendy, but I believe from my experience that Gen Z is pursuing it at a really startling rate. One thing we’ve noticed is a lot of them are self-taught. They find things on Youtube about starting a business and what we want to give them is sustainability.”

Tough odds

Mentorship is a huge piece, said Race, of Junior Achievement, which sponsors a range of extracurricular programs geared toward developing young entrepreneurs. The Entrepreneurial Academy, for example, has been underway for the past decade, though the pandemic has forced it to go virtual for students from various high schools around the state, who otherwise attend two-hour, on-site meetings over a 15-week period to launch their own business using the JA Company Program curriculum.

But teen entrepreneurs also face tough odds, since 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years.

“Everything is a risk,” said Josh Livingston, adding he’s personally had some business failures. “I’ve also talked to Elijah about this, if you’re not failing sometimes, you’re not trying hard enough and taking big enough risks.”