5 Questions for … Scott Gerber
Much like X-Men’s Professor Xavier, who brought together people with extraordinary abilities, Scott Gerber this month created the Young Entrepreneur Council, a team of fresh-faced entrepreneurial superheroes determined to fight youth unemployment and underemployment.
It’s the latest adventure for Gerber, 27, a popular serial entrepreneur, TV media personality, internationally syndicated small-business columnist and author of the upcoming book, “Never Get a ‘Real’ Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke.”
Gerber told BusinessNewsDaily why Generation Y needs to get entrepreneurial, what’s “crap” and why he compares entrepreneurship to a video game.
BusinessNewsDaily: How do you envision the future of entrepreneurship?
Scott Gerber: If Gen Y gets its head on straight, we’ll be the most successful entrepreneurial generation in history. Future generations will then finally be taught entrepreneurship in school as mandatory curriculum versus an elective hobby. However, unless we stop listening to the older generations who do not and will never get it, we will become a truly lost generation. This was one of the main reasons I founded the Young Entrepreneur Council because someone needs to make it clear that the “work hard, get good grades and go to college to get a job” mantra is dead wrong. I have one message for Gen Y. Hear me loud and clear here: Burn your resumes now. I’ll help you do it, just give me the opportunity to light the match. Start building an income with your own small business . “Real” jobs will never offer you the financial success you deserve.
BND: Why is it important for new entrepreneurs to hear about others’ failures and mistakes?
S.G.: There is too much crap being peddled to aspiring entrepreneurs touting the wrong message, utopian lovey-dovey nonsense, blatant lies or misinformation. Business plan books that mislead you into believing everything you write on paper will become a reality. Self-promoting pundits that are out to convince you that if you are “passionate” and “follow your dreams,” you can turn your hobbies into cash. Well, I call that ‘bullshit’! These types of blowhards are hiding truths and sugar-coating reality. And this is precisely the reason why the only way aspiring entrepreneurs should learn how to build a business is through the failures and hard lessons learned by others so they can see the real deal behind entrepreneurship, a rewarding and fulfilling—yet, at times, arduous and perilous—rollercoaster ride. It’s only when we learn from failure that we learn to succeed.
BND: What inspires you to dip your feet in many areas of the business world?
S.G.: Many things really—ambition, curiosity, excitement. To me, entrepreneurship makes life like a video game. You work hard, you get to the next level, but if you lose, you go back to the start to correct what you did wrong. That’s exhilarating to me.
BND: What’s the best advice anybody has given you to help you succeed?
S.G.: I was lucky to have mentors around me that taught me the quintessential differences between winners and losers. Losers fail and still talk the talk, still act like winners. Whereas winners fail, shut up, get back up and then get back on track. Too many people are so worried about image, fame and all of the other “wrong” entrepreneurial accolades and milestones. Bottom line: If you don’t make money, you’re not a real entrepreneur—so put up or shut up.
BND: If you had no obligations and could travel anywhere with all expenses paid, what three things would you do?
S.G.: Ha! No obligations. Hard to imagine such a utopia, but I would climb Everest, go to Disney World and backpack around Europe eating every cuisine I could get my hands on … after all, I would have lost a lot of calories from Everest.
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Reach BusinessNewsDaily staff writer Brian Anthony Hernandez at Bhernandez@TechMediaNetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter (@BAHjournalist) and become his friend on Facebook (BAH Journalist) to interact or stay updated on news about small businesses.