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Steve Jobs was a 21-year-old college dropout when he founded Apple<\/a>. 20-year-old Bill Gates launched Microsoft<\/a>, and Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when he first came up with the idea of Facebook. Their present-day equivalents\u2014today\u2019s Gen Z entrepreneurs\u2014want the same opportunity to innovate, but keep coming up against stereotypes they can\u2019t avoid<\/a>. <\/p>\n Of course, the legacies built by the aforementioned trio didn\u2019t come without decades of hard work. But had these young hopefuls not gained the respect\u2014and financial backing\u2014of their older peers early on, society might never have known the iPhone, Excel or the \u2018like\u2019 button.<\/p>\n Twenty years later and for the first time, Gen Z founders have reached the age\u2014at the upper end of the 11-to-27-year-old spectrum\u2014where they have the experience and ability to launch the first wave of disruptors for their own generation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet in a post-pandemic world, the workforce is facing inter-generational friction. Just ask actress Jodie Foster, who said younger peers can be \u201cannoying\u201d to work with or the managers who say they\u2019re \u201cdifficult.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n So it\u2019s perhaps no wonder that the GenZ bosses Fortune<\/em> spoke to said they have received something of a mixed reaction<\/a> to their own forays into entrepreneurship. <\/p>\n The phenomenon of being dunked on by older generations isn\u2019t new\u2014ask the millennials accused of missing out on affordable housing because they spent all their spare cash on avocados and oat milk lattes. <\/p>\n But while Gen Z can wait for time to dispel the notion that they\u2019re social media-obsessed and work-shy<\/a>, investors may already have missed out on the next big thing. <\/p>\n When Nicole Rechtszaid sits down with prospective clients for her L.A.-based social commerce company it\u2019s a \u201ccoin toss\u201d as to whether they\u2019ll believe she has the experience she claims to. <\/p>\n The founder of Ghost Agency already has a raft of major clients under her belt, having worked with TikTok for a number of years before taking on the likes of Alo Yoga, G Fuel Energy and a wide range of content creators. <\/p>\n Rechtszaid\u2019s CV is unusual\u2014after all, she has more than a decade\u2019s worth of experience working with streaming platforms since landing her first salaried contracts on Twitch at the age of 14. <\/p>\n But even with her wealth of knowledge, her meetings are often sprinkled with a dose of distrust. <\/p>\n She explained: \u201cAbout half the time a prospective client will say to me: \u2018But you look so young? I don\u2019t believe that you actually did all this.\u2019 Or \u2018You look like a child, are you sure?\u2019 They think it\u2019s funny.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI try and make a joke out of it because I don\u2019t want to make them uncomfortable,\u201d the 24-year-old told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s usually done with malintent but they definitely are saying to themselves: \u2018This person is less professional or less experienced than competitors that I\u2019m meeting with.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Being a Gen Z boss at the moment is out of the ordinary: less than 10% of the entire U.S. workforce fell into this demographic in 2020<\/a> according to Purdue Global, but this figure is expected to rise to around 30% by 2030.<\/p>\n In cases where Nicole and her 37-year-old co-founder Jenny Woo need to \u201cconvince\u201d partners of their abilities, they\u2019ve realized it simply isn\u2019t worth it: \u201cThere are going to be companies that get it, and companies that absolutely do not understand.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other side of the Atlantic, Meagan Loyst has unique insight into the brightest minds of her generation courtesy of her organization, GenZ VCs, and its 28,000 members. <\/p>\n Loyst, a New Yorker currently studying at the University of Oxford, created the platform three years ago to bring together like-minded individuals wanting to gain advice on investing, as well as entrepreneurs looking to expand their networks.<\/p>\n The CEO born in 1997 said the marketplace\u2019s preoccupation with millennial-era college hotshot founders is now giving way to investors more concerned with derisking.<\/p>\n \u201cThis notion of funding young, smart founders coming out of elite universities has been perpetuated for a long time<\/a>,\u201d Loyst said, citing Mark Zuckerberg and Snap\u2019s Evan Spiegel. <\/p>\n Yet in the current macroeconomic environment, Loyst echoed Rechtszaid\u2019s belief that youth is no longer seen as a guarantee for innovation\u2014it\u2019s a red flag. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is not everyone but investors are going back to repeat founders, those who have already seen success, because it helps derisk,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s negatively impacting young founders who have less experience: the onus falls on them to establish their credibility early and be able to articulate that in a very serious way.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re already seeing investors pulling back\u2026 and you know that the odds are stacked against you, you have to go above and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n Another dynamic between Gen Z bosses and their inter-generational teams is at play: social media. <\/p>\n Gen Z is a group who have never known a world without<\/a> Facebook<\/a>, born in the era of the baby influencer with everything from their day of birth to their high school graduation snapped online<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though battling loneliness and isolation, they\u2019re a generation accustomed to being highly visible, with Loyst saying this can work \u201cfor you, towards you or against you.\u201d <\/p>\n An influencer herself, she echoed Rechtszaid: \u201cPeople can come to a conversation with preconceived notions around what you know vs what you don\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n At Ghost Agency, Rechtszaid said the sunnier side to the age debate is that some clients acknowledge her company simply knows more about the subject. <\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s because she\u2019s got more experience with the platform, understands the demographic her client is trying to reach, or has a team built to achieve these aims, Rechtszaid wants to make sure the reasons her clients trust her are exemplified in the make-up of her team. <\/p>\n With six full-time staff expected to be on the books by the end of spring, Rechtszaid said her hiring technique was centered around individual growth. <\/p>\n \u201cDetermination, motivation and really an understanding of the space is all that we care about,\u201d when looking for staff, she said. \u201cAt that point, we feel people can be trained and molded into understanding how to take on a manager role or a director role. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that challenging to understand how to shift from something you\u2019ve done before to learning how to communicate it with other people, as long as you have the desire.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\u2018But you look like a child?\u2019<\/h2>\n
Is youth a \u2018red flag\u2019 for investors?<\/h2>\n
A generation accustomed to being highly visible<\/h2>\n
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