Is the <18 hustler culture real? And healthy?
On Twitter, I’ve come across founders whose business was acquired at 18, which means they had to start even earlier. In some cases, it was at 16.
I’ve also read about 14-year-olds building their first startup, and in some instances, even 10-year-olds. (At that point, I started to wonder whether it was truly the child’s initiative or if the parent was creating the image of a “successful founder” at the child’s expense.)
I admire the drive in young people, and I’m genuinely happy when they start so early, especially when it’s on their own initiative.
But is that young person losing their childhood? Or have they already managed to live it fully and become that self-aware at such a young age?
I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially from younger readers and parents.
Replies
I guess... not really, I was one of those kids. Volunteered and worked for a lot of people's organisations and projects from age 14/15 or so. Founded my first venture at 17. Scaled it from 0-200 contributing writers and 100k web viewers. Won awards including the Global Teen Leader award and traveled across multiple countries to speak at events with government ministers, African Union, business leaders, etc. It was a lot of pressure honestly, I was also in university. My parents had no hand in whatever I was doing and barely even knew what I was doing. They just knew I was going to school, but I had a large public life outside of that. Met lots of teenagers younger than me who were just insanely curious and experimenting and building stuff. Lots of organisations like We Are Family Foundation, and Rise support teens who've got ideas and are solving social issues. And I've continued to mentor teens and young adults too who are curious and just want to chase purpose or build a business and explore.
About losing childhood I don't really know about that. I guess everyone's life is different. At 16 or so I was already leading a department of a school faith-based youth fellowship which had mostly young adults in it.
I can tell you for sure that yes, it felt like deep pressure on my soul, mental capacity, physical wellbeing to organise events, check in with the 30-50 members of my unit regularly, plan, etc. It was just stuff I wanted to do, no one forced me or anything. But it was hard core tough! It was what I wanted, but the process was not something I enjoyed.
Anyhoo I never sold my business, it had tons of social impact, raised funds for refugees and to support entrepreneurial education too (you can check it out here). But lol, learning to successfully generate revenue was not something I knew how to do well at that age. But the other things such as already building a vast international network, companies I could piggyback on for support and business insights in future, managing and leading teams, understanding human psychology, managing pressure, international culture and context, storytelling and marketing etc. were things I learned, and is helping me build a new design business to support startups, I just started. Proof, in my first month of operation in the front, I already generated revenue having learned from those past teenage mistakes and lessons and being willing to learn new lessons quickly.
About childhood and teenage years, I think I had a really amazing and blessed one. Not every day was sunny though, I cried about now knowing why I decided to go the path I went, but when the results came in, I totally forgot about the tears. Those years built me up so much that one of the first jobs I got when I was 22 or 23 was pretty much a mid-senior manager role.
But yeah, one last thing! It's easy as a teenager to get lost in wanting to please lots of people and live up to what you think people expect of you. I had to learn to stop people pleasing, read lots of books, did so much inner work, just to understand that it was ok for me to slow down and go at my pace and pursue what I feel I need to, not just what others have come to think of me. And that it's ok to let go of projects or identities that no longer serve me.
@mirabellemorah Man, you have an amazing life, thanks for what you do for refugees.
@mirabellemorah TBH, this story is so interesting that I'm a little envious. :D In a good way. How did you get to your first gig? Did someone show you something, did you see something, or what was the first impulse?
@busmark_w_nika haha thanks for the kind words. One of the books I'm reading right now is called "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber" and I totally recommend it. First I was just scared that I had no business bone in me. Took many years to believe in selling my own skills by myself (not only being employed and getting paid). For my first recent gig with Grohwie, luckily the founder of a startup found me on Medium or so, I think I'd left a comment on his stuff and he read my articles (I document a lot) and we followed each other on LinkedIn and he decided to give me a shot after hearing I was kicking off a new entrepreneurial journey.
I made mistakes in the first proposal I sent to him (sent him 20 pages of stuff lol), he drilled me and taught me to bring it down to 1 page (nobody has energy to read through how you're the greatest! Just tell them you can solve their problems). Worked with a friend of mine to do UX audit and create hi-fi mockup for their site rebrand. Next clients found me on LinkedIn from a comment I dropped, we closed a deal same night. Another still from LinkedIn, and next from me showing my work on LinkedIn again. There's been many lessons I'm learning.
Like how I need to set boundaries (yes I may work at midnight but I won't be answering a client's email by midnight)
how I need to say no to certain clients that are not a fit for the business (better respected than playing to be liked)
how contracts and scopes save me from a lot of hassle, especially in a service based business where it's not a plug and play (pay x for y) kind of model. I'm now moving towards productising services like launch/product demo videos I make.
Mind you, I'd been employed for several years prior and recently went back to uni to do a postgrad degree in entrepreneurship and innovation and graduated last year. So my new business is still recent, like just 2-3 months ago. While business school taught me certain principles and ways to go for VC money, I'd be honest to say that personal experience and LinkedIn and YouTube and Reddit and PH have taught me the real thing. Client outreach, generating ideas and having them generate revenue are different things.
@mirabellemorah That's exactly amazing. After reading this, I have a need to do something with my LinkedIn profile :DD
Graphify
@mirabellemorah Super interesting life story! In my opinion every childhood is different and if you enjoyed doing what you did and it was something you were good at, than I think that's totally right
@hussein_r thanks!
Only a small number of people start businesses at 18 and get acquired. I believe these children have sufficient self-motivation and interest.
Children are naturally playful, which is a common trait. These children may have a passion for a particular field from a young age, develop a deep focus, and possess exceptional talent, becoming industry experts before the age of 18. Not all fields require university courses to learn, and learning resources are now abundant.
I know a child who started learning Python by dragging and dropping at the age of 7 and was developing his own personal blog using Flask at the age of 10. Now, at the age of 16, he's already a well-known open source library author, with over 10,000 stars on GitHub. If he wanted to commercialize his open source project, I believe he would be able to secure investment.
Talent + interest + opportunity—best wishes for these children.
I would love to see my kids doing this at a young age, because I see so many people getting distracted by unwanted, unhealthy social media. Instead, building something and creating job opportunities for others would be a great benefit to society.
@nitin_joshi It is all about mindset. When you raise your kids the way it is normal, and they will be surrounded by similarly thinking people, they will do it without seeing it as "force".
@busmark_w_nika sometimes you simply can’t change your surroundings. What we can do is make sure kids aren’t negatively influenced by their environment.
From my own observation, I’ve seen kids in my neighborhood grow up and only a few have managed to achieve something meaningful in life. As parents, we should make sure our children grow and learn in ways that prepare them for today’s business world and environment.
@nitin_joshi As a kid, you do not have so many options (or at least, you can't see them). But as you grow up, you are gradually opening your eyes, and in the meantime, you can change things. I ditched myself from some circles and joined to other circles and feel that difference.
@simona_o_neill3 That is truly inspiring. I wish I had such an entrepreneurial spirit at that age. 😭
It depends on why they’re doing it.
If it’s their own curiosity and passion, starting young can be an incredible learning experience.
If it’s from external pressure, they risk losing the unstructured freedom that makes childhood special.
The real to me isn’t “too young?”, it’s “do they still have space to be a kid while building?”
@borja_diazroig As you said, when it is inner initiative, they feel like a curious kid; if it is a chore, they lose curiosity and do not wanna live on this planet anymore. That's why so many kids going to school wanna grow up (but they do not know what real life is like). 😅
@busmark_w_nika 100% agree