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TechDev Academy

A Silicon Valley-based Startup Company founded by young entrepreneurs and professionals from different backgrounds including education, IT, science, business administration, and marketing in 2019.

Challenges of Starting a Business at a Young Age

Challenges of Starting a Business at a Young Age

Starting a business when you’re young might be a good thing, but it can also be hard. In this essay, we’ll talk about the problems young entrepreneurs face while starting up. We will talk about how to deal with challenges including not having enough knowledge, not having enough money, balancing school and work, discrimination based on age, and failing. This essay will help new business owners deal with the problems they may face.

 

Challenges of Starting a Business at a Young Age

Lack of Experience

Starting a business at a young age is hard because you haven’t done it before. Most new entrepreneurs don’t know how to run a business or know much about their sector. Lack of experience can lead to mistakes, missed opportunities, and failure.

 

But new business owners can learn from what other people have done. One of the best ways is to have a mentor. The entrepreneur-to-be might learn from the mistakes of a mentor.

 

Apprenticeships and internships provide people with more experience. Young business owners can learn entrepreneurship from experts in the field and get hands-on experience.

 

Young people can also take online entrepreneurship courses, go to business seminars, and attend local networking events. The young business owner may learn something from these materials.

 

Young entrepreneurs need to be aware of how little they know and actively look for ways to learn. This improves their chances of success and makes up for their lack of experience.

 

Limited Resources

Challenges of Starting a Business at a Young Age

Young entrepreneurs have resource limits. It takes a lot of money, resources, and connections to start a business.

 

Creative ideas can help overcome limited resources. Young entrepreneurs may be able to find people who share their interests by using social media and networking. They may also attend local business conferences to meet people and learn from successful businesses.

 

To find alternative money to make up for the lack of resources, a newbie entrepreneur can receive money from grants, loans, or benefit from crowdfunding.

 

Mentors may also be able to support young business owners. A mentor who has started a business before could help aspiring entrepreneurs deal with limited resources.

 

Young entrepreneurs with few resources can get by with creativity and hard work.

 

Balancing School and Business

Education and business might be hard for young entrepreneurs. Starting a business when you’re young might be fun, but it can be challenging to keep up with school and work. Young entrepreneurs often feel pressure to do well in both areas and find it hard to find a good balance.

 

Young business owners who are also in school need to be good at managing their time. This means setting clear goals and objectives, planning time for school and work, and learning to say no to things that aren’t important.

 

Integration between school and business is another key method. Students could use class projects to come up with business ideas or meet other students who have similar talents or connections. Young entrepreneurs might get aid from entrepreneurship centers, career services, and business competitions in college.

 

Young entrepreneurs also need to find a good balance between work and life. This means taking it easy, doing things you enjoy, and hanging out with friends and family. If they solely thought about their company, they might get burned out or have other problems. Young company owners can go to school and run a business if they can manage their time and work-life balance.

 

Overcoming Age Bias

Age bias makes it hard for young people to establish a business. There may be bias against young business owners because of their age. Young entrepreneurs may not be taken seriously by investors, clients, and other business specialists because of their age. This could make it challenging to get funding, build a professional network, and gain the trust of an audience.

 

Challenges of Starting a Business at a Young AgeYoung entrepreneurs may be able to get ahead despite their age. For new enterprises, having an online presence is a must. To do this, you need a decent website, social media profiles, and online activity. This way, they can show their skills, knowledge, and competence online to investors, clients, and potential partners.

 

To fight against ageism, young business owners need to network. Networking helps new business owners find others who share their interests, learn from professionals, and make business contacts. Young business owners can get beyond age bias and network by joining local business groups, going to events in their sector, and looking for a mentor.

 

Last but not least, new business owners should focus on giving their target market high-quality goods and services. By focusing on what the customer wants, young entrepreneurs may build trust and dependability. Word-of-mouth and recommendations from clients may help young entrepreneurs get through age bias and build a name for themselves.

 

Coping with Failure

Young business owners may find it hard to deal with failure because they don’t have as much expertise as older business owners. Failure is inevitable when you start a business at a young age, therefore you need solid ways to deal with mistakes and move on.

 

To deal with failure, it’s important to see it as a chance to learn. Instead of focusing on what went wrong, young entrepreneurs should learn from failure and grow. This way of thinking about failure could make you want to try again.

 

Mentors and peers may be able to assist you in getting over a loss. People who understand entrepreneurship and are willing to help could be very important. Young people can learn about entrepreneurship while at school, and this knowledge may help them be resilient against challenges.

 

If young entrepreneurs don’t want to fail, they need to take care of their mental health. When beginning a business, failure can be hard on the mind. Taking breaks, taking care of yourself, and getting expert support may help you deal with the emotional impacts of failure.

 

Last, new business owners should realize that it’s normal to fail. Even people who are good at business have faced problems. Young business owners can become more resilient if they regard failure as a chance to learn, ask for help, and take care of their mental health.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, starting a business at a young age is hard because you don’t have a lot of experience, you don’t have a lot of money, you have to balance school and business, people look down on you because of your age, and you might fail.

 

But young entrepreneurs may get beyond these problems if they have the right mindset and plan. Young business owners can grow their businesses and gain experience through using social media, making connections at local events, having a good web presence, rethinking failure, and getting help from peers and mentors. Starting a business has its ups and downs, but it could pay off in the long run.

 

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JOHN H. FALK

Director of the Institute for Learning Innovation and Sea Grant Professor Emeritus of Free-Choice Learning at Oregon State University

 

Dr. John H. Falk is Director of the Institute for Learning Innovation and Sea Grant Professor Emeritus of Free-Choice Learning at Oregon State University. He is a leading expert on free-choice learning; the learning that occurs when people have significant choice and control over what, where, and when they learn.

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CHRISTINE CUNNINGHAM

Professor of Practice of Education and Engineering at Penn State University

 

Dr. Christine Cunningham is a Professor of Practice of Education and Engineering at Penn State University. Her work focuses on making engineering more relevant, accessible, and inclusive, especially for underserved and underrepresented populations. She does this by creating researched-based engineering curricula for PreK-8 children and their educators. Her book, Engineering in Elementary STEM Education, describes her groundbreaking work. Previously, Cunningham was the Founding Director of Engineering is Elementary. Cunningham has received a number of awards; in 2017 her work was recognized with the prestigious Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education.

 

CHRIS ROGERS

Chris Rogers Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University

 

His research interests are:

Engineering Education, Robotics, and Musical Instrument Design

 

Education

Ph., D Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
M.S., Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University

 

Biography

Chris Rogers earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Stanford University, where he worked with Professor John Eaton on his thesis on particle motion in a boundary layer flow. Rogers joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts School of Engineering in 1989. He is involved in a number of research areas, including particle-laden flows (a continuation of his thesis), telerobotics and controls, the slurry flows in chemical-mechanical planarization, the engineering of musical instruments, measuring flame shapes of couch fires, measuring fruit-fly locomotion, and engineering education (kindergarten to college). At Tufts, Rogers has exercised his strong commitment to teaching by exploring a number of new directions, including teaching robotics with LEGO bricks and teaching manufacturing by building musical instruments. His teaching work extends to the elementary school level, where he talks with over 1,000 teachers around the world every year on methods of introducing young children to engineering.

 

RumeysaDogan

RUMEYSA DOGAN

Co-founder and COO at TechDev Academy

  • Graduated from top-ranked business school with high honor
  • Worked in top global companies as Vodafone, Benetton Group, etc
  • Experienced in Product Management and Digital Marketing Analytics
  • Managed Entrepreneurship Club and mentored several entrepreneurs

 

 

ismail-marulcu

ISMAIL MARULCU

Co-founder & Chief Education Officer at TechDev Academy

  • Educator and Researcher since 2001
  • M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Boston College
  • Ph.D. in STEM Education from Boston College
  • Mentored more than 100 pre-service teachers, college students, and high school students

 

 

PaolaGomez

PAOLA G. GONZALES

Mentor & Educator

  • over 2,000 hours mentoring students and 4 years of teaching experience
  • spearheaded a nonprofit organization that provides mentorship to underrepresented students at the UC, Davis
  • an active member of the Surfrider Foundation

 

 

AyushKanodia

AYUSH KANODIA

Ph.D. Student in Computer Science at Stanford

  • Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science at Stanford Uni.
  • Worked as a software engineer for Google
  • Expert in the intersection of Computer Science and Economics.

 

 

KairatSabyrov

KAIRAT SABYROV

Ph.D., Data Scientist

  • B.S. in chemistry and physics
  • Ph.D. In physical chemistry
  • Data science instructor at Lambda School
  • Worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab at the UC, Berkeley

 

 

BAHRUDIN TRBALIC

Ph.D., Candidate at Stanford University

  • Studied Physics & Electrical Engineering at MIT.
  • Worked at MIT as a Medical Data Analyst and Product Developer.
  • The founder and lead developer of Expert Experiments.
  • Received the 2023 Robert H. Siemann Graduate Fellowship and 2022 NASA Astrophysics Research and Analysis Award.
  • Spearheaded STEM camps across Europe and Asia.
  • He has been mentoring students for years.

 

 

SHASHA ANRONIKOV

Researcher at Stanford University

  • Recent honors graduate from Cornell University with a major in biological sciences and a minor in business at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
  • Currently working at Stanford University in the Nolan Lab to conduct immunopathology research.

 

 

LISA WANG

BSc Harvard University Graduate

  • Studied Environmental Science and Engineering.
  • Cross-registered to Harvard Univ. and MIT.
  • An advisor to the Harvard Undergraduate Clean Energy Group.
  • Co-founder of Coolant, a company that builds software to unlock nature-based carbon markets.

 

 

SEMI HASAJ

MBA Data Scientist at C3 AI

  • Studied Data Science while obtaining his Master's of Business Analytics at MIT.
  • Studied Space Engineering in Toronto, Canada where he grew up.
  • He has spent years tutoring others because he loves to help people learn and grow.

 

 

SAMY AWWAD

Junior at Stanford University

  • Studying Symbolic Systems with a focus on Neurosciences and plans to be a medical doctor.
  • Founded ImmuniGlobal, a national nonprofit in vaccine education, and he was featured in Healthline magazine.
  • A published researcher in PubMed.
  • Honored by the CDC as a Flu Fighter during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Enthusiastic about empowering young changemakers.

 

 

HASAN TUNCER

Ph.D., Product Manager at Cruise

  • BSc. in Computer Science at Koc University, Istanbul.
  • Ph.D. in Computing and Information Scienves at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
  • Worked as a software engineering at Wall Street.
  • Product Manager for Cloud Services (at IBM Silicon Valley Lab), autonomous vehicles (at NIO, aka Chinese Tesla, Uber ATG, Aurora and Cruise)

 

 

RayYucel

RAY YUCEL

Ph.D., Data Scientist in Magnimind Inc.

  • B.S in Materials Engineering
  • M.Sc in Management
  • Ph.D. Candidate in Economics
  • Data scientist at Magnimind Inc.
  • Employs deep learning in finance and health care data

 

 

SofoklisGoulas

SOFOKLIS GOULAS

Ph.D., Senior Research Associate at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University

  • Senior research associate, Stanford Uni.
  • The use of data science and machine learning in economics
  • M.Sc. in finance and economics, Warwick business school
  • MS and a Ph.D. in economics, the Uni. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Worked at the Uni. of North Carolina and at the Bank of Greece

 

 

EnricoSantus

ENRICO SANTUS

Senior Data Scientist at Bayer

  • Senior data scientist at Bayer
  • Postdoc at MIT, in the group of Regina Barzilay
  • Experience in NLP in Oncology, Cardiology and Palliative Care
  • Experience in Fake News Detection, Sentiment Analysis, and Lexical Semantics.
  • Invited to talk at the White House

 

 

EMILY HALFORD

Data Analyst

  • Data analyst working in psychiatric epidemiology
  • Data Science&Mental Health Expert with the BBN Times
  • Master of Public Health, Columbia Uni.

 

 

RyanSpitler

RYAN SPITLER

Ph.D., Co-Founder and Deputy Director of the Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics Center (PHIND) at Stanford University

  • Faculty Member, Standford Uni.
  • Founding Partner at Boutique Venture Partners
  • B.S. in Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, UC, Santa Cruz
  • Ph.D. In Cellular and Developmental Biology, UC, Irvine

 

 

muratbaday

MURAT BADAY

Scientist at Stanford Uni, Founder & CEO at TechDev Academy

  • Co-founder of Smartlens, Magnimind, Wowso, Nanosight
  • M.S. in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh
  • Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Biophysics from the Uni. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Mentored and tutored over 100 high school students
  • Developed novel ideas and has over 8 patents

 

 

GyunelRashidova

GYUNEL RASHIDOVA

B.S. in Biological Sciences,
Research assistant at the Laboratory of Biosensors and Bioinstrumentation

  • iGEM alumni, received Gold Medal among 250 teams
  • Fellowship holder from Women in Tech international organization
  • Founder of social projects:
    “OncoSense” - fabrication of device for the detection of cancer biomarkers;
    “RemiSee” - promotion of a colorblind-friendly educational platform
  • AIESEC alumni, organized case competitions with over 300 participants
  • Organized iGEM Biohackathon and Summer Camp for high-school and university students to apply coding for solving real case studies

 

 

SoudehYaghouti

SOUDEH YAGHOUTI

Ph.D., Data Scientist at Megalab, Silicon Valley

  • Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Italy.
  • More than 4 years of experience in data-driven research on electrical network systems.
  • Collaborating with TechDev Academy for several years and taught students data analysis projects.
  • Collaborated with Stanford scientists on projects that aimed to automate medical diagnosis of diseases with the help of image processing techniques and AI.

 

 

AIZHAN IBRAYEVA

MSc Researcher at Stanford University

  • MS. Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University.
  • Did research at Stanford University, Aerospace Science Lab (Purdue), Rarefied Gas Dynamics Lab (Purdue)
  • Worked on projects supported by NASA.
  • Worked as Engineer at Silicon Valley Startup companies.
  • Mentored Students from top US school

 

The class has 5 available spots.
You can add the class during course registration!

 

June 1-5

Mon-Fri 2 hours of daily instruction and 2 hours of self-paced project development.

June 8-12

Mon-Fri 2 hours of daily instruction and 2 hours of self-paced project development.

June 15-19

Mon-Fri 2 hours of daily instruction and 2 hours of self-paced project development.

The class capacity is full.
Please try other classes!