Entrepreneurs are getting younger

Six years is not a lot of time considering the overall lifecycle as a professional. But to me it does seem the world has changed a lot in the course of that time. I have been a witness to how businesses have reacted to various incidents such as economic slowdown, the jasmine revolution to anti corrution drive in India.But one thing that I have noticed is that in the early days as a VC I would meet a lot of people who are senior to me starting up companies. I am seeing a clear shift in that pattern.

Today I meet a lot more youngsters who are starting up companies especially in the technology side. One obvious thing is the fact that I have grown older in the last six years, but more importantly I would look at this as a reflection of the current times. We are a young population and the youth toady are willing to use technology to address most of their problems.

Technology itself has evolved, stuff like social, cloud, bigdata, etc was not as prevalent even 5 years back. Software will drive productivity, collaboration access and transperency. The cloud, smartphones, connected devices and tablets will drive opportunites that can create both social and econimic changes and it will be driven by the youth who are at the forefront of this tech curve.

It is important for the venture community to understand this change and keep pace. Entreprenuers are not looking for dumb money. Fundamentals of building a good company has not changed however, the rate of change in the way products/services are created, communicated and consumed is mindboggling.

Traditional models are being re-written at a rapid pace. Being young entrepreneurs, they do not carry the legacy of the past.  They are looking to partner with people who have the experience of building business but also can help them adapt to the fast changing nature of business it self. In this context VC's too have their work cut out.