This is Part 1 of 2 in our Graduate Startup Series. Please check back later for Part 2. “Youth is wasted on the Young” is a phrase often uttered by those wizened and long in the teeth. They often look back on their own early days with wistful longing, wishing that they had taken a hold of the reins when they had the energy, or the time. The truth is that those early days after college is the best time for us to strike out on our own, to found our own business. Why not afterall? Most of us are kid-free, our brains are still packed full of fresh knowledge, and we think like most coveted market out there (because we are that market!) 18 to 30 year olds. Not only that, but recent university graduates, especially those coming from a school with an emphasis in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (or STEM), are startup founder machines. This is especially true for those colleges near big funding sources, like Silicon Valley (locals perk up!). Venture Capitalism Stanford and Berkeley rank number 1 and 3, respectively, with the most Startup founders for 2016. Stanford alums also have launched over 400 Startups that raised over $10 million since 2012. More telling, the 5 most valuable startups in the US funded by VCs (and privately owned) were all founded by recent graduates – and 2 of them were from Stanford! Investors specifically look for a few things that are inherent in young college graduates: Passion, trendiness, and recent, cutting edge knowledge. Add to that a perfect pitch plus an awesome demo and you’re golden! This makes another point why College Graduates need to launch their Startup now, rather than in 10 years: VCs and Angel Investors love recent college graduates. So why wait until it’s too late? App and Website Development But there’s another reason to found your own Startup now: apps and websites are easy and inexpensive to build, compared to pre-internet businesses. Plus, despite how prevalent apps and websites are, both technologies are in their infancy (especially apps). As entrepreneurs, we’re still learning all the different ways we can turn ideas into a money-making tech products. More than that, we’re realizing that seemingly simple things can be made into cash-generating monsters. What we’re seeing with the tech world is that the marketing game is changing a little. This is to say that when creating a business is that you have to figure out what problem you’re trying to solve. But we’re dealing with new, exceptionally advanced technologies. Often they can address things people never even realized were a problem. For instance, people never realized that there would be a massive demand for Uber-style services. App technology like Uber’s algorithm was so vastly different from technologies even 20 years ago that such instantaneous services couldn’t even be conceived. Today? Uber is one of the world’s biggest companies. Along with Airbnb, another similarly clever tech Startup, were on that list of the most valuable startups discussed earlier, by the way. So need some Entrepreneurial inspiration? We’ll you will just have to tune in later this week for Part 2, where we will discuss what makes a good app or website, with some specific examples. Don’t want to wait for Part 2 to continue the conversation? Give us a call at 408.805.0495/408.621.8481 for a free consultation with our CTO and Marketing experts- or click to contact us!