Lithuania has one of the best scores on ambitious of young people to have their own business in Europe. Unfortunately, the situation becomes a little bit different when implemented business ideas by youth are counted. In order to find reasons why the situation is like this, what obstacles youth meet on their own way, on 5th May, 2015 the seminar-workshop “Is entrepreneurship a challenge for youth?” was organized by Innovation Office in Vilnius (Lithuania). This event was devoted to European Youth Week.
During the event, young people were asked to identify problems they are facing and results were: lack of knowledge, interest and motivation, insufficient support from environment, fear of mistakes, lack of time, addiction to Facebook, lack of concentration, too much information and set goals are too big.
In order to solve these problems, first step is improvement of motivation of young people, then they should develop their creativity and follow principles as thinking ‘out of box’, acting in different manner, using a method of open innovation.
How to sell entrepreneurship? Each business or activity should have their own target group and service or product should meet the needs of the certain target group. All messages should be devoted to target group in KISS (keep it simple and smart) manner. Also, entrepreneur should visualize his/her path how set goals could be reached. Young people should be aware of the Golden rule: ‘if you can imagine – you can do it, if you can not imagine – you definitely cannot do this’. Besides this, it is important that all activities should be linked to the main target of the business and entrepreneur should be not be afraid of making mistakes – they are valuable lessons and we should learn from them. And at last, entrepreneur should not be afraid to speak about themselves and matters related to their business. This will help to increase publicity of the business.
And the main thing is to be active. It is proven that all initiatives should be started within a period not later than 3 months. So let’s start now!
If you have any ideas of your own business or social initiative and you have some doubts, contact us via e-mail info@inovacijubiuras.lt. We are ready to help you. Your dreams must come true!
The seminar-workshop “Is entrepreneurship a challenge for youth?” was supported by Erasmus+ project “Ideas into Action: Entrepreneurship for youth workers based on local economy needs” (ref. No. 2014-2-UK01-KA205-012100).
DISCLAIMER: This publication has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.