What Gen Z Entrepreneurs Want

Generation-Z (the generation born in the late 1990’s through the early 2010’s) is quickly redefining the future of work. Increasingly, they are more likely to have jobs in addition to their day jobs or are actively building and scaling their own businesses.

New research from ZenBusiness highlights that:

• Ninety-three percent of Gen-Zers have taken a step toward exploring business ownership
• Ninety-two percent of Gen-Z recognizes the value of neurodiversity in entrepreneurship
• Seventy-five percent want to launch their own businesses
• More than half of Gen-Z identify as “definitely” (22%) or “somewhat” (31%) neurodiverse

Given the higher rate and awareness of neurodivergence, Gen-Z is uniquely poised to be business leaders, and they need support. As they engage in entrepreneurship, often much earlier than past generations, they’re also facing challenges in finding resources, gaining traction and executing business-growth activities.

Gen-Z Challenges

As Gen-Z enters entrepreneurship, a new report from iStock reveals the top business struggles they are preparing to face. Gen-Z business owners cite three key challenges at a higher rate than Millennials and Baby Boomers:

• Lack of resources (budget, people or time) – 62%
• Increasing visibility and generating quality leads – 50%
• Consistent execution of marketing activities – 46%

Opportunities for Business Leaders to Help Gen-Z

According to Matthew O’Such, iStock’s VP of global digital performance marketing & SEO, “Suffering from a lack of resources was identified as the number-one concern across the generations. As a solution to this, it’s key to focus on crafting initiatives that directly challenge this concern, while strategically allocating your resources to support the broader business objectives. These initiatives may vary by business type, but can take shape in ways such as outsourcing and utilizing third-party tools.”

This might mean addressing Gen-Z resource needs through introductory or trial offers for productivity-enhancing tools. Meet resource-strapped budding entrepreneurs where they are, giving them resources they can sample and get value from before asking for a financial or time commitment.

“A considerable part of marketing resources for business owners is the visuals needed to promote the business effectively—whether that’s online or in stores. Business owners can lean on online platforms and videos to enable agile marketing planning and execution and to better connect with customers on a deeper level. This can also help save time when it comes to producing and delivering content, as well as helping to keep a steady stream of marketing activity—two other major concerns for generations,” O’Such shares.

Because the learning curve for Gen-Z can be sharper due to fewer years of experience, it’s important to get them just-in-time resources that cover a broad array of skills gaps from financial tools to marketing and sales ideas. Gen-Z is the most diverse generation in the workforce and considers inclusion a non-negotiable. It is important that marketers have a diverse set of content to better reflect the Gen-Z community, appeal to a wide set of learning styles and are cognizant of neurodiversity needs.

Gen-Z will shape the future workplace, and entrepreneurship will be a major way they will show up. Embracing the diversity of Gen-Z and providing resources to help them get started and stay in business will earn loyalty in the longer term.