“Fact: the mantra of “work hard, get good grades, go to school and get a job” is dead–and it needs to be buried for good. Our generation needs to get it out of our head that they still live in a hand-out, resume driven society, when, in reality, they will face a new economy where they must create a job to keep a job.”

Interview by Mike Sullivan of Sully’s Blog

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Scott Gerber is a self taught serial entrepreneur, speaker, syndicated business columnist, angel investor and the author of Never Get a “Real” Job.  He is the founder and CEO of Gerber Enterprises, an entrepreneurial incubator and venture management company that invests capital, management expertise, and marketing services into innovative early and mid-stage companies, and the Founder of Sizzle It!, a company that produces sizzle reels for PR and marketing professionals.  Scott is the world’s most-syndicated columnist on young entrepreneurship and has taught thousands of students and young professionals his lessons about how to never get a “real” job.

Scott’s book, Never Get a “Real” Job: Dump Your Boss, Build A Business & Never Go Broke!, is set to be released on December 7, 2010.  Scott has also announced his “Death to the Resume” movement, which has a goal of empowering young people to quit their job search or day job and build their own small businesses to protect their financial futures.  In October, Scott launched the Young Entrepreneur Council, an advocacy group comprised of some of today’s most successful young entrepreneurs and business leaders.  The group provides tools and advice on how to overcome unemployment by building small businesses.

MO:
Your new book supports your passion for being an entrepreneur, building businesses, and taking control of one’s future.  Will readers get inspirational stories, or tools to help them build their businesses?

Scott:
Never Get a “Real” Job will offer readers practical, nuts and bolts, down-and-dirty advice from the entrepreneurial trenches. While taking readers inside the company that almost bankrupted me at an early age (or as I refer to it as the company that shalt not be named), it also offers hard-learned lessons, tips, tricks and advice that entrepreneurs can put to use. No fluff here, just straight up, hard knocks truth that will help people overcome unemployment and underemployment by teaching them how to build businesses without any sort of financing or resources.

MO:
The book specifically targets the Gen Yers and the impact the changing economy has had on them.  However, many generations have been impacted.  Are there lessons to be had here for folks that have spent some time in the workforce as well?

Scott:
While it is my mission to help young people learn to survive and thrive in the new economy, I believe most of my principles and lessons are universal. Frankly, as I’ve said for years, if our society became more entrepreneurial as a whole, we wouldn’t be facing the record unemployment numbers that we are experiencing today. I do believe that this book, and the advice from the Young Entrepreneur Council, has the ability to help any generation learn how to leave the corporate wag slave mentality behind and become a self-sufficiency expert.

 

MO:
The Young Entrepreneur Council is made up of some very influential members such as  Aaron Patzer, founder of Mint.com; David Hauser, founder of the Grasshopper Group; Matt Mickiewicz, founder of Sitepoint and 99designs.com; Jake Nickell, co-founder of Threadless; Neil Patel, founder of KISSmetrics; and others.  How did you manage to pull all of these great minds together and what will the outcome be?

Scott:
One thing about Gen Y: we are collaborators (as my friend and Inc.com co-blogger Donna Fenn explores in great detail in her book Upstarts!). In many cases, before the YEC was launched, Council members were already giving back to our generation in their own ways through educational initiatives, charitable giving to entrepreneurship programs, and other ways. I think someone just needed to get them on board with the idea that we could combine their individual efforts–and their amazing insights–into one strong collective that could make a real difference in transforming Generation Y into the most entrepreneurial generation in history. I’m glad I was the catalyst. Using my relationships, now we are in the midst of many new initiatives such as our featured Q&A columns where aspiring entrepreneurs can reach out to us with their business questions on NeverGetaRealJob.com and we then answer them on our website and other media outlets, such as WSJ and Entrepreneur. We’re also working on launching a web video show and a funding platform for Gen Y businesses in 2011.

MO:
Tell me about the “Death to the Resume” contest you are holding and what you are looking to accomplish.  What type of reaction have you received?

Scott:
Awareness for our cause, for one. The “resume” is an antiquated tool that is both metaphorically and physically holding us back. Fact: the mantra of “work hard, get good grades, go to school and get a job” is dead–and it needs to be buried for good. Our generation needs to get it out of our head that they still live in a hand-out, resume driven society, when, in reality, they will face a new economy where they must create a job to keep a job. This is but the first step in getting them to turn their heads and take a look at a different alternative. It’s still early in the contest, but I have received a lot of emails of interest. It will be very interesting what happens in the coming months.

MO:
You’re a young guy and a serial entrepreneur.  When did the entrepreneurial urges first surface in your life?  What are some of the businesses you have created or influenced?

Scott:
I was always entrepreneurial in one way or another. Yet, my mother, who was a twenty-plus year veteran of the NYC school system (a.k.a. benefits loving, stability junkie) would always say to me, “Scott, when are you going to get a ‘real’ job.”  Even though I was making my own modest income during college, I still had to engage that conversation on a daily basis. But I knew, for absolute certainty, that I was never going to get a ‘real’ job. It just wasn’t in me. So, I set myself on the course to take control of my own life. At the time, I had no idea how to do that–I was also a cocky, ego-driven Gen Yer to boot–so my first company was a colossal failure that almost took me under. However, that failure ended up being the greatest education I could ever receive–especially for a guy like me who never took a single business or mathematics class in college (side note: I’d start ranting about how poor our education system equips Gen Y for the “real” world, but I’d need a few pages worth of space). Even though I was taken down to the point of under $600 in savings, I found a way to turn my hard-learned life lessons into financial successes. A year later, I had turned my company Sizzle It! into one that was producing significant revenues and boasted clients such as Proctor & Gamble. Today, I have interests in several industries (from restaurants to yearbook companies to video production companies), but I use the same basic lessons and actions steps with every business I launch or invest in.

MO:
What lessons have you had as an entrepreneur that have shaped the decisions you make when investing in new startups?

Scott:
Here are three points that I live by–and believe others should do as well.

Be Unoriginal. I always make sure that businesses are based on tried-and-true models that do not reinvent the wheel. I believe you make a business unique in the way you market or brand it–not in the way you manage it, sell for it or build its business model. As I often say, those who try to re-invent the wheel are doomed to be run over by it. And for anyone who argues with me using examples such as Facebook (a business that was original), I tell them to look around and find out how many dead Facebooks there are that they’ve probably never even heard of–then tell me that touting one-in-a-million dream businesses as solid advice for our depressed generation is a “great” idea.

Stop thinking infrastructure, start thinking revenue. I hate when people tell me they need money to start a business–mainly because I believe that isn’t the case and have built (or helped to build) several businesses that haven’t required any funding in the past. Entrepreneurs need to launch their businesses from a practical and realistic starting point, not an end point. A brick and mortar restaurant is an end point for most people who will never qualify for investment, institutional lending or have enough saved up to get that level of infrastructure-heavy business off the ground. A starting point might be a tailgating brand or a food delivery service on a college campus that focuses on a creative marketing and branding strategy. Businesses need to start small, grow organically, and build cash flow to achieve milestones–not be D.O.A. because they “require” too much overhead.

Generate income tomorrow. If a business isn’t capable of generating revenue tomorrow, or shortly thereafter, I don’t bother. I’m not saying I don’t respect Silicon Valley people out to build the next Google, however, when it comes to 99.999999% of the population, acquisitions and IPOs aren’t a reality. This generation–and others–need to concentrate on immediate revenue generation, not on E! True Hollywood Story fantasies that will never materialize. Focus on businesses where you can sell X product or service at Y cost for Z profit, and your business–and wallet–will be better for it.