From Car Keys to Angel Funding

Anthony Onesto

Top 50 HR Professional | Advisor | Chief People Officer | Gen Z & Future of Work Visionary | Speaker | Author | Worktech Product & GTM Advisor

Published Jul 9, 2014

Soon Teenagers Will Ask To Fund Their Startup, Not The Car Keys

Gone are the days of lemonade stands and newspaper routes. Replacing them are apps and hardware startups. Yep, I expect in the next couple of years our teenagers will stop asking for our car keys and start asking for angel funding for their new projects.

On Tuesday 6/24 I hosted the S tartup SI Tec h Meetup to help build a community of technology and startups here on Staten Island. As you know, we are the forgotten borough, here in NY, but that will not stop us from building a strong tech community. At this MeetUp, we had some special guests - the team from Wave.

Wave is a startup focused on developing hardware that allows a person to log into their web accounts (Faceobook, Google) and track passwords via a USB fingerprint device. With Wave's device you would never have to remember that silly password with all the numbers, capitals and special symbols, nor the thousands of passwords that you use on a daily basis. The idea is very cool and it brings together both hardware and software, which is a very hot market for investment these days. With all of this being true, the coolest thing about Wave is not the technology or the idea, but the people behind wave...or should I say teenagers. You see, Wave is comprised of 9 high school students from a local technical high school, in fact, one of the premier technical schools in the country - Staten Island Tech.

The Wave folks did what most startup founders do - they were disappointed in a process or a current situation in their own personal experiences, so they took action to provide a solution, thus Wave was born. These awesome people are just an example of where the future of this country sits - with our youth. There has never been a time in our country's history where it has been easier to start a company or build technology. Cloud infrastructures and open source technologies combined with support from local and national organizations, provide young kids like the Wave an opportunity to solve problems, while also learning about how to create a company.

With the exponential growth of technology in the next decades, it only makes sense that our youth will be exposed to technology and entrepreneurship at even younger ages. It's up to us parents, our grade, middle and high schools, plus corporations to support and encourage these experiments.

So, when your 10 year old comes to you with an idea for an app, maybe you should listen and fund it - you could be missing out on a great technology, a cool experience, and a possible financial exit.

Varun M.

Product @ Noom

Fun writeup, Anthony. When we last talked on the phone I mentioned a team of teenage brothers out here on Long Island (almost as forgotten as Staten Island!) who are doing gangbusters with their super early-stage social startup - so there's a little more anecdotal evidence for ya. I remember when I was a youngster I had to convince my parents to buy me a copy of CodeWarrior, but startup costs these days can be on par with picking up a more expensive sport. And heck, even if it falls through, the kids get a great learning experience, a story to tell, and a something to talk about on college applications. Now the question is: what systems and establishments are needed to enable these kinds of experiences? Is mentorship of budding entrepreneurs enough?