Teen Entrepreneurs And Authors Of ‘Down to Business’ Want Kids To Celebrate National Entrepreneur Week

National Entrepreneurship Week, which celebrates entrepreneurs across the country, starts Monday, Feb. 12, but many people forget that kids can be entrepreneurs, too.

Fenley Scurlock and Jason Liaw are 17-year-old entrepreneurs and the authors of “Down to Business: 51 Industry Leaders Share Practical Advice on How to Become a Young Entrepreneur.” It’s the first business book by teens for kids of all ages, helping Gen Z and Gen Alpha build business, leadership and life skills — and an entrepreneurial mindset.

Scurlock and Liaw are lifelong best friends who started working on the book during the Covid-19 pandemic. They interviewed 65 CEOs and business leaders from major companies around the world — including Jeni’s Ice Cream, Shazam, Hydroflax, Hallmark and Cotopaxi — about their best advice for Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

“Its so crucial in my mind to start learning about entrepreneurship young because it is not something that has an end point,” says Scurlock. “What I mean by that is that entrepreneurship is something you can continue developing as a skill – an entrepreneurial mindset — throughout your life and the earlier you start, the further you can take it.”

According to the authors, more than 50% of Gen Z say they want to be their own bosses, whether by starting a business or becoming an influencer, and among Gen Alpha, studies show 75% say the same. But most schools don’t teach entrepreneurial skills.

As teens themselves, Scurlock and Liaw wanted all kids to see themselves reflected in the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, social entrepreneurs and leaders of big brands featured in the book. More than half of the interviews are with women leaders, and diversity being a key indicator of business success is a key theme across interviews.

Scurlock and Liaw asked questions relevant to their generation: Is college worth it if you want to be an entrepreneur? How can business be used for good? Should CEOs speak out about social issues? They also offer actionable advice, so kids can practice no matter where they are in their entrepreneurial journey.

Since then, they’ve spoken to hundreds of students across the country at schools, libraries, and groups like the Boys and Girls Clubs. Now they’re using everything they learned writing the book, which was published by Penguin Random House last year, to help other kids use an entrepreneurial mindset to tackle the big problems they will have to help solve, from AI ethics to climate change to political polarization.