Companies have changed the way they look at Millennials as customers. Millennial customers are commanding both trendsetting power and tremendous spending power. It is estimated they will be spending $10 trillion over their lifetimes as consumers in the U.S. alone. Not just for their personal lives, but as Millennials move into positions in industry with significant spending power.
Opportunities to have a business success will appear in any form and many times when a person least expects them. As tragic a storm may be, it is indeed an opportunity to sell anything related to it such as rain suits, rubber boots, ponchos, and umbrellas. Unless there is a flood and then umbrellas will not do much good when a person is already in water up to the ankles. Or knees. Ads will flood email accounts and anytime surfing the net ads will appear on the sides of pages. Ads for catastrophic flood insurance, backup generators, gutter cleaning deals, sandbags, emergency supplies, or chain saws. No ads about arks, though.
Millennials or any other generation, people have had great ideas leading them to success. The following are just a few examples.
ClassPass
Someone had the brilliant idea to put gyms, in-studio classes, spas, and digital classes into one membership. A person's passion for fitness does not have to be limited by the number of gym memberships a person can reasonably hold. ClassPass has partnered with studios of all sizes. A person can visit a studio as often as the person wants. Memberships are month-to-month and the app is used to book everything. The co-founder of ClassPass, Payal Kadakia, has also founded The Sa Dance Company. Her advice for entrepreneurs: "I would tell them to focus on their product. The number one thing that matters is your product. When you build a good product, everything else works. The marketing works, everything works. You really have to make sure you're getting people's advice and you're iterating constantly. Don't be afraid to fail."
SIRUM
Over 50 million Americans are forced to choose between paying for rent, groceries, and their medication. With soaring copays, deductibles, and insurance costs, people are making impossible choices. Yet, $5 billion worth of perfectly good meds is thrown out or incinerated every year. SIRUM was created to stop the waste. SIRUM takes donated unused and unexpired medication and gets them to the people who need them. In 2015, SIRUM won a $500,000 prize at the Forbes change the World Competition in Philadelphia.
Kano
Kano is a way for anyone to master technology, rather than be mastered by it. It is great for kids. Just get a kit, assemble a computer, and then use it to code and interact with the Kano community.
Partnered
Partnered is an online platform that connects startups with big brand companies with similar business interests.
Instacart
Due to the pandemic, online grocery shopping became the norm for many people. Instacart already offered this service before the COVID19 pandemic. Just place an order online, set up a delivery time and location, and get the groceries delivered to your front door. Easy-peasy. This convenience became a need and now many people love this type of service. However, it was not easy to get this idea to work. The same goes for any other business idea already mentioned or any other idea. People will have ideas and try them out. Many ideas will fail, but the ones that work might become a great success.
According to Apoorva Mehta, founder and CEO of Instacart, "You shouldn't start a company just to start a company. The reason should be to solve a problem that you truly care about." A quality and perhaps the most vital to have in order to succeed is nearly irrational perseverance in the face of failure. A person must be able to learn from past mistakes. Cliché? Certainly. However, it is true. Most startups fail. Success requires the ability to miss a pass and give it a try the next down, changing the play, reading the opposing team, and picking the open player for a pass. After all, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
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