Helping Business Link understand young people and enterprise

We all know that young people are creative, innovative and have some great ideas - but how many are ready to put this into practice and set up in business? And who would they go to for help? These were the questions that Business Link were keen to explore, with a view to creating resources more attuned to kids' lifestyles and needs. It was a job we relished as - if you didn't already know - Dubit was set up by a group of 13 & 14 year olds ten years ago!

We surveyed 1,261 young people in both a quantitative and qualitative process, asking a series of questions about how much they aspired to being an entrepreneur; if they had business ideas; what they felt about self employment; and so on. Using 34 factors generated by the questions, Dubit then developed this into a unique scale of "Enterprise Potential" of young people, which measured just how enterprising they were - the bell curve below shows a normal distribution of potential across the population of 15-24s.

It gets really interesting when you start segmenting the youth population! Males appear to have 10% higher enterprise potential than females, and young people in BME groups were also found to be among the most enterprising in the country.

Uni Students are not as switched on....

We also found that when it came to judging the enterprise potential of young people, there was a large difference between those in employment and those who were at University. Interestingly, those in University were found to have a lower Enterprise Potential than those at either school or college, and way below those who were already in the world of work. Do those with low potential choose to stay on at school-college-uni and pursue a "career"? Or does HE take the edge off enterprise potential?

But nearly all feel they can be the next Branson...

That's right - 7 in 10 young people agree that anyone can set up a business, and around half of all the 14-19s surveyed believe that it is possible to start in business or self-employment in their early 20's or even whilst still as a teenager. So they're optimistic, particularly as 6 out of 10 have business ideas to explore - that's a good proportion! Dragon's Den and The Apprentice have clearly had an impact, but the problem is that only 3 in 10 have ever looked for information or support on how to develop their business idea; 63% of those with ideas have never looked for information.

But it gets really interesting when we segment the highest potential groups out look at their profile on the basis of the preceding graph (Fig 2): you can see the highest potential group (below, Fig 3) are already very engaged with enterprise - some already setting up in business, which validates the Enterprise Potential scale. We are about to undertake the next stage where we fully profile the young people in the Medium-high (EPS3) and High (EPS4) potential groups and identify the key factors in their education, background, experiences that have contributed to their propensity for entrepreneurship. Should be interesting!

The research project that was commissioned by Business Link has created massive interest both regionally and nationally as it highlights a new way of presenting and understanding enterprise potential in young people. Dubit have most supportively gone far beyond the initial scope of the project and we are now developing a new strategy in light of the research findings.

If you're interested in finding out what young people are really thinking, e-mail Laura Mclarty on laura.mclarty@dubitlimited.com or phone 0113 394 7920.

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