Startups are the modern American dream. A dream that gives young entrepreneurs hope for a future that isn’t a 9-to-5 job. It’s the concept that ingenuity and hard work can make you a billionaire. In this world of modern technology, success is no longer based on who you know — rather, what you create.

Before the startup gold rush, there was Facebook. Started by a college student, it has since become the biggest and most profitable social media company today. Mark Zuckerberg, technically a college dropout, is now a billionaire. It destroys what we’ve always been told: get a degree, work our way up the corporate ladder, and eventually make a comfortable salary.

Now there’s an alternate route to success— a road filled with excitement, creativity and collaboration.

Millennials are often called lazy, self-absorbed and entitled. The unfair and inaccurate description clings to our generation despite our successes. We might spend countless hours on our phones, yet Gen Y is also spearheading the development of new ideas and creating our own futures.

We’ve seen it with Snapchat, Instagram and countless other apps and companies. Current or recently graduated college students take their ideas and turn them into something the world didn’t know they needed. For every idea, there’s an app for that.

We’re taking advantage of new technology and resources to become employed in a world filled with unemployment. An opportunity that didn’t exist until recently, crowd funding allows a young person with no connections to show their product to the public — and if the public likes it, they’ll fund it.  Sites like Kickstarter eliminate the need to find one or two wealthy sponsors and instead builds a community of supporters from the beginning.

Startups aren’t just apps and new products. There are now companies — mostly started and run by young people — that create an impressive online presence and image for other companies. It’s a job that didn’t exist before and it was generated because of a need.

Our generation knows the Internet and social media better than anyone else because we grew up with it. Because of that, we gathered an incidental expertise that translates into the startup companies we see today.

Now is the golden age for millennials. The invention of the smartphone and the evolution of the Internet created an entirely new job market for our generation, contrary to the popular belief that there are no jobs for college graduates.

All the information needed to learn how to create apps or websites is online.  Anyone, regardless of which college they attend or how much money they have, can create the next big thing. For the moment, the playing field is leveled and ideas are the most valuable currency.

For every successful startup, however, there are thousands that fail. We can’t all be the next Zuckerberg, but we all know how to use the Internet. So if we’re ever trapped in a 9-to-5, we can try to make our idle office dreams a reality.

Kate Beckman is a freshman magazine journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at kebeckma@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @Kate_Beckman.

Published on January 21, 2014 at 2:30 am