Young entrepreneurs have a difficult task these days. Companies and investors want experienced management and no one wants to take a risk.
The best antidote to this skepticism is enthusiasm, say local management and human resources consultants. If there is a common thread that pulls together the Ottawa Business Journal's diverse group of Forty Under 40 recipients, it's enthusiasm. Although this year's candidates hail from a variety of different disciplines, all exude passion for their jobs and enthusiasm for their future prospects.
Nick Newton, a partner with the Frouin Group, says it's this enthusiasm that sets a young entrepreneur apart from a more experienced older executive.
"Several people in the Forty Under 40 group have a level of enthusiasm that can't be matched by an older (executive)," Newton says. "They're trading ideas. They're hungry to find out how business works."
Newton has watched the evolution of entrepreneurs over the years with the Frouin Group. His company holds monthly gatherings where young entrepreneurs get together and give three-minute presentations on business topics.
Newton says young entrepreneurs are getting into business for different reasons than a few years ago. In the past, many young companies were formed because their founders had a basic idea. Now many realize that succeeding in business requires more than a sketch on a napkin.
"They're learning how to market technology and build a business," says Newton.
Ken Charbonneau, KPMG's local technology consulting director, says being enthusiastic has practical purposes. It helps attract talented employees and keep them motivated.
"They need to demonstrate enthusiasm and vision," says Charbonneau. "There are a lot of people out there that want to find the right people and motivate them."
Besides having this intangible quality, young entrepreneurs are under more pressure to be solid number crunchers, salespeople, communicators and networking specialists. In other words, they need to possess a little of everything and they need to succeed quickly.
In the technology sector, Charbonneau says investors are looking for entrepreneurs that know how to sell a product, not just create it. This explains the ongoing debate about the level of sales and marketing know-how in Ottawa.
Charbonneau says he would like to see young managers connect with more experienced business leaders to learn the lessons that come from experience.
"When I look across the various skill sets, we've been the weakest in the sales and marketing area," Charbonneau says. "Young entrepreneurs need to start developing relationships with senior people. They need to have a good network of contacts."
François Guay, president of TalentShift Inc., says young business executives must sell themselves as well.
"Their biggest challenge is convincing people that they're still good executives," he says. "They're more realistic about getting work done and how to get things done smartly."
This year's recipients were selected by an independent three-person judging panel and one representative of OBJ. The judges were Stephen Daze, director of OCRI's Entrepreneurship Centre, David Lees, senior vice-president and managing director of J.J. Barnicke and Debbie Weinstein, partner at Labarge Weinstein LLP. OBJ was represented by publisher Michael Curran. All applications were judged on a 40-point system that measured career success, professional recognition and community involvement.
The profiles are not intended to list all aspects of the successful nominations. Instead, they are a snapshot of the recipients' careers and personalities. To accomplish this goal, we asked a series of quirky questions that included: If your life had a theme song, what would it be? Who would you swap lives with? What would the title of your autobiography be? What's your greatest wish? What's your dream job?
