Profile of a Gen Y Entrepreneur

What do you get when you cross world citizen with Gen Y student with budding entrepreneur? You get Caroline Pugh.

Pugh, a sophomore business student and president of the Virginia Tech Entrepreneur Club (E-Club), sat down with me to talk about her involvement in the club and her work with Gen Y entrepreneurs. Pugh, who has lived in South Korea, England, South Africa, and Taiwan before moving to the U.S., is studying business information technology.

“I chose business information technology as my major because I was interested in the technical part of business,” Pugh said. “I love business and entrepreneurship.”

Not long after her interest in business budded, Pugh joined the VT E-Club.

“E-Club is a student-run campus organization for student entrepreneurs or students exploring entrepreneurship,” Pugh said. “It’s designed to help students transform their creative ideas for a business into a reality.”

The club was recently ranked one of the top 50 entrepreneur clubs in public schools in the U.S. and has grown over 300 percent in just the past year, attracting new student CEOs and business professionals. Even more recently, Pugh was named president.

“I attended the first meeting and was blown away by all the enthusiasm for entrepreneurship,” said Pugh of her first encounter with the E-Club. “I was so excited to finally be a part of an organization where students were motivated to improve themselves and take risks.”

The E-Club works to bring members together with established start ups and entrepreneurs, such Lujure, a successful start up founded by a former E-Club president, Nathan Latka. Every year, the E-Club launches a VT $5K competition, where student entrepreneurs submit their business plans and one in each of the five categories wins a $1,000 prize to start their business. Among the winners this year was GreenStar, a user-friendly solution for people to monitor exactly how much power the devices in their home consume; and Hokie Nanoball, a technology that harvest sunlight using an organic photovoltaic device.

There’s no doubt that these Gen Y entrepreneurs, and Ms. Pugh herself, are onto something big.

“Young entrepreneurs need to first and foremost believe in themselves,” Pugh said. “The motivation to keep going is often what makes or breaks a start up, so resilience and a strong-willed mind is key.”

Pugh says the single best skill an entrepreneur should have is the willingness to take risks.

“The key is to brainstorm, share ideas and be open to criticism,” Pugh said. “Feedback from others while in start up mode is probably the most valuable asset for any young entrepreneur.”

For more information on Gen Y entrepreneurs and working at startups, see:

• The “It” Place to Work: A Startup
• Gen Y: Entrepreneurs While Still In College
• Are You A Young Entrepreneur? There’s A Fund For That
• HOW TO: Get A Job At A Startup

Are you interested in entrepreneurship? What do you think of Pugh’s advice?

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Kate D’Amico is in her senior year at Virginia Tech where she is studying communications with an emphasis in public relations as well as psychology and special events management and marketing. She has prior internship experience in corporate communications and public relations for technology, nonprofit, and association clients.

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