Creating a new generation of technology entrepreneurs Part 2: Consumption vs. Creation

Navarrow — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:25:24 +0000

It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week across the globe this week. You can read all about it here. But I’m sure you all knew that already because you’ve seen the bus loads of inner city kids being taken to events to help them understand what entrepreneurship is all about or you have had to sign permission slips for them to participate in workshops to show them how easily they can create tech start-ups. (I really wish that were the case)
A few months ago I was at a conference and someone was talking about how African Americans are the biggest consumers of mobile technology and content. They talked about how Diddy was a presenter at the last wireless conference and how minorities are buying and utilizing mobile services at a rapid pace. I started to think about how even though this may be great for the mobile industry and may even provide value for us as consumers, it sends the wrong message. We all like to have the newest, hottest gadgets, but not enough of us look at these new items as business opportunities. We play video games and never think about what it takes to create them. We use facebook and twitter and never think about how we can create businesses with them–satisfying the creators of these products but missing out on the opportunities that are right in front of us. I’m not sure if I’m more frustrated with that or with the fact that the rest of the world assumes that is how it’s supposed to be. I believe the mobile space has some of the best examples of this, and here is one in regards to the Iphone: when apple announced that they had achieved the 1 billionth download of an app from the app store. Since that number was reached at such a rapid pace it was worth taking a look at this market. I decided to explore what the barrier of entry was for creating an Iphone app.

1. First I would need to learn how to build one. I went to the library and found 3 books on Iphone development that I could take out (for free). Next I went to the Internet and found out that there is class that Stanford offers on Iphone development that you can watch on Itunes (for free.) You can get it here . You can actually see all the schools that have classes on Itunes for that matter here .

2. Once I had all this information, I then found that the tool which apple offers to create the apps (called Xcode) is offered (for free) here.

3. Once I go through and create an app I can get it uploaded to the app store by joining the developer program here for about $99 .

Now this is a high level walk through of what it would take to get going, but compare it to what it would take to open a restaurant, or a Laundromat or any physical business. I mentioned for free a lot in those points to highlight that money is not a barrier here. Also take into account that there are many businesses on the iphone app store that started out with just one person and now are making 6 figures in sales or their apps. The larger point I wanted to send home is that many of the people we know would not even think about this as a possibility let alone go through the steps. That is what has to change. If you have children of your own or know that you can affect, encourage them to wonder how things work, who builds them and can they make a living doing it. Help to develop the problem solving mindset that is in all of them. The holidays are coming so I know young people are asking for the Wii, Xbox, playstations and phones like the iphone. Take a few minutes to get them to take a look on the Internet or go to the library to see what it takes to create the content they are consuming. The bottom line is that adoption and consumption of these technology mediums is great, but if we as minorities don’t get involved in the creation process then how can we ever have any level of control?

Navarrow Wright » navrrow wright

Creating a new generation of technology entrepreneurs Part 2: Consumption vs. Creation