By Francisco Dao 

I recently attended my 20-year high school reunion where I was hit with the inescapable truth that I am getting old. Since old people always wring their hands and fret about the lazy slacker state of “kids these days” I started thinking about the young entrepreneurs I’ve met in the past year and realized that not only were they not slackers, but these kids were building companies that surpassed anything I ever dreamed of at their age.

For example, consider Robby Berthume who started his company Epsilon Concepts while still in High School. By the time he graduated, Epsilon was doing so well Robby’s parents actually told him NOT to go to college. Robby went anyway and between classes, Robby along with friends Sam Moon and Finney Kewa, still managed to build Epsilon into a top web application development firm.

In the online space, Mike Prasad and Alexandra Mokh recently launched beta testing for GirlGamer, a community created specifically for female game players. To the uninitiated this might seem like a small target market, but Mike and Alex realized that 40% of gamers were female who didn’t have a place to socialize. If you’re thinking “anyone can launch a website,” Mike was CTO of a public company at the age of 20 and previously launched Bullspot.com.

Proving that college is meaningless when it comes to entrepreneurial savvy, 24-year old Efren Toscano, CEO of TechZulu, is still finishing his degree at Cal Poly Pomona but has managed to build his company into the premier video news site for the Southern California technology scene. Setting up partnerships with companies such as Stickam and Viddler, Efren was recently interviewed by a UCLA student who was shocked when he told her he was still in school.

Granted not all youngsters are as ambitious and resourceful as these examples – I’ve got a couple of nephews who just want to loaf – but if this group of entrepreneurs is even remotely indicative of the next generation, the only thing we should be worried about is them putting us out to pasture.

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Francisco Dao is a guest columnist for 4entrepreneur. Francisco Dao is the founder of The Killer Pitch (www.TheKillerPitch.com). He is a serial entrepreneur and author of the book Killer Attitude 53 Rules of Unstoppable Confidence. Since 2005 he has been a leadership columnist for Inc.com and now writes the Fast Company Buzz blog for FastCompany.com.   

Tags: college entrepreneurs, college entrepreneurship, next generation of entrepreneurs, school entrepreneurs, The Killer Pitch, Young entrepreneurs