Prince’s Trust spoof videos promote youth enterprise

According to the Royal Bank of Scotland, almost half of 18 – 30 year olds have aspirations of running their own business but less than 10% have actually taken the leap into self-employment. This is despite youth employment remaining high. With this in mind, the Princes Trust has launched a campaign to encourage young people to consider starting their own business.

Funded by RBS, the digital campaign is called #MyBigIdea and will run over the next three weeks. Taking inspiration form You Tube, the spoof videos showcase business ideas that would never work in reality, stating that ‘anyone can have a business idea’.

The campaign urges youngsters to get in touch if they have ambitions of starting their own business and promotes the support it can offer. The Prince’s Trust is a registered charity that supports people under the age of 30 who are not in work, education or training. It can help by offering free advice, and support and providing access to mentors and low interest loans.  

Earlier on this year, it celebrated 30 years of supporting youth enterprise.  

The self-employment dream

A survey conducted for The Prince’s Trust last year found that almost half of the 16 to 30 year olds questioned had already made money through a hobby or freelance work and 30% believed they would be self-employed in the future. 25% thought they would be their own boss within the next five years. The research found that the main barriers to self-employment were:

• not having enough money – 59%
• fear of failure -43%
• current economic climate – 42%
• not having a good enough idea for their business – 38%

The full research is available in their report, The Start-up Generation. This highlights workplace trends, such as a reliance on the internet, with 52% of respondents saying they wouldn’t be able to run their business without it. It also found that many young people see flexible working as something that will be the norm in the future, with 46% believing that people will be able to work from anywhere in the world within the next 30 years.