My journey as an entrepreneur began when I was fired from a consulting job and then had a minor¹ falling out with the start-up I had joined as the second employee. I was 28, with no mortgage, wife, nor children then, and little to lose. I could afford to take a risk and start my own company. Just do it, I told myself. The result was lastminute.com.

我的创业之路始于从一份咨询工作被解雇，然后与我作为第二位员工加入的初创公司闹得有点不愉快。那时我28岁，没有抵押贷款，没有妻儿，没什么可失去的。我能承担风险，创立自己的公司。我告诉自己，想做就做。结果就有了lastminute.com。

Looking back, 28 is not such a young age to set out on an entrepreneurial career. Last month I was pitched a business idea by two 14-year-olds; the week before I launched a competition at my old school for ideas for education technology start-ups.

回头看，28岁对于踏上创业生涯来说已不是一个年轻的岁数。上月，两名14岁的小朋友向我推销一个商业创意；之前一周，我在母校发起了一场关于教育科技初创企业创意的竞赛。

We are now familiar with the concept that good ideas can come from anywhere: any age as well as any place or background. Young thinkers may be more inclined to see opportunities than constraints², and a splash of naive³ optimism is a good, perhaps even essential, quality in an entrepreneur.

我们现在已经认识到，好的创意无处不在：可以来自任何年龄、任何地方或者背景。年轻的思想者可能更善于看到机会，而非种种限制；激情四射、天真的乐观主义是创业者的优秀（甚至可能是必不可少的）品质。

When Martha Lane Fox and I recall our early days at lastminute.com we often say that if we had known about all the barriers we would have to overcome in challenging incumbent⁴ operators we would never have started.

当玛莎•莱恩•福克斯(Martha Lane Fox)和我回忆起我们创建lastminute.com的早期时光，我们常说，如果事先知道挑战现有运营商必须要克服的所有障碍，我们绝不会开始创业。

For us, as for many founders⁵, the key was to dive in and get on with it. Neither of us had any formal business education and we learnt by trial and error, trusting we would make enough good decisions to outweigh⁶ the bad.

对我们（也是对许多创业者）来说，关键是要“一头扎进去”，并坚持做下去。我们两人中谁也没有受过任何正规的商科教育，我们通过试错学习，而且相信我们会做出足够多的正确决策，来压倒那些错误决策。

Part of the trick, as in poker⁷, lies in the assessment⁸ of risk. So how can we help our aspiring⁹ entrepreneurs master this skill and improve their chances of creating sustainable businesses? The key is to introduce our children to entrepreneurial thinking early. We need more initiatives that teach business skills, the importance of lateral¹⁰ thinking and logic¹¹ — and, most importantly, that business done well should be fun and purposeful.

如同玩扑克一样，部分的诀窍在于对风险的评估。那么，我们怎样才能帮助有抱负的创业者掌握这一技能，并提高他们创立可持续发展企业的几率呢？关键是要让我们的孩子尽早了解创业思维。我们需要更多行动，传授商业技能，告诉他们横向思维和逻辑的重要性，而最重要的是，做得好的事业应该是有趣而且有意义的。

My own ambitions were inspired by entrepreneurs in my family and an outsider’s desire to challenge the establishment. My first encounter with business skills came in running a club at school. There was no entrepreneurship society; today that is the most popular club in many schools. Then at Oxford¹², 25 years ago, I entered the university’s first business plan competition, and came second. I also took over running a French club and enjoyed turning it from a free membership of 50 to a paid one of 500, and attracting sponsorship from L’Oréal and Société Générale.

我个人的雄心是受到家族中的创业者的启发，也源于我作为一个圈外人挑战权威的渴望。我第一次接触商业技巧来自于在学校开办一个俱乐部。那时候还没有创业社团；如今，这已是许多学校最受欢迎的俱乐部。后来，25年前在牛津大学(Oxford)，我入围了学校第一届商业计划竞赛，并获得第二名。我还接手经营一家只有50名免费会员的法国俱乐部，将其发展成了拥有500名收费会员的俱乐部，并吸引了欧莱雅(L’Oréal)和法国兴业银行(Société Générale)的赞助。

Since my time as a student, there has been a dramatic change in attitudes to entrepreneurship by the young and a host of initiatives to encourage it. I am an adviser¹³ to MyKindaCrowd, a platform for corporates to set business challenges to students. It taps into the creative surplus at schools and universities and gives young people a way of getting close to business.

从我的学生时代起，对年轻人创业的态度就有了巨大转变，还有各种鼓励年轻人创业的措施。我是MyKindaCrowd的顾问，它是一个让企业为学生设立商业挑战的平台。它能够发掘中学和大学里旺盛的创造性，给年轻人一条接近商业的途径。

Bizworld, founded by renowned¹⁴ venture capitalist Tim Draper in 1997, provides a fun, project-based way for schoolchildren to learn business and entrepreneurship basics and has reached more than 500,000 children.

著名风险投资家蒂姆•德雷珀(Tim Draper) 1997年创建的Bizworld，为学龄儿童提供了一种有趣的、基于项目的方式去学习商业和创业基础知识，超过50万名儿童已经接受了这样的培训。

I have been struck by the impact it has on the most academically troubled kids. For many of them it generated a new enthusiasm about school and turned around their academic performance. The transformative power of entrepreneurial ambition is evident in Bejay Mulenga, who credits his tuck shop business success with reigniting his interest in school and getting his grades up. His Supa Tuck teaches GCSE-age students how to run a tuck — or food — shop. This summer, he is launching an ambitious scheme in which 500 teenagers will invest £30,000 into a pop-up tuck shop, with the aim of turning it into half a million.

我被这些培训对学习上最有困难的孩子的影响所震惊。对他们中的许多人来说，它带来了对学校新的热情，并使他们的学习成绩转好。创业雄心的改造力量在柏杰•穆伦加(Bejay Mulenga)身上体现得很明显，他认为在经营小吃店上的商业成功，帮他重新燃起对学习的兴趣，让他的成绩得到提升。他的Supa Tuck向中学阶段的学生传授如何运营一家小吃店。今年夏天，他将推出一项雄心勃勃的计划：由500名青少年向一家小吃“快闪店”(Pop-up shop)投资3万英镑，目标是将它变成50万。

Further afield, the Steve Case-backed non-profit UP Global is an inspiring example of stimulating¹⁵ grassroots entrepreneurship internationally. A merger¹⁶ of Startup America and Startup Weekend, its events have attracted more than 100,000 aspiring founders.

在更远的地方，史蒂夫•凯斯(Steve Case)支持的非营利的UP Global是一个在全球激励草根创业的鼓舞人心的例子。UP Global将创业美国(Startup America)和创业周末(Startup Weekend)合并，其活动已经吸引了超过10万名有抱负的创业者。

For young graduates in the UK, there are plenty of opportunities to develop skills and network such as those offered by New Entrepreneurs Foundation, a charity supported by business. I would like to see many more such organisations and believe it is an area where incentives¹⁷ from government could be effective.

对于英国年轻的毕业生来说，他们有很多发展技能、拓展关系网的机会，例如由企业支持的慈善机构——新创业者基金会(New Entrepreneurs Foundation)所提供的。希望能看到更多这样的组织，而且我认为在这一领域，来自政府的激励可能会很有成效。

Now that I am a parent, it is a delight to watch my daughters drive out the competition in the Loomband wars with a limited time price undercutting strategy. They are lucky to be growing up in an age when entrepreneurialism is more accessible than ever before. As digital natives with no baggage they are ideally placed to just get on with it.

现在，我是一名家长，很高兴看到我的女儿用限时削价战略在“橡皮筋手环大战”中获胜。她们很幸运地成长在这个时代，如今，创业家精神比以往任何时候都更容易被感受到。作为没有精神包袱的数字原住民，他们具有天然的创业优势。

Brent Hoberman (@brenthoberman) is co-founder of lastminute.com, made.com, Founders Forum¹⁸ and Smartup.io

布兰特•霍伯曼(Brent Hoberman, @brenthoberman)是lastminute.com、made.com、Founders Forum 以及Smartup.io的联合创始人