Carsten Maschmeyer and Axel Täubert wrote a book aimed at convincing youngsters to become entrepreneurs. Nice try.
Statistically, 63% of the parents of school-age children would advise their own child against founding a start-up and 34% would even argue absolutely against it. This is the result of a study by the German digital association Bitkom. Carsten Maschmeyer branded the findings “A disaster!” in a recent interview. “These figures show that entrepreneurship is still being taught in a completely wrong way: It is neither part of any school subject, nor are children encouraged by their social environment at an early age to explore entrepreneurship and independence.”
Maschmeyer, who once founded AWD that was sold to Swiss Life and is a VC investor ever since then, is right: It is young people who shape our future - with their innovations and visions. Which is why we need more founders who create a more digital, safer and hopefully also a little bit better world. And for that to happen, the fundamental attitude towards this topic must change, especially at an early age. That's why Axel Täubert, a former Google executive, and Maschmeyer wrote a children’s book named "Die Start-up Gang" ("The Start-up Gang").
I can relate to their desire for this attitude to change. Moreover, the ability to work in a team creatively, with courage and stamina: that is the recipe for a founder. The book "The Start-up Gang" teaches this playfully, at least that’s how the story begins, but then…
To start off: What happens in the book?
During their school project week, four kids develop a business idea: a custom-made computer mouse at the size of a child's hand. But of course it can't be done without cloudy, offensive marketing lyricism, even these ten-year-olds know that, so one child booms: "We're not just selling a gaming mouse, but a tool for success. Imagine winning the next Twitch Rivals with this mouse and becoming as rich as an E-sports star." That's just the way kids talk, one might assume. Not.
Additionally, “The Start-up Gang" casually touches on various glamour words from the phrase book for startup talk such as "rapid prototyping", "seed investment" or "design thinking" and advises not to be discouraged, even if an injunction for copyright infringement flutters into the house. This is when it gets too much. Less is more sometimes. Children do not talk and act like this, even if they are some kind of wunderkinder. So the idea and aim of Maschmeyer and Täuble were great, but they are poorly executed. Take design thinking, for example: Solving problems by prioritizing the consumer's needs above all else. And I am sure becoming a founder is not a number one priority to a 10-year-old - and not a fairy tale either.
