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The youth of  the United States are receiving a great deal of bad press despite data saying millennials and the younger post-Millennials are making numerous strides in society. The following is an interview with 21-year-old entrepreneur  Andrew Kozlovski the creator and owner of Brainz Power.

Response To Negative Press Millennials Receive

When asked for his reaction to Millennials taking the blame for the lowering profits of Harley Davidson, Buffalo Wild Wings, Napkins, and being less involved in the stock market – Andrew gave the following response regarding those headlines and general train of thought:

You know whenever something new comes along that challenges the existing system there will be a lot of push back. This is what is happening, it is nothing new, this has happened with every generation. The older generation criticizing the upcoming for all their differences, knowing this I pay little attention to this simply because they are not speaking from a logical place just from emotion because they know that we are going to change everything they spent years to establish. For example, when I started my company there were multiple members in my family that told me my idea would not work. They said there was no demand for my product, and it’s unrealistic to sell a product through social media. This was obviously said by people who don’t use social media, and by people who don’t know the current demand of the college population, so being stubborn in my own confidence in the business idea I ignored their advice and carried on to sell thousands of bottles of my product solely through Instagram in my first year in business. So we as millennials have to just understand that the older generation does not understand or see what we do as far as the current opportunities in business, so we have to just disregard their old ways of thinking and carry on executing in the current state of business not the past like they would like. 

“Of course, whether you like it or not millennials are changing the world in very meaningful ways and this major disruption causes a lot of push back,” was his response when asked if he felt the authors of these negative articles were using click-bait instead of research to make their points. He continued, “Millennials always see articles written about how our attention span is smaller than ever before and that we have no social skills because we spend too much time communicating through a phone instead of in person. We are able to have far greater reach and impact as a result of this ease of communication and content distribution.”

The Purpose Behind Andrew’s Business

Through our conversations, Andrew detailed his  wanting to help Millennials battle prescription drug abuse. He went into further detail as to why he feels strongly about Brainz Power’s role in battling this epidemic and the challenges he’s faced in becoming an entrepreneur.

There are two major things that come to mind on the benefits of my business first helping the Adderall epidemic witnessed among college students, and the second is experience. Starting a business at 19, and already having almost 3 years of experience before graduating college is extremely valuable. I have learned so much in the past few years, and I am very happy I did not wait until I graduated college or had “experience” to start a business. Nothing will prepare you for the hurdles you will face in entrepreneurship, they come from all angles and you learn to be extremely adaptive and make the best with what you have and to always adjust with the market. You can wake up one day and have something that worked for 2 years suddenly stop, you then have two options complain about how good it was or hustle to find something that can fill its void or even bring more value. You can never get comfortable, and experience has taught me so much that I’m coming out of college knowing exactly what to do with my time instead of going through the baby steps that I have been the past few years. This experience paired with giving students a safe alternative to Adderall are how I greatly benefit from my business. 

“There are two issues I care deeply about one of them I am addressing with my company which is the fight against Adderall. It’s an extremely harmful substance that floods college campuses and leaves kids with good intentions with lifelong addictions, and long-term health complications,” Andrew responded when asked about the issues he truly cares about. He also detailed how he wishes to become a voice for Millennials and post-Millennials in the business community, “I grew up with immigrant parents that taught me that you can accomplish anything if you outwork everyone, and entrepreneurship is no different and I want young entrepreneurs to know that.” Andrew continued on the topic:

A lot of young ambitious millennials are shut down by their elders in pursuing their business dreams by forcing them to think you need to have a degree or years of experience to flourish as an entrepreneur, but this is false. Success in entrepreneurship is no longer reserved for someone with grey hair, I could list you many examples but we all know them already. We have been proven over and over again that you don’t have to be old to be successful…

Andrew would state that the youth should take advice from older generations who are presenting information of value. He also reiterated that he plans to use YouTube in order to give advice to his peers as well. Andrew stated that he does not want to see young individuals have their dreams halted due to their age, as that kind of creativity is needed to shape a thriving economy and socially conscious society.

Advice To Youth In Today’s Society

Finally, Andrew was asked what advice he would give right now to Millennial and post-Millennials who had a business idea or other venture they wanted to follow:

It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, if you see potential that’s all that matters, you have to pursue it. No one understood my business idea or could comprehend selling hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of product through Instagram alone, but it happened. So my advice is to follow your gut and if you think you have a business idea that is surely to work, but doesn’t make sense to the older generation it still should be worth trying because if you fail you gain experience but if you succeed then you proved them wrong, so in my opinion trying is always a win-win scenario.