Gen Z. So different in how they connect with people. They sell with feeling, a vibe, a mission, often healing people while at it. They’re driven by expertise, personal brand and self-transformation.

We’re in an era where a 28-year-old is the enterprise. A coach with a smartphone and an audience can impact more lives in a month than a Fortune 500 company in a year. Expertise, packed well, is scalable.

The catalyst for my decision: Covid. When the world shut down, the rules changed. For good. Startups with burn rates bigger than their missions collapsed overnight. But you know who thrived? The experts: coaches, consultants, therapists, trainers; people with real knowledge and a message. 

They picked up their phones, fired up Zoom and started serving customers DIRECT. Scalable. Raw. Authentic. Suddenly, investing in IP was no longer about patents but  personal insights. 

I taught a class called “Young Millionaires” in 2011 attended by 18 to 22-year-olds. A few years ago, they started their own businesses and thanked me for teaching them and giving them the courage. Meanwhile…

Baby Boomers are still hoarding the wealth, the power, and the land and wondering why you can’t buy a house on minimum wage.

Gen X is the ghost generation. Raised by neglect, fluent in sarcasm, quietly holding everything together while no one notices. (Hi, I’m Chandler Bing!) Fax machines have never been the same.

Gen Y built startups to fix their parents’ emotional baggage. They’re overworked, overanxious, and oversubscribed to mindfulness apps.

Gen Z is emotionally fluent, digitally native, and allergic to BS. Fighting capitalism, climate collapse, and bad Wi-Fi, simultaneously. Somehow, winning.

Gen Z entrepreneurs are like a new species. They aren’t just younger Millennials or tech-savvy Gen X. 

They’ve grown up on a burning planet with a thrashed economy and dying institutions, so they don’t build businesses for fun. They build to survive and make a difference. 

They’ve seen enough of the old systems to know they don’t work, and they’re not interested in fixing them. They’re creating something entirely new. Online. 24/7. Making content, growing communities, selling their ideas at incredible speed. 

But that constant visibility takes a toll. It’s hard to keep your sense of self when you’re always performing. 

Emotionally intelligent, but burnt out and skeptical. They won’t follow you just because you’re older or richer. They need to believe in what you stand for. 

If you earn their trust, they’ll go all in and aren’t afraid to fail. In fact, they’ll do it in front of everyone, learn from it, and come back stronger. 

Gen Z builds from the middle – with communities, networks, and shared ownership. Not with hierarchies and titles. 

Don’t hand them a rulebook. Show up, be real, and build with them. They don’t want permission. They want purpose. And if you don’t get it, they’ll leave you behind. Fast.

Even if they don’t know where they’re going. Because they’re unapologetically personal and build their business from their identity. They know how to attract attention better than any CMO.

They fear not being recognised or validated and desire the world — wherever, whenever, with whomever. 

Well-meaning, multi-hyphenate, mission-driven souls, armchair philosophers and part-time meme lords able to do it all themselves for now. With nowhere to go.

So what’s the plan?  Is there one? 

Watch this space for NEXTGEN 2026.  An earlier version of this article was published in Robb Report Malaysia