This BusinessZone article is all over Twitter today – “The teen entrepreneurship revolution is coming”, and about time too, we say.

Having had the dubious pleasure of watching teenagers tussle with the strictures of the education system in the face of a bleak employment situation and weighing up tertiary education on financial as much as academic considerations, I think self-employment is at least as good a prospect for school-leavers as any other.

Think about it: what holds you back in running your business? You probably have dependants of some description and more than likely bills and other hairy grown-up commitments. You also need to sleep and realise that things are rarely straightfoward. Teenagers have none of these considerations, they’re free, have boundless energy and the kind of know-it-all attitude that drives their parents to distraction but that is vital to making the leaps of faith that running your own business can require. Factor in their absolute ease with technology and really, you have to wonder why it’s taken this long for teen entrepreneurship to become the next big thing.

Where would you rather see your teenagers – queueing at the JobCentre, depressed in a boring or dead-end job or putting 20 hours a day into getting a project off the ground? I would gladly support a teenager who had the drive to bring a business idea to life and was pouring their energy into a future for themselves. In fact, I secretly hope one of ours will go that route as there’s nothing to match the buzz of making something happen and following your own ideals. One down, three to go.