In school we're taught that we can grow up and become anything that we want to. But when most students try to get a career off the ground before graduation, most are told to wait until they're older, and to focus on what they're "supposed" to be doing: study and enjoy being a kid. It's not uncommon for students to even want to venture into their own businesses, but again, such suggestions are usually met by their peers and families with skepticism.
A few years ago, while building The Young Entrepreneurs Network, we started to discover just how many major corporations and organizations were actually started by people in their teens and twenties, and realized that these stories needed to be told.
Having been blown away ourselves with the story of how Subway was started by a 17-year-old, we talked to Fred DeLuca, the founder, about ways to share his story with students who desperately wanted proof that you didn't have to wait to get older to do something bold, like build a major fast food chain.
After surveying dozens of professors and students from around the nation, we created and produced the first video case study on the development and growth of Subway and distributed copies to over 2,000 schools in North America.
The 90-minute video was packed with a dozen interviews that gave the full behind-the-scenes story from the key people who made the company what it is today. In it, you can hear Fred himself talk about life as a teen going through a start-up with no business experience, his mother's stories of young Fred, his wife/high-school girlfriend who talks about their dates that ended with stopping by the store, his first employee who created the Subway logo, his first franchisee, all the way up to the current Director of Marketing, the head of Subway University (with an 18-year-old new franchisee), and even the company's Chief Legal Council, who discusses the more advanced business issues the company faces today. Created in four segments, the video can engage the youngest of teens, the most ambitious of college students, the most sophisticated of MBAs and professionals, and the most curious of parents with this fascinating story.
