Everybody can learn something; and everybody can teach something. But the richest and most valuable professional sharing often takes place when people from two generations get together and exchange ideas based on their different journeys.

This series introduces us to a host of Millennials, Baby Boomers, Gen X’ers — and even members of the Silent Generation, born between 1937 and 1945 — as they collaborate, counsel, mentor or reverse mentor across the generational divide.

Actually, as we’ll see in the coming weeks, age gaps seem to shrink, or even disappear, when the multi-generational give-and-take is mutually rewarding.

That’s certainly the case for Millennials, who are drinking from the mellow cup of older-generation experience as they launch careers while, at the same time, refilling this aging vessel with the cutting-edge fizz of the digital age.

Millennials Learn How to Start and Build a Business

Dominic Suszanski, Bentley '04, and Jacqueline Verdier

“When we came up with the idea for SelfieOnAStick.com, Jackie’s parents [George and Deann Verdier], who have spent a lifetime as entrepreneurs, told us we really had something and really needed to go for it. They got it immediately. They gave us confidence to launch. They gave us confidence to jump into this. They told us how brave we were, and how proud of us they were. And they also helped prepare us for building a business around a hot product.

When you have parents with this kind of entrepreneurial track record as your sounding board, it’s very different from talking to our peers, who are really smart, but who just haven’t had the same years and years of business experience.

In terms of specifics, George and Deann helped us a lot on inventory — how to finance it; how to build it; and how to manage it. This was so important to our business as we faced the holiday season and the tremendous demand for our product.

So far, we’ve probably learned more from Jackie’s parents than they’ve learned from us — but we’re still a very young business.

What have we taught Jackie’s parents? Well, they want to reach millennials in their business, too, and so they’ve asked us a lot about how to better use social media platforms — which ones work best. We’re also very comfortable with e-commerce, and we do a lot of our business on email, even logistics and operations, so that’s another learning area for George and Deann.

In the end, what we really like about this parental mentoring relationship is that George and Deann are incredibly objective. If we’re on the right path, they’ll tell us. And if one of our ideas isn’t a good one, they’ll tell us that as well. It’s a huge advantage for us, and for selfieonastick.com.”

Baby Boomers Learn How to Better Leverage Social Media

George and Deann Verdier

“We’ve learned so much from Dominic and Jackie. Most of the marketing strategies and tactics that we used in the past are becoming obsolete, and we’re now trying to attract the same audiences that SelfieOnAStick.com has for our business. It’s increasingly about social media, and Dominic and Jackie know how to leverage that.

Having said this, Jackie definitely grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. And, every night at the dinner table, she learned how to start, build, run and grow a small company. It was almost through osmosis. So she certainly got a rich education, which she’s drawing on now with Dominic.

We’ve helped Dominic and Jackie with inventory issues. Another area where we’ve weighed in is pricing. Pricing a product so it will sell is really complex for any business — especially a small up-and-coming business. And there are so many variables that go into it. We’ve sat with Dominic and Jackie and tried to help them think this through.

As parents, the success of SelfieOnAStick.com fills us with pride, without question. But we’re also very relevant in our daughter’s life right now, and that’s also extremely gratifying.”

Dominic Suszanski and Jacqueline Verdier are the co-founders of SelfieOnAStick.com. Dominic is president of the company; Jacqueline is the CEO. 

George and Deann Verdier are the parents of Jacqueline Verdier. Long-time entrepreneurs, they are the co-founders of Sugarloaf Mountain Works, which has been running a series of fine arts and crafts festivals since 1976.