Becoming a millionaire may be the ultimate ambition for a game show contestant but for the next generation of entrepreneurs it ranks low on the priority list.

According to a survey of 15 to 19-year-olds by HSBC and Young Enterprise, most youngsters who want to run their own business are not in it for the money.

Fewer than one in ten is interested in becoming a millionaire in what, at face value, looks like a rejection of the get-rich-quick philosophy.

Instead, a third of the 650 youngsters interviewed said they wanted to start their own business for the challenge. More than a quarter said they wanted to do something they enjoyed and one in five wanted control over his or her future.

Rupert Loman started his business when he was 16. Last year he won the Sussex Business Awards Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

His Brighton-based company, Eurogamer, allows computer game players to compete over the internet in various leagues and tournaments.

The 21-year-old started his business venture at sixth-form college and went full-time when all his friends left for university.

He said: "Everyone says going into business is about the challenge and not about the money but I suspect some of them are lying.

"Personally, I wanted to do something I enjoyed and work for myself rather than somebody else. The money has just been a by-product.

"If I wanted to make money I would have realised after three or four years that there were probably easier ways to do it.

"But there is nothing wrong with wanting to make money. It's perfectly valid and lots of people go into business for that reason.

"Ultimately it would be nice to get some reward from the business, perhaps through a sale, but that's not something we are thinking about at the moment."

The youngsters interviewed in the survey had just spent a year running their own businesses as part of the Young Enterprise company programme.

The scheme invites pupils to run their own businesses over the course of one academic year. At the end they produce their accounts and compete for various awards.

Nearly four out of five said they wanted to be entrepreneurs, compared to 43 per cent of students who haven't experienced the Young Enterprise scheme.

That figure would please Chancellor Gordon Brown who plans to introduce enterprise into the national curriculum by 2006.

Rupert took business at A-level but reckons it should be on the syllabus from an earlier age.

He said: "The course did not really teach you about running a business but working in one for six months would have taught you a lot more."

Wednesday July 21, 2004