Today, as I was reading Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity I was inspired to write this post. Branson talks about a business he started at the age of 16 called Student magazine. He says, “[knowing] would have prevented me from picking up the phone at all. But I was too young to contemplate failure.” I have been thinking a lot about this topic lately and many of our conversations at Dart are about value of young minds.

So I thought I would share something with you. Last week Dart102 received some criticism from an experienced entrepreneur. He wrote to us insinuating that if we want to “poke holes” we should solicit advice from people with more start-up experience. While I appreciate his input on the topic, I am going to have to disagree him on this.

Two weeks ago I was in LA for a conference held by NAFSA, the association of international educators where Muhammad Yunus delivered the opening speech. I left the conference hall feeling incredibly motivated by what I had just heard. The overarching message of his speech was that sometimes it is best to be inexperienced in whatever business it is you are getting into.

Yunus started as an economics professor from Bangladesh who went on to receive a Nobel Peace prize in 2006 for his efforts in micro-credit and for creating Grameen Bank. Yunus’ concept was simple, lend small amounts of money to the poor and they will pay back the loans with interest over time. When he first approached banks about the idea of giving loans to the poor, they said it was impossible. Yunus was convinced and fought banks for months until he finally decided to personally take on the risk as the guarantor in exchange for banks to loan the money. Yunus knew nothing about banking when he started, but from his experience working in the poor villages knew there was an opportunity to improve the standard of living for many. Today Grameen Bank has over 8 million borrowers with a 98% pay back rate, pretty impressive! Yunus advises that we are more likely to develop breakthrough ideas by not being exposed to how things have been done in the past.

I am not suggesting we ignore the lessons learned by experienced entrepreneurs, but instead that we also listen to what young people have to say. There is a different kind of value in being young and having a bit of naivete. Sometimes knowing too much can get in the way of actually making things happen.

Boston has been a distant second place to San Francisco for fostering young start-ups. At Dart102 with programs like Pokin’ Holes we hope to improve the start-up environment by building a community in Boston that focuses on young people with awesome ideas.