In market research, you typically don't start a business until well into your 30s or 40s, after you've got a decade or two of experience under your belt. However, that's just another rule that Gen Z is breaking. They think that if you're going to do research on teens, you should hire teens to do it.

Moms have typically exerted the greatest control over how money gets spent in any household. But influence over purchasing decisions can come from any source.

Many of us have fond memories of summer jobs from our youth: working at sleep-away camps, amusement parks, public pools, etc. However, for today's teens, employment looks a lot different. The current issue of Time laments the end of "summer jobs" as we remember them. This phenomenon is complex and has many causes, but one of them is the rise of Gen Z and their specialized needs.

Just as brands finally started to figure out what Millennials want, a new demographic has taken center stage. Enter Generation Z, a formidable group that will make up a quarter of the U.S. population by 2020 and account for 40% of all consumers.

If you're a business owner and you're not yet jumping onto the Generation Z bandwagon, you might want to reconsider. Made up of 84.7 million kids born between 1996 and 2010, there is no doubt that this generation has and will have enormous spending power, and it's vital for businesses to figure out how to better serve this high-spending demographic.