Children Starting a Venture
Do you often think of encouraging your children to start a venture? Are there good opportunities for teenagers and kids to grow a career and also develop entrepreneurial skills? Here we give you business ideas for teens.
With the police not allowing kids to sell lemonade and labeling them as unlicensed businesses, one thinks about allowing kids to engage in economic activity or put it on hold until they get older.
There’s no reason why any child should not have an entrepreneurial spirit, so the government should not prohibit children from starting businesses.
Don’t Prohibit
In 1983, Robert G. Hagstrom and Thomas Hagstrom published a study entitled “What Predicts Business Success Later in Life?” The response is the earlier you start a company; you are most likely to succeed in the future. Children may learn good financial habits while they are still at an early age.
Warren Buffet, one of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors in the modern world, also started doing business and making investments at a very young age. He was 11 years old when he bought his first stock. He purchased 40 acres of farmland for $1200 when he was fourteen and leased it out to farmers.
As a teenager, he and a friend purchased a used pinball machine for $25 from a junk store and set it up in a barbershop. They also installed such units in other places and then sold the business at a profit.
Business Ideas for Teens: Overview
If you can’t think of any business ideas for teens here are some small business ventures which your kids can run to gain financial knowledge and learn entrepreneurial skills.
Websites
Many children use and know more about the Internet than their parents, so considering online ventures, including different websites, makes it a lucrative selection.
It costs few dollars per year to register a domain name and host a website, and by relying on on-site ads (like Google AdSense), kids can make money without even selling any merchandise.
Forbes writes Ashley Qualls, who started Whateverlife.com when she was 14 years of age “as a personal portfolio of photographs and graphics she created.” Then she worked on creating tutorials for creative lessons and advice for teenagers.
It wasn’t long until she had many users and thus needed a dedicated server; therefore, she added Google AdSense to monetize the traffic.
It is estimated that Ashley’s website is taking in about $70,000 a month. She even bought a home when she was still a teenager and turned down a bid of 1.5 million dollars for her venture.
Jewelry and Crafts
If your kids are artistic, they can sell arts and crafts as a business. You don’t need to run a website for this. Platforms like Etsy provide a comfortable and innovative way to sell items. Vendors pay for a 20-cent listing and a 3.5-percent sales commission.
One condition is that a parent or a legal guardian should manage the Etsy Shop.
Now you may be thinking, how much money will your child be making by selling items on Etsy? Mo Bridges, eleven years old, made a profit of over $30,000 from people around the world selling bow ties from his Etsy store.
Dog Walking
This is an idea that can benefit both the parent and child, and it is no mystery. Many working people don’t get much time to keep their dogs fit and active. A dog walker is a job that children can handle. Most dog walkers charge either a set fee or an hourly rate, and once the kids have had a chance to perfect their business model, they can also provide dog washing and pet sitting.
According to available data, dog walkers earn an average of $11.25 per hour. As a safety measure, websites like Care.com allow teenagers to sign up with supervised accounts (parents receive email updates of any activity), and the child must be at least 14 to sign up.
Paper Route
By delivering newspapers that Warren Buffett got his start in business, though nowadays paper delivery is done by adults having cars, there are places where the delivery of newspaper is done by bicycles or on foot.
According to NPR, around 80 percent of the daily newspapers and news services in Carroll, Iowa, are delivered by teenagers. One positive thing about the new newspaper delivery system is that the teens no longer have to go knocking on the subscribers’ doors to collect their payments, all handled by credit card billing.
Baby Sitting
If your children enjoy being around kids, they could make a lot of money as a babysitter. A babysitter can earn an average of $15.83 per hour. You can increase the rate and charge according to the location of providing the services. Babysitters charge $21/hour for one child in San Francisco. However, the rates drop to $13.50/hour in Toledo, Ohio.
Apart from the money, babysitting also encourages teens to learn social skills. It also makes them take responsibility and develop leadership qualities.
More Business Ideas and Success Stories for Children
Don’t forget the universe of possibility that emerges from small business ventures.
When he was 14, Fraser Doherty started producing and selling jam and earned over a million dollars annually.
Juliette Brindak drew images of “Cool Girls” when she was ten years old, and, at the age of 16, she launched a social networking platform named “Miss O and Friends”. Today, Miss O and Friends has a valuation of $15 million.
The sorts of startups started by some youngsters are very surprising. Sean Belnicks started selling office chairs when he was 14, and now the business is valued at $24 million.
Yahoo bought a news-aggregator app called ‘Summly’ created by Nicholas D’Aloisio for $30 million at 16.
Any entrepreneurial adventure provides essential lessons to children. When Tyler was a kid, Tyler would set up lemonade stands, mow lawns, and do magic tricks. He ran small businesses and launched Cooltronics, which provided IT solutions and sold computer systems. All this he achieved at the age of 15.
Encourage Your Kids
You’ll accept that there’s a lot of money opportunity for your children. Encourage your young people to start some form of company that makes money. Your child would have a better start in life because of this and have valuable lessons that they will learn while managing and running their ventures. Happy Parenting! And we hope these business ideas for teens helped you and gave you some insight into where to start.
