How Do Young, Inexperienced, Poor Entrepreneurs Make a Million?
How do young inexperienced entrepreneurs do it?
You’ve heard so many stories of someone taking a concept and building it into a million dollar business. They all seem so uncommonly smart.
So how does a 16-year-old high school drop-out go on to build a $1 million jam company?
With all of your experience, do you think you could compare to a 16-year-old high school drop out? Maybe not jam;?but something you are passionate about? If you want to say yes… then why aren’t you doing it?
This article from Forbes How to Make $1 million Before You Graduate outlines three young entrepreneurs.
Advice from Young Entrepreneurs
Reach Out to People: It’s a lot easier than people think. Seek out mentors that have the experience that you do not have. More often than not, if you have a compelling story, experienced entrepreneurs will sit down for coffee. Their experience could help you from making fatal mistakes.
Barter: Young entrepreneurs (or entrepreneurs in general!) usually don’t have a lot of upfront cash to invest. Mr. Furdyk only had a paper route for income, so he ran ads on his website in exchange for web hosting, and designed a website for the landlord in exchange for cheap rent. Figure out what you do best and barter an arrangement for your start up.
Stick with what works: Mr. Doherty was 16 when he dropped out of school to make jam full time. Now the company is worth $1 million. He suggests when you take your business up a notch to ‘stick with what works’. I’d also like to add, get rid of what doesn’t work!
These young entrepreneurs can teach us that you don’t need to be a genius to make a million dollars. You need to have your heart invested, be able to create new ways to solve problems, and learn from others that are successful.
Do you have heart, creativity, and a willingness to learn?
Tags: Barter, BUSINESS, Entrepreneur, Start Up
Categories: All, Business, Entrepreneurship
Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.
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16 responses
Great article and great advice! I’m struck by #1 – Reach Out to People. It’s a remarkable way to gain experience and insight quickly, and learning from other peoples mistakes (and success!) is much more preferable to making them yourself (though you’ll still have your fair share, so be prepared!). But the reason that I’m compelled to comment on the first suggestion is this; far too often I see people reaching out for advice and experience – a good thing – but then they get stuck in an analysis paralysis. They read book after book, make phenomenal connections with successful people, consuming information and advice from these people as quickly as they can – they become veritable sponges – but then they fail to take action!
Most often this is due to an underlying sensation that the secret to success is just around the next corner. If I can only read one more book! One more coffee with Joe Smith the Success Story and I’ll know how to launch my own business! One keeps consuming, consuming, consuming, but action never gets taken.
So to the list of advice I would add this: Take Action. Any Action.
I see it over and over. People with great ideas, extraordinary resources, valuable connections and a wealth of experience (their own and others) to draw from, yet they sit around, thinking they need just one more piece of information. They don’t. Jump in. Do something. You might fail – in fact, you probably will, but that’s part of the process. The moment you actually take action is the moment you become and entrepreneur. Until then, you’re just a dreamer. I speak from personal experience. And the secret to success that everyone is looking for? The secret is that there is no secret. There is no “one” thing. It’s a combination of positive actions all directed toward a goal. Some actions will be right. Some will be wrong. But it all comes down to hard work and actually doing something.
And on another note – fantastic blog! Thanks for being one of those great resources to learn from!
Thanks Roderick for the great comment! You are 100% correct. If you have heart, creativity and a willingness to learn, yet take no action, you will fail.
Missed opportunity counts as a failure in my book. Yet if you take action and fail, you have learned what not to do. It’s not a failure. 🙂
Glad to have you as a reader!
I think people just have to stop talking and just go out and do it! Go ahead, try it out. You might fail, but you might make millions!
Best, Sam
.-= Financial Samurai´s last blog ..How To Dramatically Increase Your Job Security For Life! =-.
Exactly!!
Heya, already been following your blogging site for a long time. I manage a similar web publication however I keep receiving a lot of spam remarks, how do you keep your blog page so unpolluted?
Hi Lanell – I use the Akismet plugin for wordpress. Works like a charm! Thanks for reading 🙂
Jaime:
Hi. What a great website and blog. I love your advice, your energy, and your commitment. Keep up the good work! Freddie
Thanks Freddie! I love writing about this 🙂
I’ll try to stop in sometime soon and visit again!
Hi,
Im 18 in the UK and im really inspired by reading this article i really want to start my own business now, but i dont know what type of business to start.
My hobbies are playing video games 24/7, i also like to play sport soccer alot aswell,
i got like £500 to start with.
I was wondering if you got any buisness ideas in mind with hobbies and start up cost as mine.
Kind Regards
Arshad
Thanks for your comment Arshad 🙂
If you want to start an online or information business I would suggest starting out by watching these videos by Eben Pagan.
http://gurublueprintblog.com/2010/05/12/info-product-secrets/
He’s a great internet marketer and the videos have some great advice to start.
Also blogs like incomediary.com, smartpassiveincome.com or nathanhagen.com are excellent also.
If you want to start an offline business I would suggest looking into local resources. In the US we have the Small Business Administration and SCORE which help people start and grow businesses. Entrepreneur magazine is also a great one for inspiration and new business ideas.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions too-
Warmest,
-Jaime
Hello,
I like your advice in entrepreneur especially on barter. I agree on the idea that when we don’t have a start up money for our business we can barter some of our real estate to do it.
Hi Jaime!
I just saw your interview on CNN and was very impressed. Great job of gettin out of debt and motivating others to do likewise!
My husband and I are trying to do the same thing and started our internet marketing business about a year and a half ago. We are about halfway to seeing it established and are so excited about that.
I will look forward to reading your site and gleaning ideas to help us in the process of “digging out” of debt!
Blessings,
Linda
Congrats on being halfway on your business! That’s excellent.
Getting out of debt and starting my own business have been the best things I have done for myself. (besides marrying my husband and having children of course!)
Warmest,
-Jaime
Hello! I have a one year old at home and like you want to quite my job so that I can stay home with my son. I started my own site talking about passive income through real estate (as I own an apartment building) and I’m monetizing my site. Any suggestions? Also, how were you able to achieve financial independence? Although I plan on purchasing more properties, I would like something a little sooner. Any suggestions or even a critique of my site would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Hi Taline! I personally take a double approach. It’s as much lowering your expenses and paying off debt as it is raising your level of income. That makes things go faster. So really work on making sure your expenses are really low. Then figure out that number you need monthly before you can quit. I see you already read smartpassiveincome.com – just know building up a blog for passive income takes a lot of time and effort. Keep working SEO and creating great quality articles, and search out advertisers in your niche. Best of luck with your real estate ventures too! I know a lot of the millionaires I interview view that as a great passive income source. (as long as you have a property manager, otherwise it’s not very passive! hehe)
Thanks a lot for the reply Jaime! I’ve minimized a lot of expenses and purchased another building since my last post 🙂
I also joined Yakezie (which I know you’re a part of) and it as helped my Alexa rank A LOT!!!
I’m writing quality content and working on a backlinking strategy (smartpassiveincome.com) and I’ve seen improvement!
Thanks for the great advice!