40+ Business Ideas For Teens & Young Entrepreneurs

I grew up in Omaha, NE with four siblings and parents who’ve started probably around 20 companies. So new companies, employees, clients, and everything that goes with starting new companies were normal dinner table topics. Not that we as kids were asked our opinions, more that we got to listen to our parents talk things through that were front and center for them at that time. Which were things like who to hire for what jobs, who to let go, where to start a new office or location, and if they should borrow more money for expansion or not.

We had front row seats and that has helped more than I would have ever guessed it would when I was 10 years old bored out of my mind not being able to join the conversation at dinner.

At the same time I was learning at dinner by osmosis I started playing tennis almost every day. Then I was able to go to an all-boys prep school for high school. Both of those things also contributed considerably to me ending up being a business owner.

I am a licensed attorney in India and right after my master’s in law, I started working with a leading company as a lawyer. I worked there for about two years before I quit my job to become more location independent.

Choose a niche in whatever you start. It is critical for streamlining your efforts and make money.

My job paid me well but I worked 12 hours a day, I was exhausted by the end of each day, spent my weekends sleeping and I almost quit the things I liked to do - for example, sketching, yoga, traveling, etc.

I began my business career with the family in-store sampling business, C.A. Courtesy, in the 1990s, while at the same time attending college at Johnson and Wales University, where I pursued a degree in Web Management & Internet Commerce.

I’ve always had a knack for marketing and technology, and when I left C.A. Courtesy, I was the Vice President of Marketing and Technology.

People don’t remember what you say as much as they remember how they felt when you said it.

This business idea was born in 2016, but the journey really began in 2014.

After working for a company for 8 years, I hadn’t really gotten far financially and felt stuck. I decided to find a job with better financial prospects and the possibility of advancement. After 6 months of searching, I was hired at a new employer and managed to double my salary in one fell swoop!

Just start! That little voice inside your head giving you doubts will always be there. Push through that voice and keep going until you reach a point where you’re lost.

I started programming at age 13 on a Commodore VIC-20 personal computer. I enjoyed taking the thing apart as much as I did creating my own games. It was at that time that I decided I wanted to be a computer engineer. I spent years taking the hardest math and science classes available and eventually managed to get into a top tier engineering school. One of the greatest attributes of a career in technology is that you are always learning, and for many years, I certainly did. However, after my first decade in the business I began to realize two things:

1. There was no knowledge equity in what I was doing. Unlike medicine or law, the knowledge I accumulated over time lost value, instead of gaining value, because the technology changed so much. I would spend months becoming an expert on something only to find that knowledge obsolete in a couple of years. Even though learning was fun, I started to feel as though I was treading water and throwing my life away.

2. The business was changing drastically - for the worst. Most of the work was being outsourced overseas to lesser educated and experienced people, and companies I worked with started experiencing severe quality and performance problems. After the “.com bubble” bust in the early 2000s, wages and career opportunities stagnated. I realized that I had to make a change.

We have been running a design agency for the past 10 years as a side business. After gaining inspiration from some of our competitors in this domain providing a productized service, we came up with an idea for an even better process that is more optimal and efficient bringing out better results at a more affordable cost comparatively.

The most effective method we tried for our validation was initiating a conversation with every person who visited our website to understand more about what they were looking for and what would make Draftss an ideal provider for their needs.

We wanted to productize the design and code service domain, where a design team is like a product subscription. You buy a Design or Code subscription and equip yourself with a design or/and development team that can get everything done for you. Subscribe when you require projects to be completed, unsubscribe once you are done.

I can still remember my first day on the job. I had just been hired as a Chemist for a particle analysis laboratory.

The job made a lot of sense at the time. I had recently graduated college with a Biology degree, and there’s only so many careers the degree can take you. So I took the first job offer that was presented to me and proudly bragged about my $22,500 annual salary. It seemed like so much money at the time, and I just knew that I was going to climb the corporate ladder quickly.

The true secret to my success has been to simply outwork and outpassion everyone in my path, every single day for nearly twenty-five years

We both had previous experience in another start-up called Soul id which was a social media platform for action sports. We ran the marketing and media at that company which was a blast. After we left that company, we split directions. Eli got involved in the eCommerce industry by starting a brand called Winterial which he grew to hundreds of SKUs. Kyle headed in the media direction and started a commercial photography company where he worked with Fortune 500 companies and small businesses.

At this time Kyle wanted to be able to get back in the start-up world, grow a large brand and a team of like-minded creatives and innovators. So like any entrepreneur, he jumped on Google and started to search for media companies that were also technology-based companies as well. That is where the inspiration of starting a digital agency that solely focused on the media portion for brands and product companies came to life.

Culture is the centerpiece of a successful company. Creating a place for employees to come to work and enjoy what they do, the environment and who they work with will pay long term dividends.

My background is in finance. I worked in investment banking for six years in New York. I loved the job, the people, and the hours. But as a service job I wanted to be making things not just helping others make things. This desire has led me to where I am today.

My brother and I have always loved to make fun of everything. Around 2014, we visited my mom’s house and she had this musical greeting card. We thought it was annoying. We asked each other, "Who wants to listen to this!?" Then Nick asked, “What if it didn’t stop?”

That was it. Nothing more. No market research.

During the summer of 2013, my co-founders (Rob Williams & Stephen Moseley) and I were discussing all the great things our hometown of Nashville had to offer, especially in the way of small-batch, handmade gifts and treats. But, there was no one-stop shop to get all of these items (you had to run around town or attend certain farmers markets or festivals).

Lo and behold, we actually hit the 200 mark our first month. The local media covered what we were doing and sales jumped to 600 for the second month and then 1,000 or month three (well beyond our original goal!).

Could we come up with a way to consolidate all of these local, small businesses making awesome products under one roof?

Before I launched Entrepreneurs On Fire I was working in Commercial Real Estate, which meant I was spending a lot of time in the car driving to show properties and meet with clients.

That’s when I had my own ah-ha moment: why isn’t someone creating a daily podcast for people like me, who have to drive to and from work every day and want to consume inspiring content? … Be the change.

Because I was not a huge fan of the radio, I started listening to podcasts. They were like a breath of fresh air: on-demand, valuable content that gave me advice, tips and tactics about any topic I was interested in for free.

I come from an entrepreneurial family. My father works for himself and my maternal grandfather started a clothing factory. Working for myself has always been encouraged by my family, but before I could get started, I needed to learn a skill. At Georgetown, I study international politics and business. Most students with these backgrounds go on to work at prestigious firms like J.P. Morgan. I really didn’t know what kind of business I could start, and frankly, planned to work as a (boring) data analyst after graduation.

If you have an idea but don’t have the knowledge to execute, use that idea as motivation and go learn how to turn your vision into reality.

Tutoring first came to mind because I had spent significant time working for other tutoring companies and cutting my teeth/learning how the industry works during my teen years. I first started tutoring when I was 15. I was hired by College Experts, a local test prep center in Davie, Florida. My first student was three years older than me, and I spent our first session teaching him how to use his calculator rather than trying to explain any complicated formulas. Being a student myself, I was able to bring a student’s perspective to tutoring. I worked for College Experts until my senior year of high school when I began tutoring on my own and finding clients on Craigslist.