starting a business as a teen
Myself in front of my first mural at age seventeen. Such a surreal experience.
When you start doing research into starting a business, you never really see a teenager doing it. In the rare instance you do, it’s always a very successful business that has the numbers, and maybe has a deal from Shark Tank.
So here’s my main takeaways on starting a business as a teen. It’s difficult, it’s taxing, but it’s fun.
Number One: The right time is now.
I never had a New Years Resolution or set date to open my business. I had spent my 2023 winter break painting, printing, and photographing products to publish under the name Harper Hues. Then on January 1, 2024, when I was doing absolutely nothing, I hit the go button, and HH was live.
Holy $*!t was I scared. What if I made errors? What if I missed something in my research? Should I backpeddle until it’s the right time?
You’re reading this aren’t you? That means you have an interest now to do something similar, so reach for the stars. You’ll find the glass ceiling you think exists is limitless. I had watched my 100th video on “business tips and tricks,” and the best advice I had gotten from the multitude of videos was to start and never look back. There will never be the “right time.” The right time is now.
Number Two: Mistakes are your building blocks.
I had my first order on January 15, 2024; I cried. And I immediately made a mistake. I had no idea how shipping labels worked. So I panicked. But, I made it work (after accidentally ordering two shipping labels). I stopped hyperventilating, read a bit, and then never made that mistake again.
You will always learn new things every week in the world of business. A lot of lessons come from mistakes. You accidentally have a typo in your email, a communication error, a payment error. Every single area will come with mistakes.
And that’s terrifying.
But it comes with so much success. I went from having no set rules for commissions, to a contract. I went from cheap and bad quality paper to the best for my business. And that all came from trial and error. You mess up, you panic, and then you succeed.
I had done a commission for this client, and this client had a lot of feedback for my finished painting. A lot. So I had to redo the commission. Twice. At this point my hourly pay was looking very poor. It was a bad mistake, one I soon fixed. The next time a client asked for a redo, I charged an extra fee (which was discussed before in my newly made terms of service). Ever since that mistake, I have not had one similar. Big success.
Number Three: Own it. Literally.
On the topic of people’s opinions: it feels embarrassing to have a business at your age. Your classmates are following your business accounts, viewing your marketing tactics that’s not your vibe at all, and it freaks you out. Seeing “[classmate] liked your post” makes my heart drop to my stomach. I even went as far as blocking as many people I knew off my TikTok, just in case.
I’ve gotten better at not focusing on what others think, especially people my age, but it’s still difficult. I always try and tell myself before posting that this is my job. Your classmates also have a job in restaurants or retail, it just so happens yours is a little more public. It’s vulnerable. But it’s rewarding.
This isn’t something you can switch in a day. I still have troubles, especially when I’m about to post about something. But I did one thing that really helped: a list. A list of pros and cons to owning a business. When I wrote down everything, I realized there were more pros than cons. Here’s an example:
Pros:
Great hourly income
Amazing on college applications
Opportunities to meet people and go places
Do what I love as a job
Cons:
not as stable as an income
that’s it.
So seriously, post the image, make the TikToks, because who cares what others think. Your classmates can make fun of you for doing marketing, but at the end of the day you’re the one succeeding in doing what you love.
My first TikTok: painting a window installation. It was embarrassing, but it got me more business.
Number Four: Find the balance between yourself and your work.
This is the most difficult: balancing schoolwork, your interests, and your business. There were many times I was doing finances in my Algebra class, or emailing a client in my English class. It got hectic, and you could see a decline in my grades. So I created a schedule for myself that I mostly followed.
View your time put into your business as shifts. Each day you have a specified amount of time you can work, just like any other job. Once your “shift” is over, do your homework, do whatever you’d like. Just don’t mix all three. You need a divide in things you do to maintain some normalcy.
Once I started creating a schedule for myself, I fixed my grades, fixed my mental state, and had time to do homework and other hobbies once I got home. Soon there’ll be this balance you find, like a venn diagram. You want to find that middle part, and once you do it’s a hell of a lot better.
Conclusion
So yes, starting a business as a teen is difficult, but it isn’t impossible. It’ll feel daunting for the first few months, and unsuccessful for the first year. I’m in my 7th month as a business owner, and there’s times I don’t feel successful, but then you look back to where you started and realize how far you’ve gotten without even realizing.
Progress is not linear, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Everyone starts somewhere, and that somewhere is now.
