Teen Tips for Entrepreneurship

When you’re a teenager, finding time to hang out with friends, go on a date, or even finish your chemistry assignment can be more difficult if you also have customers who depend on you to deliver their purchases on time. Yet, teens that own businesses have learned that you might have to put in a little extra effort, but the benefits of entrepreneurship are enormous once you find the right balance between school, the business, and friends.

In this, the third article of a four-part series about youth entrepreneurship, three teens tell the stories of how they started businesses and learned how to find fun while financing their futures.

Zoe Damacela Apparel

Talk about being fashion forward, Zoe Damacela, 17, has been making and selling her own original clothing designs since she was a freshman in high school, but no one expected the hobby would take her to the White House.

Although the trip to meet her fellow Chicagoan, President Barack Obama, was her award for winning second place in the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship competition earlier this month (click here to read about the NFTE competition and classes), Damacela believes that running her business and selling her apparel is a reward in and of itself.

“I love being able to be my own boss and set my own hours,” says the senior who is proud to have earned almost all A’s throughout high school. “I’m not only making more than the minimum wage teenage job, but I’m also doing something that is fun and I’m making a name for myself instead of making a name for someone else.”

Damacela estimates that she has made $10,000 over three years, but she also wants teens to know that her accomplishments require a lot of hard work and sacrifice. She’s been doing this for such a long time that she has found ways to balance her time and make her business more profitable. Here are her tips on how to get a leg up on the runway to success.

Keep your grades up. “Make sure that you

are not neglecting your school work because you are running a business,” says Damacela, who has a 4.25 GPA and applied to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford for college. Putting school second will result in bad grades, which will decrease your chances of attending the college of your choice, reminds Damacela.

In addition, she wants teens to consider that yes, they’ve started a business, but they still don’t know everything yet. “As a teen you are just starting your life out and there is so much you don’t know, and you don’t even realize that you don’t know it unless you learn it [in school].”

Work hard, but know your limits. Damacela designs her clothes, updates her Website and orders supplies when she gets home from school at 3pm. She finds that is the time when she has the most energy. Unless she has homework, she usually works on the business until 9pm.

She knows when to say enough is enough and call it a night. Experience has taught her that stressing out and over exerting herself is unproductive. “I’m sure every high school kid has felt overwhelmed even if they are not running a business,” she says. “I do feel like I have too much stuff going on sometimes, but what I do is take a step back, take a break, and just relax for a little bit,” says Damacela, who has learned that if she keeps working too late her designs will come out terrible.

Learn from your mistakes. When Damacela first started out she made a couple of mistakes. She bought supplies that were too expensive and she didn’t charge her friends enough for custom-designed garments. Taking the NFTE class at her high school taught her how to determine her profit margin and helped her realize she could purchase fabric and other embellishments for wholesale prices online without needing to have a wholesale license.

Stay confident. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something because you are too young or you are still in high school or because you come

from a low income community,” says Damacela, who says people have tried to discourage her since she first started thinking about running a business at age eight. “Obviously I proved them wrong. If I can do it anyone can do it.”

Cotrac Co. ‘s SmartButton Teaching Device

Joel Williams, a high school sophomore from Temple, Texas, is the inventor of SmartButton, a shoe attachment he developed at age 9 while helping his three-year-old sister try to learn the difference between her left foot and her right foot. The product, which verbally instructs children and the disabled or blind how to differentiate between right and left, was so successful that in 2008 he made $30,000.

In addition to SmartButton, Williams is moving on to motivational speaking. He produced a DVD which endorses his product and motivates kids to become inventors and follow their dreams.

“There is a huge market of school districts out there and my plans are to make sure every school has a copy someday soon,” says Williams, winner of the Black Enterprise 2007 Teenpreneur Award for entrepreneurs under the age of 18.

But between developing his products, getting patent protection, meeting with newspapers and televisions shows and marketing his product, it’s easy for Joel to forget that he’s only 15 years old. Yet, he is confident that if teens follow his advice, they will get their business started on the right foot.

Learn to sacrifice. Sometimes it is hard to choose between doing work at the business as opposed to hanging out with friends, but Williams, who often stays up late at night to do homework says that working long hours to achieve your goals are a necessity. “You have to be able to look into the future and see the rewards that come with owning your own business.”

Williams once missed out on a party all his friends planned to attend because he had to film his motivational DVD that day. “I felt like I was missing out at first but, after completing the filming, I felt great and knew that all my friends would want to view the DVD when it became available.”

Be self-motivated. Being an entrepreneur comes from within, says Williams, who sells his product over the Internet. “I think that truly great inventors are born with something different inside. When you start to feel overwhelmed, Williams encourages teens to think of the many benefits of entrepreneurship, including the attention you’ll get from friends, fans, and the media. Making money is not a bad incentive either, he says.

Rely on friends and family for support. Williams keeps an intense schedule. He wakes up at 5:45am to prepare orders that come in overnight then attends band practice at 6:45. He spends four to five hours on afterschool activities and after doing homework he usually goes to bed after midnight. “Sometimes there are many things going on at one time and I do feel pressure to do things the right way,” says Williams, who manages a staff that consists of three people; his mom, dad, and little sister, but plans to hire additional help.

Despite working for him for free, his parents do their part

to minimize his stress and keep him balanced. During the day while he is at school they ship out orders and make phone calls that can only be made during the day.  “I am very fortunate to have my [parents] to help me when needed,” he says.

Kalissa’s Kakes

Kalissa Armstrong, 16, launched her cake business when she realized that every week she was attending a different friends’ quinceañera, a coming of age ceremony common in the Hispanic community and is held on a girl’s 15th birthday. After doing some research on the city of Dallas where she lived, Armstrong learned that Hispanics made up 66% of the population and celebrated 20,000 quinceañera every year. So when she needed to start a business for school, Armstrong thought about her love of baking and decided this market was a prime opportunity to make a profit on  quinceañera cakes. Now charging $35 per cake she has earned profits of $850 so far for 2009 and plans to open up a bakery in the future.

But scheduling around a business can be tough for a teen entrepreneur. For her first quinceañera, the high school junior had to bake two dozen cakes that would be used as centerpieces. “It was very challenging,” says Armstrong who says the job took her two and a half days and required help from four volunteers. Although she says she has fun baking cakes she still knows that organization is a key recipe to her success. Here is her advice on how to make the dough without missing out on the sweet life.

Create a detailed schedule. Armstrong suggests that teens make a chart of everything they need to complete in a day. Include time for school and homework before planning to spend time on the business. Finally, add must-attend events with friends and family.

Choose a business that is fun. Armstrong doesn’t mind spending 30 to 40 hours a week on her business because for her it doesn’t feel like a job. She had started baking as a hobby before coming up with the business concept. She encourages other teens to start a business doing something they already love to do so they won’t have a problem doing it. “Once my business is up and running, my hobby will have just turned into a career,” she says. “For me, that’s my fun right there.”

Don’t let your customers down. Some people will doubt your abilities because of your age. Make sure they know that they can trust a young start up, says Armstrong who is very aware of the importance that young Hispanic girls place on the success of their quinceañera. She compares their desires to how she wanted her own Sweet 16 party to be perfect. “Every time I make a cake I put myself right back in that place. I tell my customer…I will make sure your day is as perfect as my sweet 16.”

Further Reading

Part 1: Youth Use Entrepreneurship As a Pathway to Success

Part 2: Lesson Plans For Young Entrepreneurs