How to Start a Business in Your Teens

Starting a business in your teens can be one of the best decisions you can make for your life. The experience you gain will help you financially for the rest of your life, and you will have the opportunity to build wealth at an early age-likely retiring earlier than peers who purely take a job career route. There are a few concepts you need to learn to prepare however, and I want to share them with you.

1) Realize that it's all right to make mistakes, fail, and learn in business.

This may be surprising to some of you, but failure is one of the quickest ways to success--if you learn from it. It's always better to learn from other people's failures first--read business books and talk with any business owner you know who welcomes conversation. They can share with you things they wish they had known earlier.

If you do make a mistake or something doesn't go as planned, it's not fatal. One of the things you have to learn is how to get back up and try something else--the quicker you can do that, the faster you can succeed.

2) Realize that businesses don't have to cost a lot of money to start.

My husband and I own 6 web-based businesses. None of them cost more than $300 to get off the ground. Never go into debt to start a business--if something is going to cost a lot to start, use your creativity to figure out a way to get the money. Debt has a way of dragging you down financially--that includes personal debt such as credit cards as well.

There's also nothing wrong with working a job and starting a business at the same time-that's how most adults start out.

3) Long-term, you goal should be to develop a business that runs as much as possible without your physical presence.

Even adults mess up on this one, basically creating themselves a job instead of a business. With the Internet, you can see how it would be possible to sell something on maybe Amazon or eBay while you're sitting in class. You still had to do the work for the listing, but you're not physically in a store waiting for somebody to buy it. This concept of earning money is called passive income, and you want that as much as possible. This is how people "build" income. They're working on their next project while their earlier projects are earning money for them.

4) Realize that not everyone is going to look at things like you do.

This is mainly something to keep your attitude up. You're likely going to have a least a few friends who think you're crazy "wasting" so much time on a business when you should be a normal teenager and have fun.

To my knowledge, there currently are not any public schools that are teaching kids and teens concepts of entrepreneurship-everyone is taught to go to college (nothing wrong with that) and get a job (which honestly isn't something for everybody). The more you research and learn, it's going to be exciting for you-but not everyone is necessarily going to share in that excitement. Keep a good supportive circle of friends. Also, don't be upset when people tell you how "lucky" you are when you do become successful--sometimes people don't understand the effort behind anything people do in life that's significant.

5) Don't try to rush things and enjoy the process.

Real money is made in business over time, not overnight. When you go into your early 20s and look back, you will definitely see a difference in yourself and your business ability. Don't try to shortcut things when you know the right thing to do.

6) Someday when you're older, you may run across a teenager who is trying to start a business.

Do a little "Pay-It-Forward" and help him or her like I hope this has helped you. Good luck and best wishes to you!