The advice I gave my kids about starting a business

From time to time kids think about starting a business, especially before they can be legally hired or when they are having trouble finding a job that can work around their school schedule or transportation needs. The first thing that occurs to many of them is services, although they don't even understand that use of the word. They think in terms of what they can do like the classics: lawn mowing and snow shoveling.

They quickly find out that it’s hard to get enough customers who pay enough to make it worthwhile. They don't know how to find enough customer for it to be sustainable, and even if they do, they don't know how much their time is worth and how to make that sustainable. The often end up feeling stuck between can't get a job and can't make money on their own. As they get older, when they feel like this the system teaches them to blame the system.

Shifting their perspective

The first thing I did with my kids in this situation was to get them to stop thinking about what they can do and start thinking about what people need. And in particular, what do people need to know. There are a lot of things that people need to know in order to do things. This creates a market for providing that information.

This is where kids look at you with a blank expression and realize they don’t know anything about what matters to anyone else. Depending on their age and maturity, they may completely lack that kind of perspective. They don’t even know how to figure out what other people need. This is important to teach them.

It’s a two-part problem. First they have to develop the awareness of what people need to do and what they need to know to do it. Then they have to figure it out by doing research, put it in a form that they can use, and make potential customers aware that they can help them fulfill their need.

Getting started

My advice to them was to sell information. Information can be cheap to get and the only cost to turn it into a product is your time. And you can sell the same information over and over again, with no manufacturing, warehousing, or delivery costs. You can start a business selling information without spending a single penny. Instead of putting hours and hours into doing manual labor for other people, you put the hours into building an audience of people who are interested in your information, acquiring more information, and preparing it for delivery (eBooks, videos, online training, or something else?).

Creating a sustainable business

In general, creating a product is easy. Finding customers to buy it is what's hard. Selling information teaches you this. Ideas and possibilities are endless. But what's you've created an eBook, video, online training, or other form of information product, then what? Who will buy it? You need to build an audience that you can sell into. Audience building takes time and effort. It takes far more time and effort than creating your first information product will require. This is a very good lesson to learn. It will pay off for them throughout the rest of their lives.

Selling information gives you future options. You can expand your product offerings. You can add services. You can pivot to completely different offerings. But the things you learn and skills you develop will benefit you regardless of what direction you head in the future. Even if being an entrepreneur is temporary and their future goal is to have a “real job,” developing skills at audience building, product development, and business operations will make them a better employee, regardless of the job. And at the start of their career, having income on the side can be a very good thing.

Then I encouraged them to get started.

In case you are wondering...

And since you might way to know… I have six kids. Only one of them started a business while still in school. Later, when that child launched her first real business as an adult, it took off like a rocket. She took to being a sole proprietor like a fish to water. Two more became entrepreneurs as adults and impress me every day with their skills. One more has flirted with it off and on. Only one of them sells information. But all of them move seamlessly between digital marketing and bricks and mortar sales. The others have regular jobs, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not the topic of this article.

In every case, it was their own idea, their own discovery, and they learned everything on their own. Dad gets no credit. But that is the way of the world and how it should be. I am incredibly happy to see it and give them all the credit. I look forward to teaching their children to be entrepreneurs.