Welcome to Your Teen Business!

Hey there,

My name's Ed, and I started YourTeenBusiness a few years back to help other teenagers starting their own businesses. Since then, I've 'grown up' a little and moved onto a new project to help entrepreneurs, job seekers and people creating new, exciting things.

It's called jobfoundry.

jobfoundry is a tool to help you learn. It organises learning by tasks, like your to do list. On each task, you'll find the most useful tools, tutorials, examples and guides to help you, so you can stop searching around and start doing.

You'll find a tonne of useful resources and projects there to help you get going.

In the meantime, I'll keep YourTeenBusiness up for posterity and the thousands of folks who visit every month.

Thanks!

Ed @edfryed

If you are a teenager – listen up. You’re at the most exciting time in your life. Teens are by far the most passionate people you can find. We do crazy things, right? Sailing solo round the world, doing awesome street dance performances on TV talent shows, wild parties etc…

So you can see there’s something wrong when most of us are only get a job at McDonalds or something - after 10 or so year’s education – despite being awesome and talented and capable of so much more. Or worse, we’re told to go and tend to peoples lawns, or help people out with errands – you become a pawn in someone else’s game.

This is so wrong.

There is no reason why we teenagers shouldn’t be able to build business, or sail the world or the like. Can most adults do that? Perhaps not…

So here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to guide you through choosing and setting up one of dozens of teen business ideas. Then, I’m going to show you where to get more information and help running that specific business. And after that I’m going to keep you motivated and passionate about your new venture.

Now I’m no expert at everything – no one is. But I’ve spent hours researching; sparing no expense, to find you the people, tools and training you need to take your business forward. And I’m not just going to point you in a direction and leave you – you’re going to get a proper, informed introductions and explanations, guides and resources. I want to make business accessible to teen entrepreneurs like you.

There are two rules I like to abide by, and I suggest you do the same: -

1) Have Fun 2) Make Money

Being young is so important; you can do so much, and yet you can miss out too. Your teen business should be able to blend in with work, social stuff and family – luckily I’ve come up with a list of business ideas which let you do exactly that.

Let’s face it – being a teenager is expensive. Whether it is going out, seeing friends, buying clothes and gadgets – even a car – the point is… it all adds up. And that fuels a desire for money, and that’s probably a big motivator for starting a business in your teens. But there are much bigger reasons too…

In the future, you’re most likely going to end up in a bit of debt. Student loans, a mortgage and just trying to cover the cost of living are going to turn you from a passionate teen into a hard-working employee in some firm, desperately trying to pay off bills each month. All you get is a qualification and a “good luck”. Nope, neither of those is a guarantee of success. Neither.

In other words, you become a “cog” in a greater system that is the “real world” – and the sad thing is that there’s not very much you can do about it. Perhaps education is grooming you to become a good cog, in part of a greater conspiracy to form a conformist and controlled society. I hope not…

What you can do about it, is grow skills which will prove invaluable in the real world, which is driven by desire for profits by the ‘higher-ups’. And although education is very handy – most importantly, it teaches you how to learn – I don’t think it has all the pieces to the puzzle.

I think being an entrepreneur has the missing pieces to the puzzle.

There are so many skills you master as an entrepreneur: -

• Communication
• Creative thinking
• Decision making
• Money management
• Organization
• Research
• Selling
• Team building
• Goal setting - and achieving ;-)
• And more...

I’m not suggesting you need a salary-replacing income aged 12. Far from it. But instead, by running a business for profit – out of your own choice – it actually makes you quite savvy in terms of knowing about the “real world”. It puts you on unfair terms with people who haven’t done that.

Actually that’s not fair. It’s their fault for not getting off their backside and doing something. Instead, they’ll leave university up to their neck in debt with little idea of what to do next. THEN they’ll realize.

Being an entrepreneur gets around this with ease. You’ll have freedom and a plan, as opposed to chaos and confusion. Sure, some people will get their absolute dream job – but I’m guessing that ain’t everyone.

Then again, I am just guessing. As I say, I’m 16 – I’m as blind in this as you are, so that’s why I play by these rules:

1) Have fun
2) Make Money

And if you want to join me, I’ll help you all the way. Have a look at the links below, or the Nav Bar on the left (you may have to scroll up a bit). If you don’t, that’s cool. I just hope that this leads you on to bigger and better things :-)