Want to start some kind of business. HELP

[erichtecreator]

Hello everyone, my name is Eric. Ive read about all of the sucess stories that come with starting your own business, and i want to make that come true. I am 15 years old, and have had a dream since i was 7 of having an expensive, loud, attention-grabbing car. i believe that i can make this come true if everything goes well. i have been thinking of many business ideas, and have ruled out services. So i narrowed it down to products. The one that grabbed me the most were iPhone cases. I picked iphone cases because they will never go out of style, and we will always need some kind of case for our phones. But i need some help choosing the right approach to start my business. Ordering from china seemed risky, but also seemed like a good low budget start. I am up for anything that a business may throw at me, and want to get moving on making my dream come true. Any tips anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated as well as other product business ideas that have a low startup cost that can grow bigger later. Thank you for taking your time to read this.
Thanks,
Eric

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum Eric. I wish I was as focused as you on making money when I was your age. Even if your first business doesn't go according to plan, you have plenty of time to get the next one or the one after that right.

With low start up costs you probably do want to do something online. You're right there will be some risk if you're ordering products in advance and then selling them. It takes time to build the traffic you'll need. You could start with affiliate marketing and advertising. It's not easy either, but no business really is. I'm not sure how interested you are in learning how to do the work of setting up or building a website, but it's a good skill to have. One way to start is to set up WordPress (http://wordpress.org). You would need a domain for $10 a year and hosting for about $10 a month. WordPress is free and you can find free themes for it.

With a site set up you'd want to start filling it with content. To sell iPhone cases you could write about anything Apple related to draw traffic and offer a shop where you sell the cases. Later you could expand to more products.One difficulty you're probably going to encounter is how to collect money. Most of the usual ways require you to be 18 so you may need to set however you're going to get paid through your parents.

One thing to keep in mind is that it really does take time to build traffic to a site in order to sell products through that site. The only way for it not to take that time is to buy advertising, which is probably out of the budget to start. You may want to focus more at first on creating content for the site and attracting traffic to it. It'll give you more time to figure out what kind of products you'll sell and where you'll get them from. Even if you aren't making money right away, you'll be building an asset in the site that could be used to sell down the road and you'll be learning to create content, which is already becoming a requirement to get traffic and sell things.

Hope something in there helps.

[mrwebpage]

Hey Eric,

That is just great that you are so interested in starting your business at such a young age. Selling online is definitely the way to go to keep your overhead costs down. That is truly going to be one of your main concerns in the beginning. Keep that overhead down. That is usually where people go wrong. A lot of people will make the mistake of acting like a huge company and paying for all the employees and extra bells and whistles that go along with that. This small list is what you should focus on:

- Get good products (high quality and attractive)
- Have amazing customer service. Genuinely care about your customers.
- Find ways to get your name out there for free. (forums, blogs, social media, seo, etc)
- Keep your overhead down

To test your new business, you can actually advertise and see if you get any response or sales before you invest in your inventory. Or, you can order just a very small inventory of about 1-5 designs or whatever you can afford and only about 1-2 of each. That way when someone orders you have one to ship them. Then if you start selling them, start increasing your inventory.

[Fulcrum]

Why rule out services? If you're good, there will almost always be a demand - not to mention a lower start up cost ($200 for a lawn mower and a rake/shovel).

[Patrysha]

While I am not certain that iPhone cases will never go out of style, they are certainly in high demand at the moment. You'll want to build flexibility into your plan and know what you are going to do with the next series of iPhone (and potentially iPod and iPad) sizing. It won't be as cut and dried as simply having options, it is essentially a fashion item in addition to be a safety/protection item.

Everyone has already covered your online options, drop-shipping as opposed to advance ordering may be an option to look into. Bringing in or designing your own product line is something you could aim for doing through your profits...or you can just keep with the affiliate and drop shipping, depending on how it all goes.

[David Hunter]

Why rule out services? If you're good, there will almost always be a demand - not to mention a lower start up cost ($200 for a lawn mower and a rake/shovel).

I was thinking the same thing...

What's the reason you're ruling out a service business?

[erichtecreator]

currently i own a small lawnmowing business. I dont know why, but i felt like if you got a good business rolling, i would make a lot more money. I guess im watching too much shark tanks. lol

[erichtecreator]

I currently have a small lawnmowing business. It makes me about 65 dollars a week. Ive handed out flyers multiple times to people within a quarter mile of my house(since i cant drive yet). I felt like if i got the business going, i felt like there would be less work and more money per week. That said, lots of my lawn mowing clients have other professionals doing there lawns, so maybe if i can cath more people before they get reeled into other professionals? If you have tips on that please be welcome to give them, I am open to any as I enjoy the lawn mowing business.