With age and experience comes wisdom, but entering the world of entrepreneurship at a young age can also provide a significant advantage.
Some of the most recognizable businesses in the world, such as Facebook, Ikea, Subway, and Yankee Candle, were started by teenagers.
Pet Sitting Services: A constant concern for pet owners who travel for business or who are planning a vacation is having a person or organization on-hand to care for their pet while they are away. Kids are great with animals and can, for short periods of time, serve as a fantastic and loving caretaker for pets by providing regular walking, feeding and grooming services right from the travelers home. If you want to get really serious, check out books on pet sitting businesses.
Greeting Cards: Leverage the talents of several young people by letting them produce and sell hand-made greeting cards. Greeting cards generally employ several creative and technical skills – poetry, prose, visual art, and layout. Whether one kid does it all or several kids work together to deliver the goods, a greeting card business in these days of e-cards, text and emails will be especially valuable around the holidays.
Clothing Swap: Have a well-connected teen rally in the community and start a clothing swap where group members can come to exchange clothes with other members of the group. Charge a membership fee or a service fee per swapping session.
Online Store: With a web presence and a Paypal account, just about anyone can open an online store. Kids can find easy ways to set up websites and use social media to market comic books, clothes, pet toys, doggie treats, or whatever else can be bought and sold.
Garage Sales: We talked earlier about found items. There are probably enough items around the house that aren't being used to have regularly scheduled weekend garage sales. Kids don't have to go far, and they can acquire their inventory from deals they find at the local thrift store or even at other garage sales. As the kid gets the knack of running garage sales, he or she can extend their garage sale service to neighbors in the area and take a percentage of the total sales.
Gift Wrapping Services: You know, some people simply have no gift-wrapping talent. Then there are those who can wrap gifts so beautifully you hesitate to even tear the paper to get to the actual gift. In case you haven't noticed, gift wrapping is a marketable skill, nearly indispensable during the holiday season. We're not just talking foil paper and curly ribbons. Think about hand-painted wrapping paper or gift wrapping that expresses the purpose and theme of the gift itself.
