[Steve]

Many of us tried to make money as young ones.

What was your guys first venture?

I sold "good" hockey cards to my friends for large amount of money (when I was 8). These large amounts where only large for an 8 yr old.

[Epik]

In 8th grade, I was really into CCGs. Collectible Card Games; Pokemon and Magic.

It was my life, and as a kid it would bring so much joy just to go through my collection, when you find joys like that, it's priceless. Anyways I started to sell cards and Buy booster cases and sell singles and such.

It was crazy fun for me personally, and made incredible Profits.

I also was buying and selling on eBay... with the use of my parents cc, lol considering I was only 12 I was having a blast.

Bought a domain, www.buyccgs.com, created a little site and setup a Paypal system to sell more. After a while it got boring and I moved to Arizona, where things changed, and my own ambitions changed as well. I quit the card business, but want to startup something again.

It was fun and I think a good experience.

[Hostegrity]

Ok, I'm gonna take my fellow older folks back to the day............................




Garbage Pale Kids. Remember those? We used to buy, collect and trade like mad. Oh the fun of it all.



Best Regards,
-Darrell

[ericesquire]

The first business I started "officially" was e-dezines; A web and graphics design company. i was just starting out but I was able to secure a few larger clients. My largest was an Elvis Impersonator who paid me $3,000 to design him a web site. I know now that I overcharged and underdelivered, but it was a good learning experience. Most jobs paid me $500.00 - and when I was 15 years old this was quite a lot of money.

I had ventures at a younger age, similar to Epik's with the CCG's - however e-dezines was an official business with a license that I got my father to buy me.

I now do a lot of the same work, digital media, however I am much more experienced and know that my work is worth the money. I also have other businesses that don't relate to computers.

[Epik]

That's awesome Esquire. How much does a business license like that cost. And where and how do you get one...

[ericesquire]

Business licenses are VERY cheap - I forget which government web site you get them from...umm...let me do some looking around and I'll get back to you

[Epik]

ooh, alright then

[Steve]

I think they are $15 -- but may depend on the state.

[Karen]

I had a friend who, at the lovely age of 8, cut up colored construction paper and sold it to the neighbor kid for $20 bucks. Told the neighbor kid that it was fish food.

Does that count?

Karen

[Alex Singh]

Ah I must have been about 5 or 6. Used to find things that the family no longer needed, and after a quick confirmation from Mum I'd gather everything and take it down to the steps (you had to go up a few sandstone steps - open the gate - then walk up the path to get to our old house itself) and would set up shop.

Being young and having NO idea about any business concepts or the idea of appropriate pricing and value for money I used to write the amount of money I wanted on the "products" - in permanent marker.

I remember a lady was out walking her baby and she stopped and checked what I had, she ended up wanting to buy this little tin off me that had graphics on it as if it was a book (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea I think it was.)

"50 dollars?!?" she exclaimed "Is that how much you're selling this for?" confused and not wanting to screw up a potential sale I had to back down from my original asking price, "No no, sorry thats 50 cents" I replied.

Ah, memories.

[Doug]

When I was 17 I started a painting company with a friend... mainly concentrating on exteriors. We painted 7 of the houses in our neighborhood before we realized we hated house painting

We made good money in a pretty short time, but it just wasn't for us. It was a good learning experience on running a business though.

[nacho911]

During highschool a friend and I bought one of those 25 cent candy machines and put it in my homeroom class. After convincing other teachers they were for a business-class project (they kinda were) we started adding machines. Soon we were making a ton of money. It was so fun collecting the quarters....
None of the teachers really knew how much those machines were bringing in