What was your first business, and how old were you when you started it?

[JohnYE]

Describe your first business, and tell us how old you were when you started it. If you have time, tell us what you learned and how it influenced your future entrepreneurial efforts.

[k-rod]

Small in house screen printing business, age 17

[BizGuy]

John - Thanks for posting this!
@k-rod: Please share more info about your start up story, we'd love to read about it!

This thread is going to take me down memory lane.. here goes:

My brother and I grew up learning the "Entrepreneurial Lifestyle" from our grandfather Joe! He actually set us up on our first Entrepreneurial venture selling these little stunt airplanes called Dipper-Do’s at a local folk festival. He taught us the proper way to use the stunt plane to really ‘WOW’ the audience and we sold out of them before the folk festival was over. What a great feeling for a couple of kids 7 & 8 years old! So it began, the entrepreneurial bug had taken its ‘bite!’ (This is one of the reasons why we wrote the book that we WISHED we had as kids: KIDPRENEURS!) Perfect for kids aged 6-13!

We then went from mini-venture to mini-venture throughout our schooling years. From importing stereo equipment from New York to magic kits from Hong Kong, we learned a lot and made some money along the way! Then, as soon as we graduated from High School we took the money we earned and bought a struggling billiard hall in an up and coming part of our town. This is where we learned the saying that you hear so often from entrepreneurs "poured our blood, sweat and tears in that business."

Lots of long hours, tons of re-branding, innovative promotion for the venue, and expanded the venue into a place where you can enjoy a game of pool/billiards, a nice glass of wine while listening to a live Jazz band on the stage. With our hard work, dedication and creative marketing ideas, we soon became the place-to-be on a Thursday-Friday-Saturday night with line-ups every night.

The buzz continued building and we then started doing some private parties for the movie industry and private staff parties as we had the ideal location and the space was big enough to accommodate large groups! Before we ended our 12th month in business, we had received an offer to sell. It didn’t take long for us to realize that the long nights of sleeping on the couches of our venue had paid off.

We took the offer and then moved on to our next ‘adventure.’ This time it was a totally different industry that we knew nothing about: A Printing & Graphics company. We found this struggling downtown printing/graphics company and we used the same philosophies and ethics to overhaul and brand this small printing and graphics company. Success! We sold it on our 11th month in business for a nice profit.

The new owner was hiring fresh so we took our graphic team with us and started a publishing/media company which has been one of our main focuses for the past 6 years now. We own niche market, luxury lifestyle publications, with a combined readership of over 500,000 per issue. This company has branched off to own both print and online ventures.

We realize that some things have definitely stayed the same since our first business venture: our dedication, work ethic, determination, focus and our passion to help others start, manage and grow successful business ventures.
We have always known that we LOVE coaching others with starting and growing their businesses which is why my brother and I launched Biz Warriors Consulting : Think of Biz Warriors as your personal business support center.
We have also found volunteering our time with the Junior Achievement Association has been quite rewarding as we went into the Grade 11 & 12 classes in High School Entrepreneurship & Marketing classes to share our stories!
This was one of the reasons my brother & I knew we needed to start YoungEntrepreneur.com back in 1999! Can you believe its been 11 years, and we're just getting warmed up!

Looking forward to seeing this thread FULL of start up stories! Please take the time to share yours. I'm sure we can all take something away from your story!!

PS. Have all of you subscribed to our YE BLOG: Young Entrepreneur - Small Business & Entrepreneur Community » Blog

Continued Success,

Adam Toren

[Carlos™]

21, became Co-Owner of a xbox website. Later became managing director of its news, and forums. Then became a the full owner of its later version. Third time was the charm because, then I sold it and got some hosting and money in return.

Then at the age of 24, I launched my very own website, with full control over its brand. 3 years later, I bought the website's first business license. This year I plan to finish off my business plan and fully incorporate the company.

[Bodge4]

My first legal biz was selling cigar humidors and metal detectors on ebay when I was 18. I made over $1000 a week however it only lasted 5 weeks then ebay blew up.

[DerekS]

I started a lawn cutting business when I was 9 in my neighborhood. Truthfully, I just liked playing with lawn equipment, so the cash was sort of a bonus.

The first "real" business I started was at the age of 22 with a buddy from high school. We would buy wrecked Toyota MR2 Turbos, part them out, and sell the parts online and locally. We also did a couple of engine swaps and basic maintenance/tune-ups to help keep the lights on.

We had to form an LLC, interact with the public, create a website, deal with landlords, deal with shippers/freight companies, maintain a company vehicle, and manage a business checking account. It was a good learning experience, but we quickly realized that we'd need to take on A LOT more responsibility (in the way of debt and more manpower) in order to scale the business up to something that could sustain us in the "real world". (ie if we had mortgages, car notes, kids, etc to support.)

In the end we sold off our inventory and dissolved the business. I went on to get a real estate license and he works as an auto tech. We still throw in on good car/parts deals from time to time, but we haven't done anything on the regular since about '05. Great learning experience, and best of all, we're still great friends.

[onetruth7797]

2 nursing homes one at 21 another at 22 and electronics website last year. almost 24 right now

[Anon206]

21, became Co-Owner of a xbox website. Later became managing director of its news, and forums. Then became a the full owner of its later version. Third time was the charm because, then I sold it and got some hosting and money in return.

Then at the age of 24, I launched my very own website, with full control over its brand. 3 years later, I bought the website's first business license. This year I plan to finish off my business plan and fully incorporate the company.

Whats the website?

[SCJeff]

What else, as a kid I mowed lawns. Eventually worked my way up to doing anything and everything that involved yard work, pine straw, cutting down trees, pull up stumps, lay sod. Then started doing random odd jobs for people, painting, basic wiring, even built a deck once. I made quite a lot a money, and still do it to this day during the summer. Since I'm a student, I'm quite busy during the year and make enough money during the summer for the rest of the year.

I even had some friends who I would pay to do the work when I went on vacation, was sick, or just didn't feel like getting up that morning lol. Was generally $50 for your average lawn, would pay them $30 for an hours worth of work, supply the mower and edger, and pocket the other $20.

The next step for me is going to be trying to work on some contracts with a few neighborhoods to take care of the entrances once a week.

[ACMAir]

My first and only real business venture is Infinite Logos. I started it when I was 16. It's been a year since I've started it up, and it's grown a bit.

[LingerieLady]

I babysat once in a while in my teens.. does that count? haha

At 20 I started my own nail salon/spa from home.
Then I got into a car-accident, that made full sets of nails, pedicures and massage sessions difficult. So I worked as an executive assistant in a marina for a few months.
In the short time that i did my spa business, and even working at the marina, I learned how to make connections, and get customers from great word-of-mouth referrals.
I also learned how to educate my customers.

After this, still at 20, just before I turned 21 I bought a lingerie boutique.
Now, at 24, I'm continuing to grow and perfect my fine lingerie shop

[JohnYE]

Wow! Some really great stories here. Thank you all for sharing.

It's inspirational to young entrepreneurs looking to start a business and those currently in business to see that it can be done. So many people have started early, and even though many aren't still in their original business, it's continuing to try new things and staying at it that makes people successful.

Keep them coming - let's hear some more!

[MattBrown]

I started a marketing business when i was 22, i struggled for the first bit and felt completely overwhelmed. I was trying to do way to much at a time and didn't break it down into individual steps. Once i slowed myself down everything started to come together, i am 23 now.

[AMSPCS]

Ad agency. Age 26, in 1973

[hecto]

My first real business was when I started importing mobile phones and other goods from China when I was 17 making good money. I done this for about 1 year and then had to go to university so I stopped and decided to get into the website business as to do this would not require any space to store goods.

Having carried out little research and with no understanding of search engine optimization I decided to buy a real estate website (mistake). I ended up wasting a lot of time and lost most of the money I had made from my ebay business. On the bright side I learned about SEO and domain names.