Mobile Dance Academy

What a great idea and a great teenage micro business!

Amiya Alexander was only 10 years old when she started a dance studio in a pink school bus!

The Amiya Mobile Dance Academy’s (AMDA) mission is to further the art of dance in an extended cultural community which will provide dance training and community programs for all youth.

Watch her story:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

http://www.amiyasdancebus.com/newsandevents.htm

If she can do this, you could so something like it too! Offer dance lessons from your house or go to a neighbors house and teach what you know!

My book Starting an Micro Business will get you started!

Ten Tech Teenagers & Their Micro Businesses

Need some inspiration? Here are ten teenagers that had brilliant ideas for their micro businesses:

Ten Teen Entrepreneurs To Watch

Kids these days. It seems like they’re writing HTML before they learn how to talk. And a lot of them are starting companies before they graduate from high school.

Here’s a list of some of our favorite teen entrepreneurs.

Jessica Mah, 19, is currently the CEO and Co-Founder behind Indinero, a Mint.com for small businesses. Mah started her first startup at 13. Last year, she founded internshipIN.com, a site to help high school and college kids find internships in their area. Now, at 19, Mah is finishing up her Computer Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as being the CEO of Indinero.

Ashley Qualls, 19, started WhateverLife when she was 14, a site designed to give MySpace users free Myspace layouts and HTML tutorials. She employs both her mom, and her friends who do graphics for her. Qualls started WhateverLife in 2004 as a hobby, and now has turned into a business, with her site getting anywhere from 150,000 to 360,000 daily page views.

(more…)

Don’t feel intimidated by their stories. Remember, you don’t have to invent something new or even launch a website to have a successful micro business.  All you need is to see a need and meet it. That can be as simple as caring for children or as complex as the micro businesses mentioned in the story.

Volunteer to learn about business

Internet Based Kids had a great blog post about how volunteering can lead you into business or a future career.

If you are between the ages of 16-25 and looking for a way to gain work experience you might want to think about signing up to be a volunteer. Many businesses allow volunteers to help out to give them the opportunity to see if they might be interested in having a career in that particular field.

Among those businesses you may want to consider charity work in are hospitals, some long term care facilities, grocery stores, charity groups, and many other establishments as well. This can also allow people to gain new relationships and earn a good reputation for when they are ready to go out into the working world in the future.

Volunteers are a great help to businesses. For instance, those who work as volunteers in hospitals help patients to have a more tolerable stay while they are ill. Nursing home patients may enjoy having a volunteer come visit them from time to time just to keep them company. Volunteers in grocery stores can be helpful by carrying bags out for customers or helping them locate certain items in the store.

Volunteering your time to help charity groups can also be an enjoyable thing to do. Knowing you are helping those in need can be a rewarding experience that you can be proud of. Many elderly people who are shut-ins need volunteers to run occasional errands for them. Having trustworthy people who can go pay their bills or make trips to the store for them when needed can be a tremendous help.

Another benefit of being a volunteer is how you are perceived by the public eye. Most likely if you do well at job volunteering, you will be considered strongly should you ever want a permanent job at that particular business. When business managers see they can depend on you as a volunteer your reputation as a good worker will be set in stone. It is also a nice addition to have volunteer work listed on a resume as experience working with others in your community.

Volunteer opportunities are also a great way for college students to gain on the job training. You can check here – http://www.vinspired.com/opportunities for more information. Once you have an idea of which career you want to go into, find out if there is a business in that field that has a need for volunteers. This can help you be better prepared for the job and give you a sense of pride while doing it.

About The Author

Steve Volman – writer, thinker and general muser. Interests include charity and volunteering, football and the odd spot of golf. Any feedback on my articles in more than welcome.

Crafts into Cash

Stephanie over at Crafts for Kidlets has some helpful advice on creating cash from crafts.

Two things that I love are seeing people who are passionate about crafting, and children with an entrepreneurial spirit.

I know that most of the crafts that I have posted here have been geared toward the younger kids.   But what if your tween/teen wants to turn their crafting hobby into profit?

Perhaps your child has a passion for:

• jewelry making
• woodworking/painting
• knitting/crocheting

just to name a few things.    I know out here on the East Coast, Spring and Fall are huge for craft fairs and the Summer is a great time for Yard Sales (Tag Sales as we refer to them!).

If your family, friends or neighbors are having a tag sale, perhaps your child can set up a table with his or her goods to sell.

Now the other places that I mentioned for selling your crafts are:

• Etsy – You can set up your own site with customized banners. It costs 20 cents to list an item for 4 months.
• eBay is another place to list your items. There is a cost associated with it, depending on the amount of the sale.
• Lily’s Craft Store Mall is one other place you can list your crafts. You pay a monthly fee for the website, but the actual craft listings are free.

Do any of you use the sites Stephanis lists for selling your crafts? Tell us how its going for you. Drop a comment.

10 Reasons to Start a Business (While You’re Still a Teenager)

On the Road to $1 mil blog has a post on 10 reasons to Start a Business While You’re Still a Teenager

While there are good reasons to start a business at any point in life (no age is too young, none is too old), these are the main ones why it pays to start a business while you’re a teenager:

1. You can afford to take more risks. You don’t have to worry about whether investing in the business puts your children’s financial wellbeing at risk. Plus, in the face of any setback, you’ve got many years in front of you to recover -or try again.
2. You have drive. You’re in the age of thinking big. Your dreams have no ceiling and you’re passionate beyond reason. Tap into that energy -and apply it to an idea you believe in.
3. You have energy -certainly more than most people 20 years older than you.
4. You want to annoy your parents. Don’t they give you a hard time with their never-ending speeches about becoming a lawyer? Show them there’s more to life than Law School!
5. You want to make your parents proud, too. They’ve told you a hundred times you should grow up. What a better way to show you’re able to take responsibility for your own life?
6. The experience will serve you later in life, whether you continue with the business, start another one, go to college, or get a job.
7. You hate feeling bored. Once you start working on your idea, you won’t have time for boredom. Actually, you won’t have much free time at all. But as long as you’re working in your passion, you won’t miss it, either.
8. You have plenty of friends. I bet that many of them are also looking for something to do. They can become a source of cheap labor to tap into, they can help you brainstorm ideas, or even become your business partners.
9. You want to be popular. How many people your age own their own company? Your friends will admire this, and you may even inspire some of them to start a businesses of their own -and they’ll queue to get your expert opinion.
10. You want to find your purpose. A business will expose you to activities you’ve never performed before. Do you hate keeping business books? Do you enjoy developing ideas to help others? Do you love the contact with other people? Everything you discover about your likes and dislikes will help you find a direction for your adult life.

So if you’re young and have a passion, give a thought to the possibility of turning it into a business. Don’t let the hurdles -lack of money the most obvious one- deter you from trying: be creative and you’ll come up with ways around them.

How to Make Money on Craigslist

Here is a  great site to help teenagers use Craigslist to start a micro business.

How teens can make money on Craig’s List

Find “Services” and put an add under “Small Biz” or “Household services” and you can soon be another teen making money thanks to Craig at Craigslist.

For example…You could put an ad for “carpet cleaning” on Craigslist, get people emailing or calling you about carpet cleaning, go to the “rental center” nearest you and rent a carpet cleaning machine, do the job and get paid right away. (Be sure to know what the rental and supplies costs before you place the ad so you cover your expenses!)

You can also check the section on “Gigs” for fast jobs.

But please beware not to give out personal information online.

Young women especially need to be cautious in answering ads for potential marketing and promotion ads seeking attractive girls.

Respond with a friend and cell phone. Let your parents know exactly where you’re going. Drive by where you’re supposed to meet your “employers” and if the least suspicious, drive off! Better safe than sorry!

I logged onto Craigslist for my local city and discovered that my local public school needs tutors to work with students for 2-9 hours a week.  The ad says “great pay and flexible schedule.”  They want a resume and a background check.

Try Craigslist for your city, but be sure to follow the guidelines above and on Craigslist to avoid scammers.  Keep your parents informed about what you are doing. They can see suspicious activity that you may not see. Let them help you!

Micro Business Idea: Sign Spinning

Here’s a unique idea for a micro businesses: Sign Spinning.

Have you ever seen a group of kids advertise their youth group’s car wash by holding up a sign on a street corner? It’s a pretty good way to get attention.  Two teenagers, Max Durovic and Michael Kenny, were hired to be teenage sign holders.  But they got bored and came up with stunts where they spin and throw their signs like batons, strum them like guitars, paddle them like canoes and ride them like horses.  Sound like fun?  Maybe, if you are part clown, athlete and actor! It’s like earning money doing an extreme sport.

“Sign spinning is a lot like ballroom dancing, except your partner has no life of its own,” Brown says. “Giving the sign its life and personality is a spinner’s true task.”

Read the Entrepreneur magazine article about  the business these teenagers started here.

You have got to see the videos of the guys spinning signs!  AArow Advertising.com

There’s also several videos on You Tube

It’s no longer a micro business. They have 18 franchises (copies of the business in several cities) and have 500 employees!

I think that you could find a local restaurant or store that needs some more customers. See if they will hire you to be a sign spinner for an hour or two and you are in business!

Why a Business Might Fail

My virtual friend, Meredith Curtis (she interviewed me about my other website HomeschoolCPA.com here) has a blog series titled Focus on Your Finances

In this post, Starting Your Own Business Part 1, Meredith discusses why a business might fail.

Warning: She offers straight talk that some people may not like, but she speaks from more than 10 years of experience in running her own small business and backs up her observations with several verses form the Bible.

I have seen these three things cause businesses to fail.

Self-Government

“Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control” (Proverbs 25:28 NIV).

A business owner without self-control will not be able to run her business effectively. Self-government is simply the ability to run your own life well, control your emotions, manage your time, manage your money, maintain healthy relationships, and follow through with personal plans and goals.Without the ability to manage yourself, you will not be able to manage a business.

Scheduling

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12 NIV).

Hard work is required to get a business off the ground. Hours and hours of work must be scheduled into your life without taking away from the priorities of family, church, and time with the Lord. If you cannot prioritize and schedule your life, you might let important things in your life and new business fall through the cracks.

Administrative Abilities

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man” (Proverbs 3:3-4 NIV).

Bookkeeping, accounting, record keeping, and other administrative tasks have always bored me, but I realize their importance in a successful business. You not only risk trouble with the Internal Revenue Service  (IRS) and other government agencies, but you can find your self in trouble with customers, employees, and vendors if you are not careful.

How about you?  Are you self controlled, in control of your schedule and able to handle administrative tasks? You may not be perfect in all those areas, but running a micro business can be a great way to learn those skills!

The lessons you learn by running a micro business will help you  later whether you open another, larger business or work for an employer. So, don’t be afraid to start if you lack some of the skills mentioned.

You can learn while you earn with a micro business. You will not fail!

Entrepreneurs can change the world (video inspiration)

Need a little inspiration? This is great little video that reminds you of the importance of starting something new (that’s the definition of an entreprenuer!)