My friend, Janice Campbell, of Everyday Education shares 5 reasons entrepreneurship should be part of your teenagers education:

Mindset: We live in a society that teaches passivity, rather than active exploration and initiative. … Entrepreneurial training takes this a step farther by teaching students how to act with freedom, integrity, and purpose in their work life.

Flexibility and Preparedness: Entrepreneurial education provides a way for anyone of any age or financial condition to be better prepared to independently generate personal income. Business transitions are a fact of life. Factories close or automate, corporations merge and shift focus. It’s critical to be prepared to observe trends and be ready and able to move into another field or to supplement income with a microbusiness.

Learning:  Teens who choose run a business rather than flip burgers for the summer learn not only the service or product they are selling, but they also learn about business structures, bookkeeping, customer service, marketing, creative problem solving, real-world communication, and much more. Real bookkeeping for a small business is a lot more memorable than exercises from a consumer math textbook. Best of all, the skills and knowledge gained can be applied to many other parts of life.

High-School Transcript: A small business is a great addition to a high-school transcript. … entrepreneurship demonstrates initiative, hard work, creativity, perseverance, and other valuable skills and character traits. It’s likely that you’ll be able to grant credit for many of the business functions (bookkeeping, salesmanship, web design basics, etc.) your student learns as her or she builds a business.

Using the Micro Business for Teens curriculum will earn you 1/2 credit of high school credit and running your business can be another 1/2 to a full credit.

Fun: Finally, entrepreneurship is just plain fun. It empowers individuals– moms, dads, teens, pre-teens– to create something of value and share it with others in a profitable way. A young person who starts a microbusiness gains a lot more than spending money. He or she gains confidence, valuable experience, and a host of new skills that can be used for life.

Janice, you are so right. There are so many things a teenager can learn by starting their own micro business-and earn money while learning!

So, don’t delay, get an idea and get started. Start with reading the blog posts here and then my books will help you launch your own micro business.

Carol Topp, CPA

Data show(s) that virtually all new job growth in the United States has been driven by firms less than five years old.

This video explains three things entrepreneurs do (better than the government) and why entrepreneurs are our heros!

“My sister was selling candles for school, and I was kind of making fun of her because they were really girly scents, and the idea came to me to make man-scented candles ’cause nobody was doing that,” Hart says.
He used $100 from his savings to start his business called ManCans. He makes the candles at home when he’s not in school.

He’s all about “being green.” His candles come in recycled cans and feature labels made of recycled paper.

The candles sell for $8.00 and come in different scents such as:

• New York Style Pizza: Straight out of the oven.
• Money to Burn: Use your tax refund to buy a candle.
• Gear Head: Smells like the auto garage.
• Cracker Jacks: A prize for your nose in every can.
• Coffee: Men don’t go to coffee houses, men go to ManCans.
• Bacon: Bacon, Bacon, Bacon, Bacon… I smell Bacon.
• Bubble Gum: Just like opening the pack of Topps baseball cards.
• Grandpa’s Pipe: A fresh tobacco blend just like grandpa smoked.
• Sawdust: A light cedar smell.

I love Hart’s micro business idea and wish him great success!

Hart’s ManCan website.

Carol Topp, CPA

They do things like

• plan ahead,
• wake up early,
• work late,
• work while others play,
• set goals and
• manage their time.

How Young Entrepreneurs Balance Business And School

People always talk about work-life balance. Well, with young entrepreneurs, it’s more of work-school balance. Here’s how some student entrepreneurs were able to balance their school work and the company they were running on the side. It’s more like the the company they were running and classes they were attending to on the side.

Read more…

If they can do it, so can you!

Carol Topp, CPA

“I was not so committed to financial success that I was willing to abandon my  principles and priorities. One of the most visible examples of this is our decision to   close on Sunday.  Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and  of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business.”

Chick-fil-A is the only major fast-food restaurant chain to be closed on Sundays, one of the busiest days of the week in the restaurant business. Despite being closed on Sundays, Truett Cathy has led Chick-fil-A on an unparalleled record of 38 consecutive years of sales increases, with its core free-standing restaurants achieving higher sales per unit in six days (with shorter operating hours) than most major chains in the industry.

Read more about Mr Cathy’s business principles here:

Five Step Recipe for Business for Success

If he could do it, then you can do it too!

Don’t sacrifice the important things like faith and family just to make a buck!

Of those polled, 74 percent identified risk (39 percent) and failure (35 percent) as the biggest discouragements from starting their own business, compared to 56 percent who cited lack of money to fund their ideas. The Junior Achievement 2010 Teens and Entrepreneurship Survey was sponsored by Sam’s Club.

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 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.

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.