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Starting a business in high school -- opinion?
What is the general opinion about starting a business in high school? Certainly not limited to but including hosting businesses, web development/design, etc.
I've owned a few businesses but have been out of the game for a while now, mostly because of school. I have some free time now and am dying to start a new business. I have a few ideas but I'm curious as to what the LEB community thinks of young entrepreneurs.
Comments
I'd start off as a freelancer, and not start anything that may require time that you do not have.
Work on some projects in your free time, develop some skillsets that will be useful for a career path that interests you, and concentrate on your current schooling.
Also, you're in part of the best time of your life. Go have fun. Go smash some bottles behind a store and be a little hellian for a couple years while you still can.
No.
stop.
Until you are legally responsible for yourself, you shouldn't be legally responsible for client data. There is good reason that minors generally start the company in their parent's name. Now, don't get me wrong, some people can do it. If you have to ask, you're not one of those people. It's nothing to be ashamed of. If you want to start something, work in development. Build something that people want and sell it. The service based industry is not compatible with high school unless you have a very well thought plan and a very supportive family.
Been doing this sort of thing since elementary school, nothing "official", just a bunch of websites, hosting, and other things.
Don't let it take over your school life though.
@RobertClarke has my vote on most likely to be the exception.
Not a good idea, period. People in high school should earn their pocket money via other methods.
Nailed it.
I started consulting at age 13 (I'm 32 now) and had to have my mom drive me to meetings and job sites. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working in this field but you have to be HONEST and realistic.
You simply cannot provide 24/7 service or legally execute any contracts when you are under the age of 18. You could certainly form a partnership with others that can cover the work load during your committed education hours or if you had the proper capital you could hire staff to maintain the business during that time period.
That said, it's unlikely the cash would be available for such a venture and I would say stick with free-lance and consulting work where it is on a per-project basis and you can set accurate expectations with the client as to your availability .
The general opinion is a no
I am nearly 19 myself. On the legal side - I can own a company and I do. 2 years back, when I first entered this business, it was under a parent's name.
It is not impossible, however it is hard.
I typically schedule atleast 2 days infront and do adjustments on the go. Everything is kept scheduled - sleeping, working, school, going out. It became something common for me to skip some classes, due the need to be available on the computer (As it is my last year, the subjects I study are IT and Maths, the other once are less important). I carry my laptop with me pretty much all the time, including 2 seperate usb 3g dongles. I usually sleep between 2:30AM and 7:30AM, turns out a person can live fairly well with 5 hours of sleep, just takes a lot of time to get used to and I am planning to push thsi a little bit fitehr the following week and see if I can take it. Having atleast a second staff member to help you out is a must in my eyes.
I can write much more about my daily routines and how I keep track on everything, however I doubt that anyone is interested, so I will save up some of my time.
Alexander
I completely understand what you're saying and that's exactly why I wouldn't want to OWN a hosting business. Business ethics is extremely important, even if you decide that owning a business isn't for you. You are responsible for not screwing your clients by turning off the server; I get this. I'm young, but I'm not stupid.
I've worked in hosting, but until I'm able to commit full-time to a owning/operating a hosting business or I'm able to hire someone who will, I would never attempt to start one.
That's what I was thinking.
This means web development, design and internet startups. And I've got school covered... I've already been accepted to my number 1 college.
Done, done and done.
No. Absolutely not. No one who's still in high school should be running a business, and definitely not a hosting business. Who's going to answer tickets while you're in class? What about when a server goes down (and a server WILL go down)? You on your smart phone? I bet your teachers will love that.
Absolutely yes. But not hosting, and probably not web development. Choose a field that is less time-sensitive. You don't want clients screaming at you while you're in class or asleep. You need to be able to work your business in your time.
So what kind of business fits that? Here's my idea for the high school & early-college business wannabees
Social Network Coordinator
Look at your local small business community -- the tourism & hospitality sector for example. Small motels, B&B's, restaurants, gift shops, etc. They have just a few employees, work hard, and might have a small website. Are they on facebook, have they tweeted lately, have they ever tried pinterest? You can do that, and much more.
Become the liaison between the local business and the Internet world. Get to know the local business, and then work to find innovative ways of representing them online. Take on a few clients and work at it. In your own time. All you need is a laptop and a connection. You never know where it might go.
As I said earlier, just learn some stuff usefull to whatever you want to do in the future. Learn to code some stuff, flip some domains, whatever. Those are things you can do in between school, homework, and before/after your REAL job (flipping burgers builds character).
If you've got spare time after all of that, and after hanging out with your buddies, then flip some domains, code some small sites and projects and stuff. You're not going to make better money than you would with a part time minimum wage job like all of your peers, though.
What kind of consulting?
You sound like me but two years older.
I think I've ruled out the possibility of starting a hosting business because of legal and time issues. I'd rather not have to wake up at 3:48 AM to deal with a network issue. Waiting until I have enough resources to let other people take care of those types of issues sounds like a good idea.
@alex_liquidhost
I sleep around 4 hours a night. It isn't hard. Just dont go from 8 to 4 within 1 night.
Yeah I have to agree with that, I was just kinda shocked at first at how young he actually was lol.
Nothing wrong with doing something you want to do, as long as you do it right. And if you fail at it, you have time to correct your mistakes and learn from them. (But at least offer a refund.. :P)
Go for it. I did.
If you're really entrepreneurial, you'll be compelled to start a company. I don't advise something as intensive as a hosting company though until either, 1) you can focus on it a lot more, 2) you have one or more partners who can help during hours you're not available.
Prioritise your education though.
You guys not heard of emails, not sure what disaster situations you are thinking of but our monitoring system emails/tickets the DC when a server goes down. Sometimes it's false other times not so false.
Sure, It's possible, I rely on someone else to be my taxi to datacenters these days but it's enjoyable (when things don't go south) and you can make a pretty penny or two.
Well currently I sleep roughly 5 hours and will try to push that to 4:30
No, but mostly because of what it seems to do to market value, time and time again. If you have mom and dad backing your business exploits up, and if you're not running the business to pay your own bills, you're much more likely to have bad business practices and to artificially lower market standards. I can think of a few exceptions, but they kept this one rule in mind: it sounds greedy, but you should only run a business if you're doing it for the money. You shouldn't run a business just because you're bored. That's what XBOX is for. Running a business should not be viewed as a simulation or a game or just "something cool" to do.
You ARE stupid:
If your RAID array somehow crashes and some dumb*ss enterprise (not likely to be your client but it's certainly possible) sues you for the data loss... You hang, you are responsible.
If a pedo decides to put child porn on his shared hosting account, they will raid you, ask you a lot of questions and possible keep you responsible.. Oh and when your drives get raided you won't get them back, so a lot of people will lose their data, go back to scenario #1
Yeah that's always a concern. At this age, the least he could do is get an LLC so if shit does hit the fan, the most that could be taken are any business assets.
I agree with that.
That's certainly an interesting business concept and something that I'm willing to do. It would be cool to bundle a service like that with a website so I could be, as you said, "their liaison between the the local business and the Internet would." That would be the full package.
The problem I'm having is my ideas are too big to take on at this stage. I've saved those, of course, but it's ideas like your that I'm lacking. I guess I just have to think more.
That's the point where I'm at now... I just the "learning to code" part that's slowing me down.
I agree with the latter but definitely not the former. To be honest, I've been running businesses since I was six and I can't think of a better way to get good at what you do other than practice.
Not the case here, but in the Netherlands you get most privs that even enterprises have, age is irrelevant, you're just personally liable, that's the downside of all the legal goodies in NL :-(
I currently sleep 4 hours due to hosting. Feeling dead every dead. Oh don't worry. This is why someone else touches the servers. IPMI from Australia to East Coast USA is horrible.
Not sure how you guys only get 4 - 6 hours sleep, I think it's time to hire someone if it's getting that bad.
If I were to do it, I'd celebrate it. Embrace it. Here's why Robert impresses me...he makes no effort to hide it. The prevailing stereotype of a kid host is usually one who hides behind a fake professionalism and tries to avoid the question.
I'd have my parents and family assist in marketing. I'd have their testimonials on the website. Approach is everything.
Agree and there are a lot of voluenteers in this industry.
@Jacob You sleep more? What the heck. I'll tell you how I do it...red bull and ritalin.
@BronzeByte Volunteers are unpaid and have no accountability. Arguably illegal.
How much of those do you pop up per 24 hours?