Starting a business as a high school student is not only an incredible way to create a stream of income for your personal expenses, but it can also heavily help you stand out to colleges when your time to apply rolls around.
Starting a business demonstrates skills such as creative thinking and entrepreneurship. However, it can be the hardest part; you may find yourself thinking, what products or services should I offer? How can I grow my business and attract customers? This Simple Studies article will outline how to get started and how to grow!
First, brainstorm some ideas regarding what you can do to make some money. It could be something you enjoy doing on the daily, such as making crafts (if that’s your thing), making phone cases, and painting portraits.
You could also turn chores into a business. Maybe you have grown up being in charge of walking the family dogs or cleaning the house. You could potentially turn these chores into businesses like dog-walking and house cleaning. Figure out what you would enjoy doing, assess the need for that product or service, and proceed with the idea!
Starting a business is bound to have at least some costs associated with it. Some businesses, like ones that revolve around handmade objects, may require more money being put forth towards production necessities. Other businesses may not require any costs on your part. Sit down and think about how much money you are able to contribute towards the startup of your business.
Furthermore, think about how much money you would need to make in order to cover the costs associated with your startup/production costs. An important business feature known as break-even analysis can help you better understand how long it may take to make profits and simply how much attention would be required from potential customers to help you make money.
Think about which groups of people are bound to be most interested in your product or service. For example, if you are making trendy phone cases that are seemingly popular among young adults, your target audience could be teens.
If you specialize in house cleaning or mowing lawns or watering yards, your target audience may be older people who are looking to hire someone to do those tasks in order to clear up some of their time for other things. Assessing your target audience is important for growing your business and spreading the word to the correct groups of potential customers, which we will talk about in the next section.
In order to start seeing your work pay off, you need word of your business to reach the proper audiences. Referring back to the previous section, it’s important to know your target audience to be able to essentially advertise your offerings in the correct places.
For example, we established that a possible target audience for trendy phone cases are teenagers. Currently, a lot of teens turn to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram to get their desired entertainment. So, it may be a good idea to create a TikTok or Instagram account for your business so that there is a likelihood of your offerings reaching people that may be interested!
If you are offering services like house cleaning or lawn mowing, posting in area Facebook groups or even your neighborhood GroupMe (or something similar) can be great ways to start spreading the word to the correct audience.
Amazing results will not come overnight, so it’s important to remember to trust the process and keep working hard even if you aren’t seeing your desired results right away. Don’t give up, you got this!
