Dear Ney Ney,
Now that you know a little bit more about how you might start a business, let’s talk about some specific types of businesses that you might want to and be able to start. Like I said before, people either start businesses that are well understood and needed by customers, or come up with a new idea and try to convince people their idea is a good one.
Traditional businesses.
To pick what kind of traditional business you want to start you need to think about three factors: what skills do you have, what do you enjoy doing, and what is your availability.
Start with what skills you already have. Can you bake? Are you able to sweep, rake leaves, and pull leaves. Are you good with dogs and cats? Can you build a website? Next think about what you enjoy doing. Are you more than capable of raking leaves but don’t like being out in the cold? Maybe a lawn care business is not for you. Finally, how available are you? Can you get to meetings with customers? Can you walk a dog 5 days a week before school, or are you only able to commit to working on your business during the weekend?
Here are a few traditional business ideas that are worth considering:
Lawn and yard care, bakingcustom cakes or cookies, dog walking, website design, babysitting, jewelry design, clothing or t-shirt design, and car washing and detailing.
Start Up Businesses
Startups are not easy. It takes a lot of hard work and grit, plus a little luck, to bring your idea to life and have it be a success. Why? Because many people do not like change, and you are trying to convince people, often many people, to change how they work or spend their free time.
I can’t give you a good idea for a startup because that is part of the challenge, but I can give you the following tips that I hope help you if you decide you want to start a start up.
Startup Tips
The idea is not the most important part, you and whoever you work with are. If you have the best idea in the world, but you can’t build it, then it doesn’t matter how good the idea is. If you can’t build it, share the idea with people who can help you build it.
Focus on software or similar technology, not hardware. Software are the programs that you use on computers or phones, hardware is the computer or phone itself. When you build software you can more easily make many versions of it to test, and you can update it easily in the future to improve it or fix any mistakes.
Learn to code. Learning to program is the surest way to be able to build something. There are plenty of business skills to learn, too.
Start a “normal” software or website business, then as you do work for customers you will learn what their real problems are and what you can make to fix them. This may be the best way to come up with a startup idea.
No matter what kind of business you decide to start, pick one that you think will be enjoyable, you think you will be able to commit to working on for a long time, and one you think will challenge you and keep you learning new skills.
I love you.
Dad
