Owning a successful business as a teenager is not an easy dream to pursue. A business’s core components must consist of stable service and/or a variety of products to provide for consumers.  As a teenager, one can only imagine how much more work and thought must be put into every decision that is made.  

Our school has a few young entrepreneurs of its own. From a student who paints on shoes to an aspiring nail technician, students Coral Peters and Samantha Simpson run successful teen businesses allowing them to let their creative side shine. 

“I have always liked to paint and be creative so one day when I saw Vans was having a contest for who could paint their shoes the coolest, I wanted to try! I started off not really knowing what I was doing but I had so much fun thinking of designs and cool ideas to paint. I entered the contest and ended up not winning but I didn’t mind because I had so much fun doing it. My sister then asked if I would paint hers too and I posted it on my Instagram story. People then started reaching out to me asking if I would paint their shoes and I was able to try painting a ton of different things,” senior Coral Peters said.

When starting a business from scratch, investments must be made.  Finding time to run a business especially considering school hours and homework can be difficult, but it can also be very rewarding.

“I saved my money up from my last job and invested into all the products I knew needed to make the nails long lasting and pretty such as the different stickers and gemstones.  Also, I made my schedule open so I could get more clientele because I knew having a more open schedule would attract more people to want to get their nails done,” senior Samantha Simpson said.

To start your own business, there are a few small details you must think of beforehand. Peters offers her perspective on what makes a business successful.

“I would definitely recommend anyone wanting to start their own business to just commit and do it! It will be so worth it, even if it seems difficult to get it started, it is so rewarding!  Some tips I would give is to start by getting a good portion of materials needed to start up and just get creative!  Promote your stuff through social media and have fun with it! Once you start getting sales make sure to use some of that money and set it aside to buy supplies,” Peters said.

Marketing and budgeting are also big components to a successful business. A business needs advertising in order to be discovered by the public, but while your business grows ensuring that you know how to spend money will determine which direction your business will go in.

“I would say just save up money to invest into your business because you can do what you set your mind to, but you need to make sure you’re prepared for what it takes to create the business itself, which most of the time is money. Also stay consistent and make sure if you put your business on social media to ask your friends to repost it so you can get as much [traction] as possible to keep the business moving,” Simpson said.

Finding a passion is already a miraculous discovery within itself, but finding a passion that can be profitable is like finding a pot of gold. A passion is something that you enjoy doing, something that makes you happy; to be happy while finding a passion that leads yourself on a road to success can be a difficult but rewarding experience. 

¨If you are given the opportunity to turn a passion into a business, then take it!  You won’t regret it,” Peters said.