Does fixing electronics sound daunting? This 16 year old made $24,000 in a single summer fixing broken iPhones!  There are lots of great resources online to learn the skills you'll need to start this business.  While there are paid classes you can take online you might be better off just using free resources.  YouTube has many videos to get you going in the right direction. And, a site like iFixit.com has awesome tutorials for each individual fix project. Whether it is a cracked screen or a dead battery or a broken home button, iFixit probably has a video tutorial for it!

This is a great business idea for kids who like to work with their hands.  Check out these outdoor patio tables that a 12 year old entrepreneur was building and selling. These sold for $70 and cost $30 in materials. Also, the Ana White website that gives very thorough plans for building all sorts of furniture.  These range from a simple farmhouse kitchen table (which could be built for $50 and sold for $200) to solid truss kitchen table that retails on Restoration Hardware for over $3000.  They have all sorts of furniture (not just tables).  Look through the plans to find projects that 1) have low difficulty & 2) high markup so you can make good profit margins.  Sell locally on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.

A subscription box is delivered to a customer each month with a specific type of product in it.  The customer pays a monthly fee for the subscription and gets "surprised" by what is in the box each month.  There are limitless product themes you could use to create a subscription box.  Here are some interesting ones.
   Bath Blessing Box
   My Garden Box
   Coffee & Book Club
   Standard Dispatch
You can use a platform like CrateJoy.com to setup this business. They provide you the tools to setup a page for your subscription box very easily and also provide you with an instant audience who can purchase your box.

Did you know that Etsy has a digital downloads section? You can make printable Bible verses or quotes that people can download and print at home. These usually sell for around $5 each, but it is a great business venture because it is 100% profit.  And, your additional cost to produce another unit for sale is zero.  Check out a few of these versions Psalm 23:
   Digital Download #1
   Digital Download #2
   Digital Download #3
If you have an eye for typography or design and can put together nice looking or creative prints this is a great way generate a recurring revenue stream.

Only a few tools are needed to get started crafting leather.  And, you can make some amazing products out of leather.  Check out this intro video to leathercrafting (this guy is enthusiastic!). For some inspiration, check out these kids who ran a Kickstarter project and raised almost $2000 selling leather goods they were making! Once you've made some products you can sell them directly through your own website or using a platform like Etsy.  Etsy is a great site that allows small businesses to get off the ground with almost no startup costs and provides an instant market.

Go to thrift stores or yard sales and look to buy old picture frames that you can restore. You can easily finish these in rustic (shabby chic) style and resell them at a big profit.  You might pay $1-2 for a frame and resell it for $10-25.  The skills needed to do this project are pretty basic and can be learned from just watching YouTube videos. The startup cost is also very low. Once you've refinished some frames you can sell them on Etsy, through your own website, or even locally at a farmer's market or in consignment shops.

Honestly, this is one skill that I think every entrepreneur should learn.  In my own entrepreneurial ventures, one of the biggest pain points in almost every project is the coding.  This is something you can hire people for and outsource. But, hiring good developers is very expensive.  And, if you choose instead to hire less qualified, cheaper coders it can waste a lot of time on the project.  Learning coding is a double-win because you 1) can code your own entrepreneurial projects & 2) you can use your skills to make $100+ an hour by offering your services to others.  There are so many different options for leaning coding...some paid, some free.  One great program is called Codecademy Codecademy.  If this is a road you are going to go down, you'll want to do some research about what language you should learn to match the goals you have.

Imagine you had an email list of 10,000 people that were passionate about a specific topic like golf, or watch collection, or camping/hiking. And, imagine that they were happy for you to send them emails offering deals on products they were interested in.  This would be a REALLY valuable list!  You could charge a fee to companies trying to send email blasts to this group.  The idea maybe be very simple but the revenue potential is super high.  Go ahead and build an email list of avid golfers, or watch collectors, or travel enthusiasts, or horse owners, or backpacking enthusiasts, or...you get the idea.  People will be willing to give you their email address if you offer them discounts on the kinds of products they are already looking to purchase.  Once your list is built sufficiently, you can charge for sending email blasts with deals to the members. 

Note: This was the exact model I used to build my last business BackerClub. Within 2 years of starting the business, I was able to generate over $500K annually in profit with a list of just 10,000 members. I go into a lot of detail on this idea and how exactly to start this business in the course.

The above idea for using a platform like Cratejoy to start a subscription box business is great.  BUT, don't you wish you had been the one who had come up with the idea to create the Cratejoy platform?  Cratejoy makes millions of dollars (every month) by simply providing a platform for sellers who want to make subscription boxes with buyers who want to buy subscription boxes.  We discussed this concept in detail in the Seeing a World of Opportunities course. Flippa.com is another example of a platform business.  Flippa simply connects sellers who want to sell a website with buyers who want to buy a website.  The website itself does very little other than make connections between two parties who want to find each other.  And, they make tens of millions of dollars doing it!  Creating a platform is one of the most powerful types of businesses.  And, often platform businesses can be fairly simple ideas. Platforms take time to build, so as a young person, you have a great advantage over many other people in starting a platform.

Most of us use pens we get at Walmart for less than a dollar. But, some people get really into pens and spend $20, $50 or even $100 or more on a single pen. And, there are some absolutely beautiful pens out there crafted from wood. Check out some of these from a recent pen projects on Kickstarter. These pens are turned on a wood lathe and have a really good profit margin. And, don’t think that this is something that is beyond your ability to learn. Here is an inspiring video of 4 brothers ages 13, 14, 16 & 17, who started a first class business making some incredible pens. They sell their pens directly through their website and they go for anywhere between $45 and $500 per pen. Pretty impressive!

Do you have a green thumb and some space in your yard to make a garden? Why not grow flowers to sell at a local farmers market?  Or, if you are more ambitious, you can build a small greenhouse to extend your growing season. There are some YouTube videos showing how to make a DIY greenhouse for under $50. Once you've grown your flowers, rent a booth at a local farmers market during the summer and sell them in bunches.  Here are 10 of the most profitable cut flowers to grow and sell.

Looking for something unique to do for your business? How about offering voiceover talent as a freelancer? If you are a strong reader and have a voice people find pleasant to listen to (or unique) then voiceover freelance work might be a great opportunity for you.  You can use a platform like Fiverr.com to setup a profile and offer your services. There are lots of opportunities for young people to read scripts for commercials, audiobooks, animations and a lot more. The money you make per hour is very good, and once you establish yourself with some positive reviews you'll be able to charge a premium for your services. Having a good quality mic will be the key in this. You can pick up a good quality mic setup for under $200 on Amazon. Then, you'll want to record a demo of yourself reading a number of different types of scripts so that prospective clients can get a good feel for your range.

There are a number of ways to make a profit by keeping bees whether you are selling honey, selling the bee's wax (or using the wax to create various products yourself such as lip balm and candles) or by offering commercial pollination services to farms.  Starting this business will cost about $500 and the basic skills can be learned fairly quickly.  Here is a fun video from an 11 year old girl who had a passion for bees and used that love to get herself successfully funded through SharkTank. There are lots of YouTube videos you can watch to learn about starting to keep bees. And, most areas have local bee keeping organizations you can join to get lots of support.

Not every idea needs to be a brand new unique business. Lots of people have started brands that sell bath products like soaps, bath salts, bath bombs and lotions. But, this doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity here. Like some of the other ideas we’ve discussed there are a number of different avenues for selling your branded products. You can try selling directly through a website, or a platform like Etsy. A subscription box through CrateJoy would be another great option. Or, talking with local shops and seeing if they will sell your products is another avenue to consider. One thing to really give some careful thought to with this idea is how you are going to set your brand apart from others. Selling locally can have some big advantages because it allows you to brand as a local hand-made operation. You could also focus on a niche like using natural ingredients. And, you'll want to pay a lot of attention to the packaging as that will have a tremendous impact on the price you can charge and your success.

While this is one of the most common and simplest businesses you can start as a young person, it doesn't mean you shouldn't give it some serious consideration. In fact, young people who take a lawn mowing business seriously can end up making very good money. It also has some advantages of fitting your summer schedule since lawn mowing is a seasonal job.  To get started make a flier (or grab one from a template website like this) and then knock on doors in your neighborhood to get your first customers.  With a mower, weed eater, and gas can you can get started pretty easily.  If you want to expand your business and don't drive yet, you can even build a trailer to haul your equipment! You can start asking your customers to give you referrals once you've established yourself.

Buying old furniture at thrift stores or yard sales and then restoring them can be a great business for a young person. Check out some of these transformations:
   Restored Furniture #1
   Restored Furniture #2
   Restored Furniture #3
Some important tips. Make sure you buy quality furniture. This usually means solid wood typically (not particle board). Photography is really important. You'll get a lot higher price with crisp, professional, well-lit photos. You can sell your furniture on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or Etsy (if they aren't too big and awkward to ship). Or, you could contact local consignment shops and sell through them.

Are you a natural on the piano (or some other instrument)?  Do you enjoy being creative in your performance?  There are a number of YouTube channels that get millions of views by those who have mastered the art of entertaining an audience with their creative presentations of familiar songs in new arrangements.  They make money through selling sheet music of their arrangements, giving lessons, taking donations and of course advertising.  You'll get paid about $3000 per million views of your video on YouTube. Here are some interesting examples:
   Jarrod Radnich
   Jacob Koller
   40 Fingers
   Jonny May
   David Hicken
This is a great option for using your musical skills in a unique and fun way.

Have you ever noticed just how many books there are in your local thrift stores? And have you noticed how few people are shopping in those sections?  Well, believe it or not, there is a very viable business opportunity here.  You can make a lot of money buying and reselling books if you are armed with the right information.  Not every book in a thrift store is going to be worth re-selling.  In fact, most books probably won't be.  But, if you know which books to pick, you can plan on making $10, $20 or even $50+ per book that you purchase!  Simply download the app called Barcode Scanner for Amazon.  Then, visit your local thrift store (or go to yard sales) and scan the bar codes on the books you think might be valuable.  Often hardback books and textbooks are the most likely suspects to have a higher resale price.  You'll be able to quickly determine how much profit you can make on each book and fill your shopping cart.  Then, resell these books on Amazon (or eBay). There are examples of people who make thousands of dollars a month doing this full-time for their business.

Check out the full course...
8 Lessons.
5 Business ideas per lesson.
40 Total amazing business ideas!

➢ Thorough video explanations of each idea.
➢ Step by step guide for how to start your business.
➢ Forum access to interact with the instructor and other young entrepreneurs.

3 Other Exciting Courses:
Starting a business is exciting...AND daunting! These other foundational courses teach some key concepts about entrepreneurship so be sure not to miss them!