Hearth of the Business: Begin with your self

Hearth of the Business:

Begin with your self

Intelligence + Interest = Idea

(purpose) + (Passion) = (Perfect Plan)

Begin with “I” to end up with the perfect “I”. What is your intelligence? What is your interest? These are what will lead you to your idea.

The entrepreneur is the heart of the business. No other person will drive the business and be responsible for its success and failures. A “venture” is always an “adventure,” so encourage your child to go into something that he loves to do or is good at.

“Begin with yourself” is the first advice that a parent can give a young entrepreneur who is thinking of starting a business. Here are some question that you may want to go through with your child:

1. What activities do you love doing and find easy to do? What topic interest you when you read newspapers, books and magazine, and when you surf the internet
2. What personal achievements do you people usually praise you for?
3. What skills and competencies have your educational background, job exposure and training courses given you?
4. What do you easily learn? What is difficult for you to learn?
5. What kind of person are you? Do you like working with people or prefer being alone? Are you the “big thinker” type or do you prefer the nitty gritty details? Do you usually follow a logical and rational way of arriving at decisions, or do you put more emphasis on the people or relationship aspect of a decision? Do you explore many possibilities before deciding, or do you tend to focus on few thins you can make a judgement on?
6. What are your innate intelligences? Are you good at number and logic? Do you have good language skills? How are your musical abilities? Do you function well in physical pursuits like sports? How are your spatial aptitudes? Do you posses interpersonal skills? How are your spatial aptitudes? Do you posses interpersonal skill? How about intrapersonal skills?
7. What things make you happy? And energizes you? What pursuits drive you to work very hard?

When speak to teenagers on entrepreneurship, I encourage them to think of something that they would gladly do for free. Some people start a business based on a perceived need in the market. That is an important thing to consider but can you imagine starting a business that you do not like?

Some examples of possible business ventures to explore based on intelligence and interest:

You are Interested in…	You can explore business ventures in…
Sewing	Fashion
Cooking	Baking, food kiosks, food delivery, restaurant etc.
Computers	Computer programming, computer repair, graphic art
Crafts	T shirt business, handcrafted jewelry, accessories, bags
Sport	Training
Talking to people	Selling, retailing, wholesaling, networking

Cool Shade by Cool Guys

Every year, our MI youth entrepreneurs come up with a business they want to try out in the real market. One group was having a difficult time because the members felt that they were not good at making products. They felt that their best asset was being “cool” and “good looking”(note: the boys looked like teen actors). While other groups were slaving away to create products, the boys said that the product they were most interested in were shades (sunglasses). Since they could not make their won shades, they propose buying from a wholesaler, repackaging the product to make it look “cool”, then selling it. Interesting enough, they were the first boys to sell all their products. The success? They modeled their shades. They make use of their good looks and charm, and got their swooning clients to buy their product. The added bonus was that they agreed to have pictures taken with their costumers.

Lessons from youth entrepreneurs:

1. Your business should be interesting to you.
2. Do not go into a business you are not good at (i.e. crafts making); make your business maximize your assets.
3. Buy low, sell high.(i.e. wholesales to retail)
4. know your market.
5. enjoy yourself! It’s contagious and people want to buy what is “cool”