This is the third question on the Junior Achievement’s list of 20 questions to answer before starting your business. We are not going to talk about brick and mortar businesses in this article. That is a very complicated topic and it is highly unlikely that those of you reading this book will either be considering that or be well served by any summary I could provide here. We are focusing on service and online businesses.
The best way we can consider answers to this question is to look at a few examples. We can start with the most obvious and quickest ways for a teenager to start a business, which is to have a service business within your community.
Yard Maintenance. Will you just be mowing lawns or will you trim hedges 
and do weeding? Will you water and spread grass seeds in season? Will you plant and manage a garden and will that be just plants and flowers or include vegetables as well? Will you sweep the driveway, rake the leaves, use a leaf blower?
A lot of this will depend on the equipment you have or that they have on hand to do the job with. If you have money to purchase your own equipment in the beginning, you can offer more services. As you begin to earn money, you can invest in more equipment and grow a very nice professional yard maintenance business.
Pet Sitting. Will you be available to pet sit by staying overnight at your 
client’s home while they are out of town or will you take their pet to your home? Will you just stop by at certain times of the day to feed, water and clean up? If you take the pet home, you might need a puppy gate to contain the animal if the client doesn’t have one you can bring home with you. Will you give the pet a bath before the owner returns home? Or will you just be walking dogs for people while they are away for the day?
There are options that you need to consider and some of the services you offer, like taking the pet home or staying at the client’s house might depend on what your parents will allow. If you have a car, you could take pets to the vet and the groomer for your clients.
So many decisions to make based on what is available to you and what your skills are. There are other variables as well. I live in a semi-rural area of ranches. Our local journal has a classified section for teen workers. The service businesses they provide include exercising horses, mucking stalls, grooming and feeding. If a person has horses, they have all the equipment needed to do the job and you just have to show up and do the work.
In a future lesson we will take a look at more Service Based businesses that you can start and/or use to earn money to finance another business that requires more startup funds.
In Part II of this topic in tomorrow’s post we will look at the kinds of internet business models you can consider.
If you need help answering any of these questions, you should have the Get Stuff Done Tool. It will help you get your thoughts organized. Just leave your name and email in the sign in box on the upper right hand side of the page and get organized.
