Beware of Hackers. Why the blatant warning? I read a news story that I thought deserved some attention. A money making internet wiz kid named Zach Gosling from Denver, Pennsylvania, built a website at 13 years old that basically would have given Ebay a run for it's money. The auction based website called Gozbay.com was supported by advertising and sponsorships rather than the ridiculous fees charged by Ebay and big auction sites.
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You try, try, and try again but none of your attempts to build a successful start-up seem to work. So what are you doing wrong? The first thing you SHOULD NOT do is doubt your skills as a young entrepreneur. You've taken a risk to create a useful product or service that will reward you financially long before you reach retirement age at 65. Most people spend their entire lives avoiding healthy risk because of seven fears, but fear of failure being the main one, so they never see success or wealth at an early age. Also if you are like most young entrepreneurs, you tend to get a lot of negative feedback from people who don't understand what you're doing. Usually your main critics tend to be family members who often say "you need to find a job" or "you need to stay in college and get a degree." While nothing's wrong with finding a job or aiming for a college degree, neither one of those paths generally work for young people with dreams of building their own successful business.
How do you teach students to become entrepreneurs, honestly you can't, there's no real proven classroom entrepreneur 101. But you can show them ways to tap into their raw hustling or natural marketing smarts to build something valuable. Here's an idea, if you are enrolled in a high school for example that teaches marketing, and you need to raise funds for a trip or awards simply start a store.
If writing on your own website is your hobby and passion, that's all good, but if you live in Philly (Philadelphia), you might have to fork over $300 to the local government to keep your online hustle going. Let me make that clearer. If you have a blog or website with paid advertising on it that generates any amount of income, Philadelphia might charge you a $300 city business license to keep making that pocket change.
Business internships are great to have under your belt especially as a recent business grad desperate for some work experience, but sometimes you get ahead of yourself and accept the first one that comes your way. You spend quality time getting to work on time, impressing the boss with running simple office errands, and photocopying your day away. But is this what you actually dreamed about doing at your business internship? I doubt it. So how do you survive the day to day grind of a lackluster, not so challenging, and just plain dull business internship?
I'll never forget my first job in high school. I was a delivery boy for a new deli in downtown Paterson, New Jersey in the early 1990's. We didn't have the internet, social networking, or any of today's cool techie stuff, so finding a summer job was one of the best ways to keep busy. I won't lie, it was my most memorable job because it was my first, but it was also the crappiest job I ever had. It slowly went from delivering food to doing physically dirty jobs. I was 15 years old, just got my working papers and was really syked about working for some money.
You don't need to go to college to become a successful entrepreneur, there's no arguing that most business millionaire success stories don't come from college graduates, but those who dropped out or never went to college at all. Learning to become an entrepreneur starts with working with or watching others who've built successful products and services. The smallest hustle or hobby backed by a determined person can grow into six figure thousands or multi-million dollar empires right from an internet enabled PC or home garage. These success stories have become very common in the Millenium Generation, those born in the late 1980's and early 1990's.
Sometimes you have a great money making idea while in college, but not quite sure which direction to take it. Sometimes you have a college friend or roommate who share your passion for that idea, and sometimes you think partnering with that person is a great business move. After all, you trust this person, they're a friend so you shake hands and agree to get your hustle going.




