Young Business Network

PART1

I started my business at 13 years old and im only 20 years old now and going strong, There has been lots of ups and down, but it all comes with the job. Sit back and enjoy the journey. My story is about how I got to where I am now, where I want to go in life. Also how I want to help others like me that are young entrepreneurs.

As a young business owner sometimes you might have questions and can’t find the answers. The more that join the more I will help you with networking and running a business. I will be uploading my journey as a post in small articles. I hope you follow me to the end.

If you can take something out of my journey, and find answers to something that bugging you. Thants great im glad to help.

I started in business at very young. I was in year 8 at school and around 13 years old. I was given $3 for lunch each day from my mum. On my way to the bus stop in the morning I would drop into the corner store, and use my lunch money to buy lollypops for 5 cents each. At school I would sell them to kids for $1 and $2 to make a huge profit!!!

I would always reinvest my money the next day and buy more lollypop’s to provide for the huge demand at school.

Soon after, I managed to snag myself a job at the local fruit shop on the weekends. I was only washing their cars, rotating the fruit, and stacking boxes. I loved it! I negotiated my wage from a measly $5 up to $7.50 within the first two weeks. Every weekend I would wake up at 6.00am and have 2 pieces of toast, run outside, hop on my bike and ride down the fruit shop for a 6.30am start. Finished at 1:30pm, $52.50 for a 7 hour shift on Saturdays and Sundays at the age of 13! I was wrapped. I was the only kid at school that was working and that had money to do whatever I wanted!

Any of you really young entrepreneurs that are reading this trust me your NEVER TOO YOUNG to start making money! Don’t listen to the people that say; you can’t do that you’re too young. PROVE TO THEM YOU CAN. Make their negativity your fuel.

 I had just turn 14 years old and felt like I should be working during the week before and after school, whilst shopping with mum at the local Woolworth’s I thought I would ask the trolley boys about a job. Two weeks later I was the best and most reliable trolley boy in town. After a few weeks of taking the bus into town after school I found out that the people I was working for also clean some supermarkets of a night after they are closed. I jumped on that like a bull at a gate. By this stage I was going to school and doing about 12 hours between trolleys and cleaning. That was one sure way to get out of homework! This continued on until I was 16 and received my high school certificate and passed all of my subjects with not a single minute of study.

I started managing at a Kawasaki motorbike shop in my town when things started to become clear to me. Cleaning supermarkets early in the morning, managing a motorbike shop from 9 till 5 during the day, and a concierge at night at a 4 star guest house. Yeah sure I was making stacks of money but I was trading 10, 15 sometimes 20 hours a day for my hard earned cash. All still at the tender age of 17 I had saved up about $20,000. Not bad for a kid.

Feel free to make any comments on Part1. Part2 will be posted in the next week.
This article was written by Luke from www.youngbusinessnetwork.com.au 

PART2

Danny, a mortgage broker came out to my house to sign me up for a loan to buy my first property. Danny was thankfully a really helpful, honest and upfront guy and later that week told me that I was approved to borrow $250,000 to purchase a property. Danny advised me that this was not a good decision as properties a hard to turn to cash quickly if I need the money for a business and showed me his share portfolio. I was so interested I couldn’t wait to start.

After spending hours researching stocks, shares and currencies I brought my first batch of shares. Much to my surprise the GFC hit in 2007 and I lost my shares and quite a bit of money. I jump back on my horse and studied harder and harder than I ever have before. I started to gradually make a profit and make my money back. I made a $14,000 profit on a single trade!!!

After the first year it felt like I was hit by a freight train. I realized I’m going to be working like this for the rest of my life. Just like my parents, who was working around the clock to put food on the table for my brother’s and I. This made my life as a kid difficult at home, they were always working, and I never knew any better I was just following in their footsteps.

Being a fully independent young teenager has its upside to it, I never had to ask for money ever I always had money on me and I would always shout my friend’s lunch and drinks while we were riding bikes, skateboards, rollerblades or motorbikes.

I paid cash for my first car, a Holden LX Torana. I also brought road bikes and dirt bikes which I brought cheap and sold for top dollar. My bedroom had a big T.V, playstation and stacks of games that I paid for from my hard earned money. I sold my Torana, got dreadlocks and pimped out a Toyota Hiace van, with 18inch chrome rims, a mattress in the back with a 7 inch screen, DVD player and two 12inch subs.

All of these things were great but I worked tremendously hard for these little toys of mine and I looked after them much more and much better than I would have if I was given hem buy my parents. With hard work comes great reward.

FROM THAT DAY ON I WAS NOT GOING TO BE LIKE THEM.

This was not going to be easy, and like many I had no clue where to start. Well that’s not entirely true, because the first thing I had to do was leave my jobs and leave them I did. I resigned from all 3 of my jobs and had a few days off from my hectic life.

MY LIFE WAS STARTING TO CHANGE.

Part3

One day I visited a girl that I recently started hanging out with and was going to be meeting her parents. They asked me what I do. I started to explain that I am soon going to be a young entrepreneur and buy my first business with the $20,000 that I saved over the years that I was working. THEY WERE IMPRESSED.

Her mum and dad were exactly what I was looking for, someone that has come from where I was and are already where I want to go. They were living in this great big house and living a semi retired, relaxed lifestyle. This is where I want to be when I’m 25 years old.

I WILL DO IT!

The first tip they gave me was a book. The following book was going to open up my small, undeveloped brain and help me see the world from where 3% of the world’s wealthy population sees it. I fully recommend that you read ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ by Robert kiyosaki. I can’t recommend the Rich Dad series enough if you want to be financially free.

Once I had read the whole series front to back numerous times I knew what my future was going to hold and that I should think about investing into a business.

Danny and I bounced back a few ideas of what type of business I might do, Danny mentioned that there was a mobile phone shop for sale in town and I knew that I could make this work. I dropped in to the phone shop on my way home and spoke to the owner. He was pretty keen to sell but had quite a large asking price, he wouldn’t move on the price, not even a dollar. I only had a budget of about $30,000 by this time after making some more money on the stock market. I kept looking until I could find something cheaper.

Days later my girlfriend’s dad was reading the paper and found this tiny little add.

Mobile Phone Shop For Sale
$30,000 please call.

This was bound to be my calling. At least I thought anyway. I called the owner in response to the ad in the newspaper and arranged a meeting at the shop to look at the shops financial figures for the previous 3 years of trading. The shop was just like I had imagined! It was a little run down and it had been running for the last 5 years, the financials all added up and I couldn’t wait to get started.

I decided to try to arrange a business loan for tax purposes so I wouldn’t have to use my own money. I was not able to get a business loan because I was TOO YOUNG, and had no assets. This meant nothing to me and found a way around it.

I applied for an unsecured personal loan and asked for the money from the bank to by a car and a computer. They were more than happy to lend me 100% to buy a car and a computer that will depreciate drastically, but wouldn’t lend me $1 for a business that would only appreciate in value for years to come. BANKS SUCK, I HATE THEM, that’s why you need to use them to your advantage.

Feel free to make any comments on Part3. Part4 will be posted in the next week.
This article was written by Luke from www.youngbusinessnetwork.com.au

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