Home business ideas
May
23
Top 10 Dorm Room Entrepreneurs
College students are often stereo typed as many things, but business owners are not usually one of them. However, more and more young entrepreneurs are making it big thanks to the internet and modern technology. Dell and Facebook are well known dorm room start-ups, but can you guess the other eight? Here they are:
FedEx – Fred Smith, – outlined the idea in a paper he wrote for an economics class (read his interview at http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/smi0int-1)
WordPress - Matt Mullenweb, at 19 at the University of Houston
Napster - Sean Fanning, , a freshman at Boston’s Northeastern University
Dell – Michael Dell, started PC Limited at age 19 out of his dorm in University of Texas, Austin.
Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg developed Facebook originally for his fellow students at Harvard. It now has over 400 million users. One of the best stories on the development of Facebook can be found at: http://mashable.com/2006/08/25/facebook-profile/
Inogen – Allison Perry, -result of a business school competition at the University of CA, Santa Barbara. Read her interview and how she raised 55 million in venture capital-all out of a desire to find better medical care for her grandma. http://www.cklin.org/index.php/interviews/entrepreneur-profile-alison-perry-of-inogen-how-to-raise-55-million-at-age-25/
Shoeboxed – Taylor Mingos realized his Duke University dorm room dream and now runs his million dollar company (Shoebox scans and organizes receipts for businesses)
Biz Chairs – Sean Belnick actually formulated the idea at only 14 years old, after selling Pokemon cards on Ebay for awhile. With $100 for web hosting and $500 for advertising, he ran Biz Chairs from his room as a 20 yr old freshman at Emory University. 2009 reports revenues of over $25 million for his company.
Google – Sergey Brin and Larry Page birthed the seed of Google while working on the Stanford Digital Library Project while Stanford University PhD students. The original domain was: google.stanford.edu.
Plaxo – started by Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring when Ring was working on his master’s degree .
College Hunks Hauling Junk – University student Omar Soliman and his buddies from high school set out to earn extra money for summer vacation. During his senior year of college, Omar entered his business plan into the Rothschild Entrepreneurship Competition. Out of nearly 150 entries, Omar’s entry won first prize and $10,000.
Well, I didn’t even mention 2 of the most famous, Microsoft and Apple, but everyone has heard those a million times. So why do you think college is such fertile ground for startups?
May
13
Young Entrepreneur, Millionaire at 12 Years Old
Maddie Bradshaw had started middle school and wanted some magnets for her new locker, but found nothing that she really liked. She decided to create some of her own from some bottle cap tops from her uncle’s old fashioned Coke machine. Her friends loved them, and the rest is history. Now they are not only locker magnets, but Maddie and her friends loved them so much they made them into jewelry. Now worn by celebrities such as Abigail Breslin and Brenda Song (from the Disney Channel), she has an entire page of her website devoted to the famous stars that love her creations. See that page here:
http://www.m3girldesigns.com/celeb-buzz/
With $300 of her own money, Maddie’s SNAP CAPS® have turned M3 Girl Designs into a national brand, selling 50,000 necklaces per month in less than two year’s time. Now 13, her 9 year old sister Margot is Vice President of M2 Girl Designs and Assistant Designer. Inspired by her sister, Margot has designed several successful lines of SNAP CAPS® of her own, geared more towards her younger age group.
Maddie is also currently working on her first book. It is an inspirational compilation of stories, inventive business ideas and marketing tools for kids with entrepreneurial spirit and big imagination. We look forward to reading that, don’t we?
I know Maddie isn’t a homeschool student, but she is a great example of how a simple idea can become a business for anyone. If your child has an idea they have created and their friends love it too, you may well have something to pursue. Watch the video above to hear how they took the idea from inspiration to prosperity-while giving God the glory. This video was made at the beginning of their success, stating their income at $100,000. The most recent video shot in December of 2009 states it at over 3 million! The video below gives some good entrepreneurial advice to a young business class that Maddie had taken just 2 years before!
Apr
22
Business Ideas For Kids
The theory is great – teach your kids the basics of business, along with integrity in the marketplace, Christian principles and make some money in the process by starting a home business. You solve the time issue by making it a part of their school. Great. So what business should they start?
Stereotype jobs for teens like lawn care and babysitting are time-honored options. However, I frequently receive emails from rural families that don’t live very close to enough potential clients to make a business profitable. It’s difficult when transportation is required to effectively run the ‘home’ business and drivers and vehicles are in short supply.
One of the factors we **use in our curriculum** to decide on the best home business for your personal situation is what you have to work with. Be it money, equipment, transportation, skills, or time, you have to decide what will work for your family. Here are a few ideas to consider:
Fat Brain Coffee
Fat Brain Coffee is a business and a curriculum in one. For $68 you receive a 3-ring notebook with the basics of what you need to know to run your coffee & tea business. You also receive a supply of (Starbuck’s quality) coffee that you can put your own label on or use Fat Brain’s label. It’s designed for ages 8 and up. Scripts of exactly what to say are even included, and all the forms you will need. This is one of the simplest ‘business in a box’ setups that I’ve seen. I does require an element of transportation, but marketing can be done at homeschool and church events, or by email.
Find out more at: Fat Brain Coffee
Grow Something
On a farm or in a rural area with a little extra land, there are a number of things that kids could grow. Fresh herbs, bedding plants, worms, chicks, you name it. Farmer’s Markets are always a great place to sell such items, and you don’t have to limit yourself to only one. Find all the farmer’s markets in your area at http://www.localharvest.org/. You can also see how entrepreneurial growers have turned their home-grown products into different items like jams, birdhouses and more. Listing your item on the Local Harvest website is always an option, too!
Bake Something
Once again, we’re in that gray area of needing transportation, but if you set one day a week as your baking day and make it the day before a weekly outing you normally take, you can make it work. If your homeschool group or church group meets once a week you can deliver the fresh baked goods that day. Be sure to attach a price list/order form and your phone number on each delivery. Offer a free item to your customer if they refer a friend to you and they purchase something.
Blogging
This isn’t always a fast way to earn money, but some have done very well with blogging. Those that don’t see how you can make an income from blogging haven’t heard of Google Adsense. Google Adsense are those little ads that are found on websites and blogs. When you get distracted and click on one that looks interesting, the owner of the account makes some money. Now, you do have to be 18 to start an Adsense account, so parents of minors are required to obtain the account. You will also want to be sure that their friends understand that they can’t click their friend into riches because Google is quick to expel abusers (even if the owner isn’t aware) and there is no coming back.
Depending on the subject you choose to blog about, there are other ways to make money also. That’s another ebook. Blogging can be an extremely educational project, giving practice in writing, grammar, graphic design, marketing and more. One of the few ways anyone can start a business with $0 and end up a millionaire, it’s easy to learn, but complicated to master. So, why not start today? Free blogs can be set up immediately at WordPress.com, Blogger.com and HomeschoolBlogger.com.
Of course, there are dozens of other ways a kid can earn money and learn the way of an entrepreneur. What are some ways you (or your kids) have earned money?
**Our curriculum is Entrepreneurship 101 also known as The 9 Week Homeschool Entrepreneur. See details at http://homeschool-entrepreneur.com/entrepreneur_course.html
Comment link is currently at the TOP of this blog (sorry, hopefully will change that soon!)
Apr
12
Bring Lemonade Day To Your City!
“I love lemonade!” is the anthem you’ll hear on Lemonade Day in 12 U.S. cities. It’s a day this year where 100,000 youth entrepreneurs will burst forth onto neighborhood sidewalks, golf courses, parks and anywhere customers will reach for a glass of the fresh-squeezed thirst quencher.
Through Lemonade Day, youth ages 3 to 18 start their own lemonade business and learn everything they need to know to become a successful entrepreneur.
With a fistful of cash in hand when all is said and done, kids choose to spend a little, save a little and share a little with charities of their choice. Last year, out of $2 million earned, youth gave half-a-million dollars b
ack into the community.
For Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, it’s a fun way to earn their entrepreneur’s merit badge in addition to making money for a good cause.
Lemonade Day is on track to reach 1 million youth in 100 cities by 2013.
To help a child register, visit www.LemonadeDay.org.
Want to bring Lemonade Day to your city? Call (713) 626-KIDS
This guest post was written by Sheena T Abraham “Director of Buzz” Holthouse Foundation for Kids
Watch the Lemonade Day Video in the right column for more info!
Welcome to Homeschool Entrepreneur!
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