Billionaire Mark Cuban was only 12 years old when he started his first side business and knew the steps to take to begin the company at such an early age.
And he suggests there’s a single thing you must think about before trying it.
“The key to starting a business when you’re young is doing things that you can do yourself — things you can do with your own time,” Cuban recently addressed an audience of teenagers who attend Lewisville High School, Texas.
It’s about starting by establishing what you already know the most, he said.
“If it’s a product, do something easy for you to get and easy for you to sell,” Cuban added: “It comes down to one aspect. The most successful businesses are ones you can control and manage yourself. Entrepreneurship is what it is all about.”
Cuban famously had an early beginning in his own business when he was an early teen, selling garbage bags from door to door in the Pittsburgh suburb. Then, he began selling various collectables from baseball cards to stamps and coins and claimed that the money paid for college tuition.
In all of these cases, Cuban used household items and other collectables that were easily accessible to children and sold them at a profit, following his advice to teenagers of today.
Similarly, he was an undergraduate student working as a bartender and teaching dancing lessons to earn cash. Cuban later showcased his dancing skills in public by being a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2007 and finishing 8th on the show.
“I used to be a hustler… We always sold. There was always something happening. That was my way of life,” Cuban said during an episode on ABC’s “Shark Tank.”
Today, Cuban says he regularly encourages teens and kids looking to create their businesses to follow the same things he did. Create around “something they can make or a service they can offer to friends, family and neighbours,” Cuban told CNBC Make It in September.
It’s easier said than done. Of course, successfully creating and growing your own business can be difficult. Around 20% of all new companies fail within one year after their launch, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Being an entrepreneur and starting a business doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, and all of a sudden you make a lot of money,” Cuban explained to high school students of Lewisville High School. “Being an entrepreneur is the harder way.”
If it was that easy, he stated, “you all would already be doing it and coming on ‘Shark Tank’ and taking my place.”
Controlling something and managing yourself is difficult enough. Making it great and this, in turn, is Cuba’s number. #1 rule to make money is much more difficult.
It is a process of thoroughly researching your business plan and competition, identifying financing, and developing backup plans to provide flexibility should you need to alter your schedule to changes in the future, as the billionaire has said previously.
Cuban told the high school students if they’re willing to put in this effort, especially when they’ve chosen their business idea, the world of possibilities could be opened up to them.
“If you’re willing to take the initiative and start a business, anything is possible,” he added.
