Your Young Entrepreneur

Help Your Child Start a Business

By Kendeyl Johansen

At age 13, Microsoft mogul Bill Gates started programming computers. Now he's one of the richest individuals in the world, and Microsoft employs more than 32,000 people.

Does your child yearn to start a business? Kids don't have to flip burgers for someone else or wait until age 16 to earn extra spending money. Even preteen entrepreneurs can work for themselves.

"My friends and I were bored with watching TV and wanted to make some extra money," says 12-year-old Carrisa Barcon of Arizona. Barcon started a babysitting club with five friends.

Eleven-year-old Jacob McLaws of Utah wanted to save up money for a California surfing trip, so he opened a weeding business. "Jacob was weeding for me one day and he said, 'I bet people would pay me to do this,'" says his mother, Chris McLaws. "I agreed." She's proud of her son's initiative but wasn't surprised that he wanted to start his own business. "Jacob's dad is always thinking up new things to do," she says. "My husband started his own Internet company last year so Jacob was familiar with this."

How can you help your child decide which business to start? "Look around and find something your kid likes to do," Barcon says. "My friends and I like kids and we had free time so we decided on a babysitting business." Some ideas for young entrepreneurs are:

• babysitting
• weeding
• lawn care
• raking leaves
• tutoring
• pet-walking or washing
• newspaper delivery
• snow shoveling
• car washing
• doggie duty (cleaning up waste)

Seventeen-year-old Michael Stahl mowed lawns before opening a dot.com business. "I [decided to] start ... an employment Web site for high school and college students, with a focus not only on finding students jobs but educating them about the hiring process and being extremely community-oriented," he says. His Web site evolved into the 4Teens Network LLC, with multiple educationally-focused Web sites.

How did Stahl come up with his business idea? "There is a 10 percent unemployment rate for youth and that number climbs to 29 percent for black youth," he says. "Students need a simple, convenient outlet to find employment. We provide that."

To spark a business idea for your child, look around and spot a need in your community like Stahl did, or sit down and discuss your child's likes and dislikes.

Want to see more?

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• Girl Power: Raising Smart, Bold Girls
• Talk about it!