My entrepreneurial journey started before I was a teen – at age 12. I went door-to-door selling newspaper subscriptions to my neighbors for $6 a month. As a teenager, I continued the newspaper collections and delivery, but picked up a few lawn mowing jobs at age 13. Back then, I didn’t think of myself as an entrepreneur. I was just trying things, making a little money, and figuring stuff out.
Looking back, there are a few things I wish someone had told me earlier.
So, since you are a teenager starting your journey, here’s some wisdom to pass along as you prepare for the exciting adventure of entrepreneurship.
Whether you are flipping products online, offering a local service, or exploring what your future could look like, I want to help you start this adventure with your eyes wide open.
I won’t make you read forever. You’ve got things to do, ideas to test, and maybe a business to build, right?
Let’s get into it.
1. Entrepreneurship Is Hard
I Wish Someone Had Told Me It Would Be Hard – So I Wasn’t Easily Discouraged.
Sure, entrepreneurship comes with some incredible days, unforgettable experiences, unexpected blessings, and moments when you laugh so hard you can barely breathe. Sometimes it’s because something went really well, and sometimes it’s because something went completely wrong.
But there will also be seasons—not just days—that are emotionally, physically, and even spiritually tough.
Building a business will test you in ways you might not expect heading into this as a teenager. It can bring your biggest insecurities, weaknesses, and fears to the surface… but that’s not a bad thing.
Exposing weaknesses is simply how we learn to build strength.
One minute, you’re the business owner. The next, you’re the salesperson, marketer, customer service rep, product creator, social media manager, spreadsheet expert, and the person paying the bills.
Trying to do all those things can wear you down. Maybe it won’t happen as a teen, but inevitably as you continue on your journey, getting the balance right between your “on” and “off” switch will help reduce the wear and tear on your life. Sometimes, you won’t even know which part of running your business is draining your energy or making you question your dream.
Time and Task: You’ll quickly discover that managing your time and deciding what matters most are two of your biggest challenges. If you don’t learn how to handle them, they can affect both your peace of mind and your business.
Since you’re just starting, I can’t fully prepare you for what the hard parts will feel like. You’ll have to experience some of them for yourself and figure out how to work through them.
So why am I starting by telling you it’s going to be hard?
I want you to be ready with the right support and mindset.
Build Your Support System Before You Need It
I could have built a stronger support system before things got tough instead of waiting until I was already struggling.
You can also learn to handle your insecurities better by working on your own emotional maturity. That means having real friends, seeking advice from wise people, finding people you can be honest with, and learning to recognize that who you are today is shaped by the choices you made yesterday, and who you become tomorrow will be shaped by the choices you make today.
Entrepreneurship will reveal your deepest insecurities, but it can develop your greatest strengths.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Yeah, but my journey won’t be that hard. I’m going to be smart about how I do things.”
And you should be! Make wise decisions, think ahead, and learn from other people.
But being smart doesn’t mean you’ll avoid every hard season.
I’ve been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years, and based on my own experiences and the stories of other entrepreneurs I’ve learned from, read about, and talked to, I can tell you this: your journey will have hard parts.
But those hard seasons can also help you grow as a person if you don’t try to handle everything alone.
Working harder and pushing yourself even more isn’t always the answer when things get tough. Sometimes, the healthier response is to ask honest questions about what you can handle, recognize where you need help, and learn to ask for it.
You Don’t Have to Do It All Alone
You’ve probably heard the saying, “You can do hard things.”
I believe that’s true. But in entrepreneurship, it often becomes, “You can do hard things with the help of other people.”
Letting others speak into your life and learning to listen to their advice can improve your mental health, help your spiritual life grow, and make even the physically exhausting parts of running a business more manageable.
Yes, even if your business is designing websites, sitting at a computer all day can wear you out!
You don’t have to be a lone warrior. Learning to ask for help is part of the journey.
2. Success Isn’t All About You
Pride Can Sneak Up on You
The second thing I wish I had known when I started was how easy it would be to take all the credit for my own success.
Old-fashioned pride.
That’s the problem.
Pride comes before a fall. It always has, and it always will.
When you succeed at something, it’s rarely because of you alone. A lot of people and circumstances usually play a part in helping you get there.
Think about all the people behind your product, your idea, or your business. Marcus Lemonis talks about the Three P’s: people, process, and product. When you look at your own growth and success through that lens, you’ll probably discover a much longer list of influences than you expected.
Maybe it was a parent who encouraged you, a friend who gave you advice, someone who introduced you to the right person, an unexpected opportunity, or a major change in your life.
(In my case, it was even a sudden job loss. And one of my failed ideas ended up playing a role, too.)
When we celebrate success as if it were all the result of our own hard work and brilliance, we forget the people who sacrificed for us, took a chance on us, believed in us, opened doors for us, and helped us get where we are as a teenager or an adult.
You Never Really Arrive
And that brings me to a word that has tripped me up more than once: arrived.
We like to think that one day we’ll finally make it. We’ll hit our goal, build the business, earn the money, or reach the level of success we’ve been chasing. Then we’ll be able to say, “I’ve arrived!”
But I’ve learned that this idea of arriving at some final destination is a myth.
We never really arrive. We keep moving.
And the choices we make determine our direction: forward or backward.
I once founded a nonprofit that grew quickly. We made exciting music videos, more students started enrolling, and artists were working together in schools.
It was exciting to see what was happening, and I was tempted to take the credit for it all.
Actually, I did take the credit.
It took a humbling moment for me to realize that the growth wasn’t the result of my ideas, effort, or vision alone.
And I wish I could tell you that I learned that lesson once and never struggled with it again. But that wouldn’t be honest.
I still have to watch out for pride and its tempting promise: that I earned all the praise I receive and deserve the credit for everything that goes well.
The truth is that God’s favor in my life, even when I’ve made mistakes, and His kindness in guiding me to “lie down in green pastures,” as Psalm 23 describes, are examples of His goodness—not proof of my own brilliance.
That’s why I believe it’s important to practice humility.
Did I just lose you? Lol. Teenagers aren’t always described as the most humble people.
But maybe you need a better definition to consider:
Humility means recognizing that your abilities and talents are gifts that you can’t take the credit for. They’re things you’ve been given and have the opportunity to develop, use, and take care of during the time you have in this life.
Humility is quiet confidence in who you are regardless of what you are doing.
If that got a little deep, hang with me for one more thought.
Your Teen Startup Does Not Define Who You Are
Your success doesn’t define you, and neither does your failure.
Your identity isn’t determined by whether you hit your goal, made your first sale, grew your business, or watched an idea fall apart.
It’s about who you are beyond your business. Identity is a tough thing for teens – because there are so many voices speaking to you, about you, and shaping your goals.
My advice is to be careful to not take the credit for your successes. And don’t let your failures convince you that you’ve become a failure as a person.
You will experience both successes and setbacks as an entrepreneur. Learning to stay confident in who you are through the highs and lows is part of growing up and building a business.
You can celebrate a win without thinking you’re better than everyone else. And you can learn from a loss without deciding you’re not good enough.
3. The Journey Is the Reward
Focus on the Journey, Not Just the Destination In Mind.
The third thing I wish someone had told me early on is that the journey is the reward.
It’s worth asking yourself whether you’re excited about the journey itself, not just what you hope to get out of it.
Because the journey is what will shape you especially since you are starting as a teenager, and it will become part of your story, and influence the person you grow into.
The lessons you learn, the people you meet, the mistakes you make, and the experiences you have along the way will become part of who you are for the rest of your life.
You might have entrepreneurial friends or mentors who talk about finding an “off switch” and learning to create boundaries between business and the rest of life.
You might also hear people celebrate the idea of being an entrepreneur who is always working, always chasing the next opportunity, and always switched on.
But I’m here to tell you that your entrepreneurial journey shouldn’t be an always-on experience.
The reward of entrepreneurship isn’t constantly searching for the next big idea or opportunity.
It’s also learning how to make space in your life as a busy teenager, but also learning to be fully present with the people you love and hang out with, and enjoy the moment you’re living in right now.
There Is No Final Destination
Early in my journey, I’d make plans and projections for my business ideas and tell myself, “If I ever achieve that, I’ll be able to relax and just enjoy life!”
But as I reached those goals, one after another, I realized there wasn’t some final destination that would tell me I’d officially made it.
Instead, I began to see that the lessons I was learning along the way were a big part of what kept me excited to get up and keep going.
If you think making a million dollars will be the thing that finally makes you happy, you may discover that your satisfaction can’t be measured by a number. Crazy, right? As a teen, that probably sounds like an amazing amount of money.
But money never made anyone happy.
(It can make things easier, but just as quickly make things difficult.)
Even if your goal is to have more control over your time and freedom to do what matters to you, a big part of the reward will be what you learn along the way.
When you stop learning, life can start to feel less exciting, and the adventure of entrepreneurship can lose some of its shine.
Make the Most of Your Teenager Entrepreneurial Journey
When you look back on your teen chapter of your journey, I hope you’ll see more than just the money you made or the business you built.
I hope you’ll remember the laughs, the experiences, the people, and the moments that helped shape your character—including the difficult seasons and the things that didn’t work out.
Maybe you’ll stick with your first business for five years. Maybe you’ll build something for a decade. Or maybe you’ll change your idea ten times before finding something that feels right for you.
Whatever happens, I encourage you to think carefully about both the costs and the rewards of becoming an entrepreneur.
Then take the best next step for your journey.
You don’t have to have your whole future figured out today. No teen ever knows what tomorrow will bring.
You just have to be willing to learn, make thoughtful choices, and keep growing along the way.
I hope our paths cross somewhere on the journey and I am humbled that you are considering making Teen Launchers part of your story.
— Justin Rule, Founder of TEEN LAUNCHERS
