How to Build a Business Without Going BROKE | Evan's Strategy for Young Entrepreneurs

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's video, I'm going to answer a question from one of my readers on YouTube, so that's one of our YouTube video watchers, who is a 16-year-old boy from Ireland who was thinking of starting his own business and wanted my help in coming up with some ideas for how he could launch his company. He's thinking of something potentially in the schools or the local stores, and he also lives next to a successful lorry delivery service, and he's wondering if he can propose any ideas to help him grow his business as well. So, great questions. Whenever I'm talking to new entrepreneurs and helping them figure out what business to start, I always encourage them to think about something they're really passionate about, excited about, something that gets you motivated and excited, and something where you think you can add a lot of value and have an impact when you're working with your customers. So running a business isn't just about making money, although we want to make money, but it's about adding value and really trying to be significant to your customers. And if you're adding a ton of value and you're being significant and you're having an impact on their lives, then the money is going to follow, they're going to keep you around. So that's the first thing. So figure out what it is that you're really good at, where you think you can add value and help your customers. The next thing, you've talked about selling into your schools or selling to businesses, and it's important to figure out if you want to be a business-to-consumer type of model where you're selling to your students students and classmates, or if you want to be a business-to-business type of model and sell to local entrepreneurs who might be able to value your services. When you're starting up, I think it's a lot easier to start a business-to-business type of service than business-to-consumer for a couple of reasons. One, if you are having a meaningful impact on somebody's business, they're going to want to keep you around, and they're making money from it, so they're going to want to keep making sure you're delivering that product or service because they're benefiting from it. Where consumers, often the price tag is a lot lower, so a business who's making money from you is going to be able to afford your services, where consumers, if you're selling to students, they may not have a lot of money, it could be hard to build up a business unless you have a ton of students who are buying from you. And consumers can also be fickle, so they might like you today and not like you tomorrow, and then you've got to start all over again from scratch. So it's not that you can't start a consumer facing business, it's just a lot more difficult. So again, tap into what you think you can add a lot of value to and try to build your business around that. The third part you're asking about the successful lorry delivery service guy who's next to you and what you might be able to offer him. And there's a great opportunity for a lot of young entrepreneurs who might be more tech savvy and online savvy to partner up with established entrepreneurs who might need help on those online marketing tactics. So I know you're one of my YouTube video watchers, so maybe there's a way you can use YouTube to help him grow his business. Maybe you can film intros of him or film what he does in his business or marketing campaign and put that on YouTube so he can help promote his business. Maybe you can help with his website or do some other online marketing with Twitter or Facebook. A lot of the established entrepreneurs, they know about YouTube, they know about Twitter and Facebook, but they don't really know what to do about it. So as a young entrepreneur, it could be an opportunity to come in and show them how it works. Also, you get some valuable, you know, education as you work through that process. Hopefully it can work out for that one client and you can go find other clients to start working with after you've successfully proved it with the first one. So hopefully that helps. If you have other questions, please leave a comment below. I'd also love to hear everybody else's thoughts and feedback if you want to leave a comment. And please give the video a thumbs up if you liked it, and we'll stay tuned for the next episode.