Evan Carmichael argues age is not the barrier to starting a business; mindset is. He launched his own company at 19 and says the real challenge is differentiation, not youth. He advises founders to identify what they stand for and build a movement around their brand, not just copy what everyone else sells.
Chapters
Are you too young to start a business? It's a question that came in from Manon, who's one of my YouTube viewers. I hope I pronounced that properly. And the answer is no. With, with power, it's no. You're never too young to start a company. You can get started right now. The only thing that's going to hold you back is do you believe that you're too young? Because if you believe that you are too young to start a business, then it doesn't matter what tips, practical advice I give you, nothing's gonna work out because you don't believe that you're gonna make it. So that's what you gotta change. You have to change your mindset to start. So Manny wrote on to say, you know, I'm 18 years old, I want to start in the fashion business, and here's what's more troubling: there are so many other clothes stores that will sell the same kind of products as I would like to sell. Does that make it a bad idea? The problem here is not your age. The problem here is what you're selling. If everybody else is selling the same thing, then you're not gonna have success. You have to be different. If you're making your own stuff, or if you're importing some other people's stuff, or repping somebody else, it's gotta be different. If you look at the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, all of them are different. You may not agree with what they do, but they stand for something. And their products and their services mean something. That's what you need to do with your company. If everybody else is already selling the same stuff, you are not going to have success. Move to something else. That's the, the easiest way to get started and the mistake that most entrepreneurs make. So this is a challenge that you have to overcome. It's easy to say, hey, I want to start a fashion business and go find, you know, tons of different clothes that everybody else is selling, put them in a store, an online store. That's not going to sell. The harder work is really identifying what it is that you stand for. What do you believe in? What's the impact that you want to make? And it comes from here, comes from you as a person. What do you personally want to do? And that gets reflected in everything that you do. In your clothing, in how you set up your shop, everything in your personal life, it, it's all related. What is it that you stand for? What is the mark that you want to leave? Start there and then start to apply it to the products that you make or you sell. Do these products match up with what you believe in or not? So you're not just selling clothes anymore, you're part of a movement. You've created something that people can attach to. Now you become a lot more powerful. Believe that you can do it, and it has nothing to do with your age. You say you're 18, I had my first I started my real business when I was 19. And I was selling to companies, and I was selling to people who were 3 times my age, who had PhDs. And I was afraid at the start. I had a great product, I had a great team, but I didn't make sales at the beginning because I didn't believe that I was able to do it. I believed I had a great product, but my limiting belief was that I was too young. And once I got over that, once I realized, hey, this is something that can really help these guys, then they didn't care and they bought. Once I let go of that belief, I was able to make sales. And it applies for any limiting personal belief. It's not just, are you too young? It could be, are you too old? If you believe you're too old, you're not going to be successful. If you have a belief that because you're a woman, you're not going to be successful. If you believe that because you're an immigrant, you're not going to be successful. Because you have an accent, you're not going to be successful. None of that matters. It's only in your head. If you believe that you can have success, then you can have success and you'll find a way to do it. Belief. For those of you watching, you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. Makes me wanna do more for you. And I wanna know what you have to think. Do you like this video? Leave a comment. For those of you who are stalkers, who just watch all the videos but don't say anything, this is your chance. Leave a comment below, please. I wanna know what you have to think. And if you have a question, leave it below too. I'll make a video response for you. Thank you guys, I'll see you soon.
