AP 0833: I’m 11. Can I Start a Business?

AskPat 833 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey everybody, Pat Flynn here. Welcome to Episode 833 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. We have a great question today from eleven year old, Maya. But before we get to her question, I do want to thank today's sponsor which is FreshBooks.

A company that's helping me with managing my books. That's keeping track of my income, my expenses, which they can do automatically actually. Also with invoicing, I've been doing a lot of invoicing lately. If you bill anybody for anything and you need a software that makes it easy for you in less than thirty seconds, you can create a professional looking invoice, and helps you keep track of who paid, who didn't, and even who opened those invoices or not. I highly recommend checking out FreshBooks. Head on over to FreshBooks.com/askpat and make sure you enter “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us” section.

All right, now here's today's question from Maya.

Maya: Hi, I'm Maya. My mom is from Family Fun Twin Cities. I have a question. Can i start a small business if I'm eleven years old?

Pat Flynn: Hey Maya, thank you so much for the question today. I appreciate you, I appreciate your mom. I remember meeting you guys in Minnesota, actually, when I was there for the Leadpages event, Converted. That was last year. You guys are awesome, and I just love your energy. I love how you were sitting there listening to all of us in that coffee shop sharing each other's businesses and helping each other out. I hope you realize just how important it is to connect with other people who are awesome like you, who want to make things happen, and who want to make change in this world, and start something cool. I think that's really cool that you're starting at eleven.

I had mentioned earlier in an episode, I think it was episode 829 just four episodes ago, how jealous I was of Muj who came on who asked a question. He's a teenager. Well you're not even a teenager yet, and you're already thinking about this. Man, it's just so cool so I would encourage you to keep researching, keep asking questions. That's how I got to where I'm at today. I just asked a lot of questions to figure things out because instead of just kind of going in circles trying to find my way through, I figured out that I could actually learn from others who had done things already that I wanted to do. I don't have to tell you that because you already know, because you're asking questions here on Ask Pat. Congratulations, you're on the right path. Talked enough, let's answer your question.

Can you start a small business if you're eleven? Yes. Absolutely. Now you're going to need some help from mommy and daddy, in terms of legally getting it all set up and stuff. But even before that, I would actually just try things out. My son, he's seven. He's working on starting his own business, too. It's nothing quite big or serious that includes manufacturing or any of that stuff yet, but it could get to that point one day. But he also has seen me with the work that I do and the blog that I've built, and the following that I've had.

He's also getting a lot of inspiration from people on Youtube. There was a guy named Evan, who has EvanTube. If you look at that person up, he's a little bit older now, but he started when he was just a little boy as well. He just started building legos and just started being very open and honest about the LEGOs that he was reviewing. He's now since become a star. He goes to these conventions where other Youtube video people go, and it's just massive how big of a following he has, and people love him. My son loves watching his stuff. It's because he's very real, he's always himself. I would encourage you to be that way along the way, too. He's just incorporating what he loves to do and sharing it in a fun, exciting, interesting kind of way. I would recommend that you do the same thing.

Now all businesses solve problems, Maya. I would recommend that you go out there and look for a problem to solve. Now in terms of Evan, he's solving a problem of helping kids his age understand which toys are cool and which toys are not, because a lot of times we get these commercials that we see and we're not exactly sure how real or how fun those things are. He really just plays with them and shows people how fun things can be. Sometimes they're fun, sometimes maybe not as fun as you might think, but always very real and honest. Again, make sure you are always real and honest as you move forward. Also, don't be afraid to fail. I imagine Evan has tried many things and has failed. You know, each of his videos are edited, right? Meaning he probably messes up during them and that's okay. I mess up during my podcasts too. I actually had to restart this one a couple times because the first time I sneezed, but I didn't hear that. The second time I forgot some words that I was going to say, so I started over.

You can do the same thing with your businesses, too. If you start something and it doesn't go the way as planned, that's actually a good thing. It's good because you figured out a way that didn't work. Next time you can try something a little bit different. If you were to fail and just give up and say, “You know what? I guess I'm not good enough for starting a business.” Well, then you're not because people who give up they're not qualified to become entrepreneurs and business owners. That's the first rule of being an entrepreneur. You always get up and keep going when you fail. When you get up, you learn from your mistakes and you incorporate what you learned into the next part of your journey there. The question that you have, “Can you start a small business if you're eleven?” Well the question I have for you is, are you ready to build something and potentially see it not work? Are you ready to learn? Are you ready to have fun? Are you ready to solve problems? If the answers to the questions are yes, then absolutely you can build a small business if you are eleven.

Age is just a number, Maya, and you are qualified just as anybody else to start something, to try, to experiment, and to put something out there in this world to help people and to potentially get something in return for that. Maya, I would encourage you to just keep going. I look forward to meeting you again in person at some point, and I hope by then you will have listened to this episode, and hopefully it's been helpful to you.

Say hi to mom from me, and I appreciate you both. I look forward to sending you an Ask Pat T-shirt. Typically when we have kids come on the show, I will offer a shirt not just for them but for their parent as well. Maya, I'm going to send you a email or actually my assistant Jessica will, and we'll hook you up with a T-shirt for you and your mom as well. Thank you again for the question, and for being brave, and for putting yourself out there, and for continually trying things. Just keep doing that. You rock. Thank you.

Now for anybody else out there who has a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page. Yeah. Thank you so much and thanks again to Fresh Books for being awesome and supporting the show. You can check them out for 30 days for free by going to FreshBooks.com/askpat.

Then finally here's a quote to finish off the day by Beverly Sills. That is, “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.”

All right, take care and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.