How do I help my 15 year-old son start a business?
By Tim Berry •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Hello there, I am producing a instructional DVD for music instruction and I would like my son to manage the sales so he can start learning about business. How would I go about this? He lives in Kissimmee, FL and I live in New York City. He is an ace of a son and is doing phenomenal in school. I wish to help him out with my talent and have him earn the profits of my labor for his future college tuition. The DVD sales are estimated to bring in at least $70,000 in the first year and they will be done through the internet.Go slowly. Don't set your son up to fail. I'm wondering what "managing sales" means to you, when your business is selling through the internet. My business makes most of its sales over the internet and what matters is the quality of the website. We do have sales management now but we didn't until we were selling more than $5 million per year. What we did have was website, website code, database programming to link up to online credit card verification and the like.
You don't say whether your son is interested in the web, programming, or marketing over the web. If he is, then find a part of this he can do, and give him that. Find a smaller piece that can give him a much higher likelihood of success. He'll know when he succeeds, and he'll know too if he hasn't succeeded.
You don't say how advanced you are on this, but if you're at the beginning, then maybe you and your son can investigate turnkey website store sites like those at Yahoo, or other vendors, and you can give your son the task of getting that store site up and running--if he has that interest.
And finally, congratulations. You have a great attitude and you're on the right track. I speak from experience in this area: My son programmed the internet website that took us from $5,000 a month direct sales to more than $250,000 a month, but starting when he was an undergraduate in college. My daughter is CEO now, of a company that earns $10 million a year. But go slow. Give him a real chance to make real success at each step, and keep the steps small.
Tim
