7 Things Every Teen Entrepreneur Needs To Know

Nowadays there are a lot of young entrepreneurs out there of which only a few manage to reach the absolute top. But what is the key to their success? We’ve asked 17 years old teen Entrepreneur Matthijs Otterloo from The Netherlands to share his secrets and tips on how to get successful at such a young age. Before we dive into his suggestions let’s give you some more information about Matthijs, he’s currently 17 years old and has already sold his first start-up when he was only 15 years old Cycleswap for an undisclosed amount. Right now he’s active as a freelance web/app developer where he’s working with the biggest companies in the world, and he's recently been working on some websites such as Skweezer.

1. Don't start your own company for the title of 'entrepreneur.'

Over the last year I've seen a lot of teens start their own company so that they could tell the world they're an entrepreneur and have their Instagram bio mention they're the CEO of their one-person company, or they're a 'serial entrepreneur' without even knowing what this is. Just the title and the interesting story shouldn't be the reason for you to start a company, I know it's exciting but make sure you have a good goal in mind so you can go for it the full 100%.

2. Focus on the rewards

Building a successful business takes time, you might not start earning your first money right away, and in the beginning, it might be difficult finding customers or clients for your business, but this is what entrepreneurship is all about. It's all about having the patience and persistence, and only this will get you to your goal.

3. Don't focus on the already successful markets

I know it's tempting to build/sell something based on an already successful concept/product, but this is often where things go wrong. Since more people will think in a way like you, there'll be more people working on an 'improved' or 'different' version. Sometimes this will work, but unless it's a huge difference, it isn't worth focussing on a product like this.

4. Base your next product on a daily issue

The products that will often sell best are the products that solve an issue you're experiencing on a daily base, and you'll likely not be the only one having this issue which is why building a resolution for this will result in more people being interested in your product. This is how most of the nowadays huge products have started, so it's been proven to be an effective strategy.

5. Ignore the haters

Something that I've noticed since I started doing this is the people who'll hate you, those people are often just jealous and are wondering how you can be this 'successful' at such a young age. Those people are often frustrated since they're often older than you're and are jealous of your success. They'll try whatever they can to make you feel insecure and hope that you'll react to that. Ignore those people!

6. Don't let your age be an issue

I've often seen people on social media complaining about companies not taking them seriously due to their young age or people working at a low hourly rate due to companies not willing to pay them more due to their young age. This is a huge issue, and people think they should pay you less since earning that 50 - 200$ an hour is too much since you're so young and that hourly rate of 15$ will already be way more than people of your age usually earn. They're right, it's way more than people of your age will earn but if you can deliver the same quality or a close to the same quality as someone who's 30+ years old, why should you be paid less? Make sure you won't be underpaid.

7. Don't work for free

Okay, this last one might be something that will speak for itself, but it's something I see on social media quite often, people who're looking for a designer or developer, but they have no budget to hire someone. "Our work assignment would be good for your portfolio!", Don't fall for this trap! Good quality work comes with a price, of course, you'll have to build up your portfolio, but you shouldn't do this by working for free. Instead, offer the client a discounted rate in which case you'll end up being underpaid, but you'll still get a project to work on you can mention in your portfolio, and you have a reward after you finish your work.

Those are the seven things every teen entrepreneur needs to know according to Matthijs. People can find him on social media on Instagram instagram.com/Matthijs and Twitter twitter.com/matthijs_soest where we've seen him posting content of his business trips as well as updates related to new projects he's working on. We're excited for what's to come for Matthijs!