I'm young (18) and don't know what business to start

[trulyandres]

Hello, Fastlaners! I've challenged myself to create a successful business within a year, or I'll fulfill my parents' wishes and go to college. Time is ticking. I understand that a "great idea" isn't nearly as important as execution, but I have some early experience that I think I can leverage to make some opportunities work better than others.
Here are my achievements:
1. I got 2.5 million views on a TikTok account I created to advertise a dropshipping website I made (I created around 100 videos)
2. I'm good at sales for my age and have "signed" a couple of people to a social media management service I was running
3. I'm good at making videos and editing them (both short and long videos) and can use Photoshop
4. I can make pretty decent websites on Shopify

If you have any idea of a place I can take my Fastlane journey to next, please help me out. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Andres

 

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[Aidan04]

Hello, Fastlaners! I've challenged myself to create a successful business within a year, or I'll fulfill my parents' wishes and go to college. Time is ticking. I understand that a "great idea" isn't nearly as important as execution, but I have some early experience that I think I can leverage to make some opportunities work better than others.
Here are my achievements:
1. I got 2.5 million views on a TikTok account I created to advertise a dropshipping website I made (I created around 100 videos)
2. I'm good at sales for my age and have "signed" a couple of people to a social media management service I was running
3. I'm good at making videos and editing them (both short and long videos) and can use Photoshop
4. I can make pretty decent websites on Shopify

If you have any idea of a place I can take my Fastlane journey to next, please help me out. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Andres

 

[Andy Black]

Hello, Fastlaners! I've challenged myself to create a successful business within a year, or I'll fulfill my parents' wishes and go to college. Time is ticking. I understand that a "great idea" isn't nearly as important as execution, but I have some early experience that I think I can leverage to make some opportunities work better than others.
Here are my achievements:
1. I got 2.5 million views on a TikTok account I created to advertise a dropshipping website I made (I created around 100 videos)
2. I'm good at sales for my age and have "signed" a couple of people to a social media management service I was running
3. I'm good at making videos and editing them (both short and long videos) and can use Photoshop
4. I can make pretty decent websites on Shopify

If you have any idea of a place I can take my Fastlane journey to next, please help me out. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Andres

Seems like you've a good skillet. What's made you money so far?

 

[trulyandres]

View attachment 52937

Yup couldn't agree more LMAO, I lasted a couple months before I couldn't take it anymore

 

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[trulyandres]

Seems like you've a good skillet. What's made you money so far?

So far, the dropshipping has made me a few hundred dollars. I had to offer my social media management service for free just to get my foot in the door, and I dropped out because the results I was bringing for my clients were less than I had promised.

I also made a couple of skillshare courses that make me a couple of bucks passively every month, but nothing crazy. I think they made me like 17 dollars altogether, total.

 

[StrikingViper69]

So far, the dropshipping has made me a few hundred dollars. I had to offer my social media management service for free just to get my foot in the door, and I dropped out because the results I was bringing for my clients were less than I had promised.

I also made a couple of skillshare courses that make me a couple of bucks passively every month, but nothing crazy. I think they made me like 17 dollars altogether, total.

Courses about what?

 

[trulyandres]

Courses about what?

I made one on "Monk Mode" (limiting distractions for productivity), one on making a good morning routine, and one on goal setting.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

I made one on "Monk Mode" (limiting distractions for productivity), one on making a good morning routine, and one on goal setting.

The first thing you need to do is stop making trash. None of those courses are going to provide any serious value to anyone.

There are a few other young people here doing service businesses, that's a great place to start. Pressure washing, lawn mowing, window cleaning. You can check out their progress threads. You'll learn some good skills and provide real value to people.

Or you could do something with the Shopify skills you have, assuming they're real skills and you're doing more than loading a template and adding a contact page.

Getting those views on TT is pretty impressive. Were the views not converting to sales? Could you run your best videos as ads on TT? Could you go into making videos for others? Can you take the products you did sell and improve them some way?

 

[trulyandres]

The first thing you need to do is stop making trash. None of those courses are going to provide any serious value to anyone.

There are a few other young people here doing service businesses, that's a great place to start. Pressure washing, lawn mowing, window cleaning. You can check out their progress threads. You'll learn some good skills and provide real value to people.

Or you could do something with the Shopify skills you have, assuming they're real skills and you're doing more than loading a template and adding a contact page.

Getting those views on TT is pretty impressive. Were the views not converting to sales? Could you run your best videos as ads on TT? Could you go into making videos for others? Can you take the products you did sell and improve them some way?

Thank you for being frank. I need honesty.

What do you think I can do with my Shopify skills? Should I try and dip my toes into website building for local businesses?

For TT, I had issues converting views into sales. About 1 in 1000 viewers became website visitors, and I had a poor dropshipping product, so I only had a 0.3% conversion rate despite having what I would consider a fairly decent website (especially for dropshipping standards). All together around 1 in 350,000 of the original viewers bought my product. I suppose I could run my best videos as ads, but I don't think they would be profitable, because my dropshipping margins were so poor.

I've thought about making videos for others, but the biggest issue is getting clients that sell online. TikToks are often viewed from all across the country, making the expense difficult to justify for businesses that operate on the local scale. However, paid TikTok ads can be targeted by location, so a possibility might be to create TikTok-optimized paid ads for these companies to run. Alternatively, I could also figure out how to get e-commerce clients to work for.

I've also thought about creating my own product to sell online and utilize my social media marketing skills, as the margins would be higher. I just don't know what I would sell.

Thank you for helping me out!

 

[Andy Black]

I made one on "Monk Mode" (limiting distractions for productivity), one on making a good morning routine, and one on goal setting.

Interesting. There seems to be search volume on Google for goal setting.

Try putting in a few searches and seeing what comes up. Maybe you can run an ad to a free lead magnet and get people onto some sort of newsletter and then upsell them the course?

Same for the other courses. Check demand on Google, and then supply.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

Thank you for being frank. I need honesty.

What do you think I can do with my Shopify skills? Should I try and dip my toes into website building for local businesses?

For TT, I had issues converting views into sales. About 1 in 1000 viewers became website visitors, and I had a poor dropshipping product, so I only had a 0.3% conversion rate despite having what I would consider a fairly decent website (especially for dropshipping standards). I suppose I could run my best videos as ads, but I don't think they would be profitable, because my dropshipping margins were so poor.

I've thought about making videos for others, but the biggest issue is getting clients that sell online. TikToks are often viewed from all across the country, making the expense difficult to justify for businesses that operate on the local scale. However, paid TikTok ads can be targeted by location, so a possibility might be to create TikTok-optimized paid ads for these companies to run. Alternatively, I could also figure out how to get e-commerce clients to work for.

I've also thought about creating my own product to sell online and utilize my social media marketing skills, as the margins would be higher. I just don't know what I would sell.

Thank you for helping me out!

We’re your views for a spread of products, or for a few or your products?

We’re you running the ads to a shopify product page, or a sales page?

If it was for one or two products, could you improve the product, make a proper sales page, make new videos and run those?

 

[trulyandres]

We’re your views for a spread of products, or for a few or your products?

We’re you running the ads to a shopify product page, or a sales page?

If it was for one or two products, could you improve the product, make a proper sales page, make new videos and run those?

1. Just one product

2. I linked my account straight to the product page, however, for a large portion of the views (around 1 million), I didn't have enough followers to satisfy TT's requirement of 1,000 followers before you can include a link in your bio. This could have potentially impacted the conversion rate pretty severely.

3. I think so. I need something with a higher profit to make it worth it. I wonder if I could create and sell niche-specific clothing or something like that which I can drop ship for better margins. Do you know a better way to source products? I'm only familiar with dropshipping from AliExpress, but I'm not opposed to holding stock or something like that if it helps my margins.

- I've thought about becoming an affiliate, which would help with conversion rates but also decrease my margins.
- I've thought about selling digital products, like e-books, but I don't know what I would sell

Thoughts?

 

[trulyandres]

Interesting. There seems to be search volume on Google for goal setting.

Try putting in a few searches and seeing what comes up. Maybe you can run an ad to a free lead magnet and get people onto some sort of newsletter and then upsell them the course?

Same for the other courses. Check demand on Google, and then supply.

View attachment 52938

I haven't thought of this. My only concern is that the majority of my audience so far for the courses are of people my age or younger (~16-18). Are email newsletters still effective with this demographic? I've seen some other people marketing to people my age try and get them to join a Discord server to claim the free lead magnet, where they would then be upsold. What are your thought on this?

 

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[StrikingViper69]

1. Just one product

2. I linked my account straight to the product page, however, for a large portion of the views (around 1 million), I didn't have enough followers to satisfy TT's requirement of 1,000 followers before you can include a link in your bio. This could have potentially impacted the conversion rate pretty severely.

3. I think so. I need something with a higher profit to make it worth it. I wonder if I could create and sell niche-specific clothing or something like that which I can drop ship for better margins. Do you know a better way to source products? I'm only familiar with dropshipping from AliExpress, but I'm not opposed to holding stock or something like that if it helps my margins.

- I've thought about becoming an affiliate, which would help with conversion rates but also decrease my margins.
- I've thought about selling digital products, like e-books, but I don't know what I would sell

Thoughts?

Ebooks, clothes; you’re trying to cut corners again.

Videos of one product got 2.5m views, focus on that.

Can you improve the design/functionality of the product? Take your best performing video and run it as an ad? TT will put links on ads. If you can improve the product and make it nicer, you can charge more.

You can probably improve sales by creating a dedicated sales page, so you get this:
Ad > sales page > checkout

If you want some info on sourcing, @Walter Hay has info on that in his posts. You can also google it and see what comes up. A day or two of googling about should help you find something.

 

[Ms0440]

Hello, Fastlaners! I've challenged myself to create a successful business within a year, or I'll fulfill my parents' wishes and go to college. Time is ticking. I understand that a "great idea" isn't nearly as important as execution, but I have some early experience that I think I can leverage to make some opportunities work better than others.
Here are my achievements:
1. I got 2.5 million views on a TikTok account I created to advertise a dropshipping website I made (I created around 100 videos)
2. I'm good at sales for my age and have "signed" a couple of people to a social media management service I was running
3. I'm good at making videos and editing them (both short and long videos) and can use Photoshop
4. I can make pretty decent websites on Shopify

If you have any idea of a place I can take my Fastlane journey to next, please help me out. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Andres

Hi, I recently turned 19 and I have your same problem, if you want to connect or just try to make it together dm me on Insta: @m_s_0440 (That's my second account) and we can talk there.

 

[Andy Black]

I haven't thought of this. My only concern is that the majority of my audience so far for the courses are of people my age or younger (~16-18). Are email newsletters still effective with this demographic? I've seen some other people marketing to people my age try and get them to join a Discord server to claim the free lead magnet, where they would then be upsold. What are your thought on this?

My thoughts would be to test and start as simple as possible.

 

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[trulyandres]

Ebooks, clothes; you’re trying to cut corners again.

Videos of one product got 2.5m views, focus on that.

Can you improve the design/functionality of the product? Take your best performing video and run it as an ad? TT will put links on ads. If you can improve the product and make it nicer, you can charge more.

You can probably improve sales by creating a dedicated sales page, so you get this:
Ad > sales page > checkout

If you want some info on sourcing, @Walter Hay has info on that in his posts. You can also google it and see what comes up. A day or two of googling about should help you find something.

I will give it another shot. Thank you

 

[trulyandres]

Hi, I recently turned 19 and I have your same problem, if you want to connect or just try to make it together dm me on Insta: @m_s_0440 (That's my second account) and we can talk there.

Sick, followed you (@trulyandresr)

 

[Aidan04]

Hi, I recently turned 19 and I have your same problem, if you want to connect or just try to make it together dm me on Insta: @m_s_0440 (That's my second account) and we can talk there.

@Spenny we need to set these kids right. We have dogs training dogs out here.

 

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[Ms0440]

@Spenny we need to set these kids right. We have dogs training dogs out here.

Bruh you are 19 too...

 

[Aidan04]

Bruh you are 19 too...

@Jrjohnny is 13. He is already ahead of you.

That's not my point though. Age isn't what matters, it's knowledge and experience.

When I said "dogs training dogs" it was a phrase meant to represent the fact that both of you are probably inexperienced, and networking with each other will only feed into your echo chamber. You need real help.

 

[Ms0440]

@Jrjohnny is 13. He is already ahead of you.

That's not my point though. Age isn't what matters, it's knowledge and experience.

When I said "dogs training dogs" it was a phrase meant to represent the fact that both of you are probably inexperienced, and networking with each other will only feed into your echo chamber. You need real help.

You don't even know me ahah. I just register to this server yesterday because I was interesting about another topic when i saw a 18 years old that ask questions about business, as I say, I'm 19 years old so I sent him my Instagram profile to talk with him about it, yes it's called networking, and you came out of nowhere and say "we need to set this kids right" like you are some sort of president, for my perspective it's much probably than the 18 and 19 years old that you called dogs become successful than someone with a star-ego that think that if you are a 13 years old and respond to 700 messages on a online forum it's something to be proud of.

 

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[trulyandres]

@Spenny we need to set these kids right. We have dogs training dogs out here.

@Jrjohnny is 13. He is already ahead of you.

That's not my point though. Age isn't what matters, it's knowledge and experience.

When I said "dogs training dogs" it was a phrase meant to represent the fact that both of you are probably inexperienced, and networking with each other will only feed into your echo chamber. You need real help.

I understand what you're saying here, but I think networking with people on the same level and learning from people with more experience both have their place. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is always a good thing.

For example, I'm more experienced in the gym than I am in business, but when I started, I didn't train every session with a pro bodybuilder. I trained with my equally inexperienced buddies. Over time, though, we got better together while also researching online weightlifting from people with more experience. If I had started my lifting journey by working out with Chris Bumstead every session, I might have picked up the wrong habits that I needed at that stage of my journey. I might have tried to lift too much weight, focus on more complicated movements when focusing on the basics is important in the beginning, etc.

I might very well be wrong because my business experience is limited and this comparison assumes that entrepreneurship and weightlifting journies are comparable. That being said, I disagree with the point that you should only ever network with people who know more than you.

 

[Aidan04]

I understand what you're saying here, but I think networking with people on the same level and learning from people with more experience both have their place. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is always a good thing.

For example, I'm more experienced in the gym than I am in business, but when I started, I didn't train every session with a pro bodybuilder. I trained with my equally inexperienced buddies. Over time, though, we got better together while also researching online weightlifting from people with more experience. If I had started my lifting journey by working out with Chris Bumstead every session, I might have picked up the wrong habits that I needed at that stage of my journey. I might have tried to lift too much weight, focus on more complicated movements when focusing on the basics is important in the beginning, etc.

I might very well be wrong because my business experience is limited and this comparison assumes that entrepreneurship and weightlifting journies are comparable. That being said, I disagree with the point that you should only ever network with people who know more than you.

I think my statement came off wrong, I'm more saying to just be careful who you network with, because they might feed into your ignorance.

But you're right in that regard, surrounding yourself with like-minded people in the same boat as you can be beneficial to both parties.

 

[Jrjohnny]

I understand what you're saying here, but I think networking with people on the same level and learning from people with more experience both have their place. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is always a good thing.

For example, I'm more experienced in the gym than I am in business, but when I started, I didn't train every session with a pro bodybuilder. I trained with my equally inexperienced buddies. Over time, though, we got better together while also researching online weightlifting from people with more experience. If I had started my lifting journey by working out with Chris Bumstead every session, I might have picked up the wrong habits that I needed at that stage of my journey. I might have tried to lift too much weight, focus on more complicated movements when focusing on the basics is important in the beginning, etc.

I might very well be wrong because my business experience is limited and this comparison assumes that entrepreneurship and weightlifting journies are comparable. That being said, I disagree with the point that you should only ever network with people who know more than you.

It always depends on the situation.

Weight lifting it’s best to have someone who’s relative to your level.

Business, it’s more lenient but the one non-negotiable factor is your skill sets.

If you have a business partner, and you both thrive in sales but lack in marketing, then you have a case of “I’be got the cure of cancer but can’t sell it”

Being on this forum is a good way to network.

You get business people who made millions, you’ve got others who are making millions, young and old. Experienced and non experienced.

You’ve got some experience. You’ve dipped your toes. Great! That’s better than 99% of forum users will ever do! Pat yourself on the back!

You know you can run a business. You have everything you need but just don’t know what business to do.

Instead of needing to focus on networking, go outside and talk to people.

People being the selfish people they are, will rant to you about their problems.

Then, you ask yourself. Can you execute this. If it’s very easy, depends. If it’s a hard no, find a way to.

The harder the better. Easier = worse.

for my perspective it's much probably than the 18 and 19 years old that you called dogs become successful than someone with a star-ego that think that if you are a 13 years old and respond to 700 messages on a online forum it's something to be proud of.

He pinged me, because I’m a good example.

For gosh sakes! I wanted to run a bakery when I joined the forum!

I changed alot, because of the variety of network on this forum.

One thing I say to you: I’m not at 700 posts at the time of writing this So your WRONG

 

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[Ms0440]

It always depends on the situation.

Weight lifting it’s best to have someone who’s relative to your level.

Business, it’s more lenient but the one non-negotiable factor is your skill sets.

If you have a business partner, and you both thrive in sales but lack in marketing, then you have a case of “I’be got the cure of cancer but can’t sell it”

Being on this forum is a good way to network.

You get business people who made millions, you’ve got others who are making millions, young and old. Experienced and non experienced.

You’ve got some experience. You’ve dipped your toes. Great! That’s better than 99% of forum users will ever do! Pat yourself on the back!

You know you can run a business. You have everything you need but just don’t know what business to do.

Instead of needing to focus on networking, go outside and talk to people.

People being the selfish people they are, will rant to you about their problems.

Then, you ask yourself. Can you execute this. If it’s very easy, depends. If it’s a hard no, find a way to.

The harder the better. Easier = worse.


He pinged me, because I’m a good example.

For gosh sakes! I wanted to run a bakery when I joined the forum!

I changed alot, because of the variety of network on this forum.

One thing to be said to you: I’m not at 700 posts at the time of writing this

Yeah I agree with you, I see that in this forum there's plenty of successful people for networking and information, I just took you for an example, in reality it's good to have 13 years and already be in forum like this and read books about business, and btw i hope you the best not like some other people here who laugh and insult people from no reason.

 

[trulyandres]

It always depends on the situation.

Weight lifting it’s best to have someone who’s relative to your level.

Business, it’s more lenient but the one non-negotiable factor is your skill sets.

If you have a business partner, and you both thrive in sales but lack in marketing, then you have a case of “I’be got the cure of cancer but can’t sell it”

Being on this forum is a good way to network.

You get business people who made millions, you’ve got others who are making millions, young and old. Experienced and non experienced.

You’ve got some experience. You’ve dipped your toes. Great! That’s better than 99% of forum users will ever do! Pat yourself on the back!

You know you can run a business. You have everything you need but just don’t know what business to do.

Instead of needing to focus on networking, go outside and talk to people.

People being the selfish people they are, will rant to you about their problems.

Then, you ask yourself. Can you execute this. If it’s very easy, depends. If it’s a hard no, find a way to.

The harder the better. Easier = worse.


He pinged me, because I’m a good example.

For gosh sakes! I wanted to run a bakery when I joined the forum!

I changed alot, because of the variety of network on this forum.

One thing I say to you: I’m not at 700 posts at the time of writing this So your WRONG

Thank you bro, I appreciate the advice a lot! I'll do my market research then