background: I am a 20yo male, i have a macbook, phone, and reliable transportation and about $500 to my name. I live in the PNW about 30 minutes outside a city with a metro population of +3.5Million people.
I have always been a “wantrepenure” i like to think im very passionate and business-minded. Its a notable mention that i am pretty shy so typical sales roles -probably- wont be right for me. i am not employed or in school full time either. i do have a wonderful mom whos willing to be my business partner/full time employee.
I am looking for business ideas as i dont know what “fits” me and would love some suggestions. some ideas that interest me are something like a dry cleaners. easy and fairly passive but ideally id like something i can run from my office at home. “IT” type jobs do not interest me. though i am down for gig type jobs as long as its not doordash-uber type things.
I do have a -very- rough draft of a business plan for running an Estate sale’s company (from home). minimum monthly operating costs would be about $650 for things like a phone line, LLC cost’s, Auction websites, online Advertisements, signs, things like that. additional start up costs would be about $3-5k. the reason im unsure about this is because i dont exactly know the saturation of this market in my city, it seems to be dominated by the same 3-5 companies and im unsure if i would spend all this money on opening up just to get 0 business or be railroaded out.
Another thing im passionate about is streetwear/fashion/niche T-shirts. I am working on my own clothing line (Print on demand for now, would eventually like to make enough money to get my own suppliers/stock). i have the name and the website totally designed and am just working on the actual clothing line for the first drop. i dont know yet how or where im exactly going to advertise or anything but am working out the kinks. i truly am very passionate about this but dont know if its exactly worth it to pursue as its taken months and hundreds of hours of design and time. id be lying if i said i cant help but think that everyone will dislike my designs and ngl that is daunting/holding me back mentally.
so thanks for reading this long post. any and all ideas or words of wisdom are helpful! both online businesses and in person things.
When I was your age, I just wanted to have my own business and make money. I tried a lot of things and something I realized is that nothing is ever as easy as it seem, you have to find the right fit for you so you’re more likely to stick with it during the high and low seasons, and dominate that market. The only way to figure out the right fit is understanding yourself, for my case it was doing a lot of research and trying a bunch of different things until something finally sticks. I also advised to not get short sighted and cocky like I did, the easier the entry level, the more competitive it is, the higher probability of failure. It’s easier to start coffee shops and restaurants for example, but that makes it more saturated where somebody that went to law school to become a lawyer and want to start their own law firm has a higher chance of surviving with less people qualified to enter that field and worse case scenario, they can go back being an employee in their field if their firm fails. Regardless, I think it will be good for you to try something you’re passionate about, learn how business operates, and learn from your mistakes. The only time you can take tremendous risk and have all this energy is when you’re young.