For students
How to start a business as a teenager
Seven steps from nothing to a first paying customer. It is shorter than you expect, and most of what people tell you to do first is the part you should do last.
The seven steps
Nothing to a first customer
Find a problem, not an idea
Ideas are cheap and most are wrong. Instead, notice something near you that annoys people every week — a yard nobody has time for, a phone nobody can set up, a dog nobody can walk at lunchtime. Weekly problems make repeat customers.Talk to five people who have it
Before you build anything. Ask when it last happened, what they did about it, and what they paid. If nobody has ever paid to fix it, that is the answer.Decide exactly what you are selling
One sentence: who it is for, what they get, and the price. If you cannot say it in one sentence, you cannot sell it in one conversation.Work out your numbers on one page
What you charge, what each job costs you, what is left, and how many jobs a week you can actually do around school. Ten minutes with a calculator saves a season of working for nothing.Get one paying customer
Not five. One. Everything before this is theory and everything after it is a business.Do that job better than you had to
The second customer almost always comes from the first one's street, their office or their group chat.Then repeat, and only then spend money
Buy your own equipment out of what you earned, not out of what you hope to earn.
Skip these
What not to do first
Almost everyone starting out spends their first two weeks on things that feel like starting a business and are not. Every one of these can wait until you have been paid.
- Registering a business name. Not until you are making steady money, and read the Ontario guide first.
- A logo. It has never once been the reason somebody said yes.
- A website, at the start. A phone number you answer beats a website you fiddle with.
- Business cards before customers. Get five customers, then print cards for their neighbours.
- A company name that hides what you do. “Jordan’s Lawn Care” sells better than “Apex Solutions”.
A real test
If you disappeared for a month, would anyone notice their problem came back? If yes, you have a business. If no, you have a favour you are charging for \u2014 which is a fine place to start, but it will not grow.
Because you are under 18
What is actually different
Less than people tell you, and more than nothing.
- You can do the work, charge for it and be paid for it. There is no minimum age to run your own small service business in Ontario.
- Contracts are the real difference. A contract signed by a minor generally cannot be enforced against them the same way, which is why most people will not sign a big one with you — and why a parent is often involved for anything formal.
- Money you earn is income, whatever your age. Most students earn far below the basic personal amount and owe no tax, but the rules still apply.
- Getting paid usually needs an adult's help — a youth bank account, or a parent's account with clear records of what is yours.
All of that is covered properly, with the government sources named, on running a business under 18 in Ontario. Launch League is free from age 12.
Free, for students
Want help actually starting one?
All the ways to make money 50 business ideas Getting your first customer