40 Business Ideas for Young Entrepreneurs

1. Build Furniture
This is a great business idea for children who like to work with their hands.  Ana White has a website that gives very thorough plans for building all sorts of furniture.  These range from a simple farmhouse kitchen table (which could be built for $50 and sold for $150-300) to solid truss kitchen table that retails on Restoration Hardware for over $3000.  They have all sorts of furniture (not just tables).  Look through the plans to find projects that 1) have low difficulty & 2) high markup so you can make good profit margins.  Sell locally on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.

2. Create a Subscription Box Service
A subscription box is delivered to a customer each month with a specific type of product in it.  The customer pays a monthly fee for the subscription and gets “surprised” by what is in the box each month.  There are limitless product themes you could use to create a subscription box.  Here are some interesting ones.  Bath Blessing Box. My Garden Box. Coffee & Book Club. Standard Dispatch. Using a site like Cratejoy to setup the business will make this so much easier and provide you with an instant audience who can purchase your subscription.

3. Create a Platform
The last idea is a great one…using a site like Cratejoy to start a subscription box business.  BUT, don’t you wish you had been the on who had come up with the idea to create the Cratejoy platform?  Cratejoy makes millions of dollars (every month) by simply providing a platform for sellers who want to make subscription boxes with buyers who want to buy subscription boxes.  Flippa.com is another example of a platform business.  Flippa simply connects sellers who want to sell a website with buyers who want to buy a website.  The website itself does very little other than make connections between two parties who want to find each other.  And, they makes tens of millions of dollars doing it!  Creating a platform is one of the most powerful types of businesses.  And, often platform businesses can be fairly simple ideas.

4. Learn to Craft Leather
Only a few tools are needed to get started crafting leather.  And, you can make some amazing products out of leather.  Check out this intro video to leathercrafting (this guy is enthusiastic!). For some inspiration, have a look at this website for a couple of young kids that make leather products. Once you’ve made some products you can sell directly through your own website or use a platform like Etsy.  Etsy is a great site that allows small businesses to get off the ground with almost no startup costs and provides an instant market.

5. Coding
Honestly, this is one skill that we think every entrepreneur should learn.  In our own entrepreneurial ventures, the biggest pain point in almost every project is the coding.  We don’t code ourselves, so we are regularly outsourcing our coding needs.  Hiring good developers is very expensive.  Hiring less qualified, cheaper coders can waste a lot of time on a project.  Learning coding is a double-win because you 1) can code your own entrepreneurial projects & 2) set yourself up with a fall-back skill where you can make $100+ an hour and be in high demand for your services.  There are so many different options for leaning coding…some paid, some free.  One program we came across that seems like a good starting point is called Zero to Mastery.  If this is a road you are going to go down, you’ll want to do a lot of research about what skills you want to focus on and what program for learning fits you best.

6. Restore Picture Frames
Go to thrift stores or yard sales and buy lots of old picture frames. You can easily finish these in rustic (shabby chic) style and resell them at a big profit.  You might pay $1-4 for a frame and resell it for $10-25.  Here are some examples.  Here is a video to learn how to finish the frames.

7. Niche Buyers Group
Imagine you had an email list of 10,000 people that were passionate about a specific topic and they were happy for you to send them emails offering deals on products they were interested in.  This would be a valuable list!  You could charge a fee to companies trying to market to this group.  The idea is very simple but the revenue potential is high.  Go ahead and build an email list of avid golfers, or watch collectors, or travel enthusiasts, or horse owners, or backpacking enthusiasts, or…you get the idea.  People will be willing to give you their email address if you offer them discounts on the kinds of products they are already looking to purchase.  Once your list is built sufficiently, start selling advertising for dedicated email blasts.  (This was actually the last type of business we created with BackerClub.co and were able to generate over $500K annually in profit with a list of just 10,000 members).

8. Sell Digital Prints with Scripture or Quotes
Making digital downloadable goods like printable Bible verses or wall hangings is a great business venture because it is 100% profit.  And, your additional cost to produce another unit for sale is zero.  If you have an eye for typography and design and can put together beautiful prints you can market these online (your own site or Etsy) and generate a recurring revenue stream.

9. Make Custom Pens
Learn to turn wood (or other materials) and create high end pens.  These often sell for $100+ and look beautiful.  For inspiration look at this group of 4 brothers who have built a successful business doing this.

10. Sell Flowers at Farmers Market
Grow flowers in your garden at home (or in a greenhouse).  Rent a booth at a local farmers market during the summer and sell cut flower in bunches.  Here are 10 of the most profitable cut flowers to grow and sell (according to this article you can make up to $30K per acre…if you are REALLY ambitious)! 🙂

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