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Summer Businesses for High School Students?
An anonymous reader asks: "A friend and I are going into our final year of high school, and given a variety of factors (the relative paucity of technology jobs for HS students, etc.), would like to start our own business. We'll probably have about $1000 in capital, but (in effect) start out with no other resources other than our own skills (technical and otherwise). We have no constant access to a car, which means on-site tech support is effectively out. We'd like to start something in the technology field (IT, software design, hardware construction - we can solder, web design, etc.), but are open to any suggestions. We'd also like some sort of business we can start this summer, but can continue to maintain. What do you suggest as a business idea for the summer->longer term?"
This was my business plan, and I have found it highly effective.
:)
Step 1: Steal Underpants
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit!
Rince, and repeat.
No I didnt spell check this post...
1) Spend $1,000 on clothes and a lease on a phat car
2) Use clothes and phat car to get hot women
3) Pimp out hot women
4) Profit, motherfucker. Profit.
I beleive if you live in certain places, they pay you for donating sperm. My summer job when I was a teen, was more like summer volunteer work.
-------
Support Indy Music. Buy
1. Where are you? US? What region thereof?
2. What's your skillset?
3. What's your dream job? What's "beneath you?" What can you not stand to do?
I don't want to crush your hopes, but you may find it very difficult to do something meaningful. You might consider finding the Entrepeneur's Club at a local college / University and hooking up with them. They may be able to find investors for you if you can present a viable business plan.
Good luck. You'll need it.
first off, blaze (with accent.)?
it's blase. (with accent.)
here's the idea i am sure could make somebody a ton of money.
instead of refilling and rehabbing toner cartridges, do it for lcd projector bulb cartridges. almost all the time, you have to buy a new one- for a good chunk of change. a little googling found me a place or two where you can buy solely the bulb. clean the cartridge, and replace the bulb (being careful of course not to get oil on anything) and charge 1/2 to 2/3 of what a new projector bulb costs.
if i were mechanically inclined, i would do this. it's a growth industry. here at work, thanks to doofuses who can't remember how to turn off a projector, we can chew through a unit, at $330 per, in 6 months. and i know college professors aren't the only group of clueless projector users out there.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
...on the web! Then get 10 million in VC funding and go public.
Oh wait, it's not 1999. Forget I said anything.
Rent a box from somewhere, and harass friends, family, and neighbors if they know anyone who could use a web presence. You provide the hosting, set up domains and stuff, and if they need it, some basic web design.
There's even a few packages out there that have a very simplified markup structure (ie. _underline_ and *bold* and stuff) that means your potential clients can edit pages directly.
Your costs are monthly fees to your host, and one-time fees for domains and such. Income is monthly hosting fees from clients, and one-time or recurring fees for web design, graphics, and maybe even some freelance coding for special features and whatnot.
Programming of any sort (including web design) is probably the most portable of the IT trades. You can do it from your house, or from your dorm room if and when you go off to college. Beyond that, maybe building custom-order systems for people, but it's unlikely you could ramp that up in 3 months. You might also check out itmoonlighter.com for some available contracting work in your area which might not require you to be on-site.
I'm not a cool guy, I just play one on T.V.
Start an online calendar company. Nobody's thought of that before.
I'd not even bother.
/ad aware and the like make problem solving easier on consumers
1: Everybody can make a website.. Notice I didnt say good
2: Anti-crapware like the new AOL discs
3: Real software issues on MS systems always require a reinstall-Use vendor wipe disc
4: If its a hardware issue, you cant repair motherboards and the like. On dell/gateway crap, it's "Buy New Machine"
5: You're just HS students. I'm 22 and people look down at our age group as consultants. The "Consultant" is supposed to be 30-40 after numerous lay-offs and fires (from idiotic companies that lie to get out of unemp.)
Yeah, at 22, I'm jaded enough to be a consultant. I've not seen it all, but close.
Guys always like making stuff, but more successful small businesses are usually services. If you are both detail oriented, you could try a wash the car service, you go to the self serve wash places (espeically those near something to do) offer to wash cars (wash, wax, glass cleaner vaccum, armorall/leather cleaner, etc) while the person shops/eats. You'll probably have to split revenue with the wash place. You could offer your services to several dealerships to keep business up.
If you have a demonstrable history of tech stuff, you could be geeks for hire, check with friends and teachers who have computer problems (there have been a ton of viruses lately so you can probably get plenty of business) and fix them for ~$20/hr (or charge by the job).
Other than that think about things that others complain about and ways you could provide the service.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Since you guys are (most likely) minors and can legally repudiate any contracts you sign, many folks are going to be rightly cautious about dealing with you. You can make decent summer cash with a gas can and a lawnmower. I would have said get a paper route, but most paper carriers these days are retired folks with station wagons. One retired guy with a station wagon replaced me and my two brothers, plus a few other paper carriers when we gave up our routes in the late early 1990's. If you have friends who run a business, you might be able to get some web design work tossed your way, but I think you'll find that mowing grass will provide a more steady stream of income. Sorry to be a buzz kill, but I was 16 once, too. Don't lose your entreprenurial bent, though - it will serve you well once you join the majority. I've started 3 companies - cratered two and sold one, but I've had a lot more fun than my friends who've stuck with their "safe" jobs.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
What type of buisness do you specifically want to open? If you want to do repair you will most likely have to start out on-site. If you want to start a store, look for atleast $30,000 to get a store and minimal frontage for the store. Not to mention the licenses for taxes and the buisness. Design of any sort will require licenses for software, and that thousand bucks will barely cover the fee. Get an idea of what you want to actually do, where you want to do it, how you want to do it, then lay out a plan. The general idea you have is lofty, but un-realistic with a thousand buck investment.
And little money. Check
And you're young. Check
And don't have much of an idea on what to do. Check
I hate to be the first one to tell you, but million dollar ideas aren't sitting around waiting to find you on slashdot. It's going to be up to you and your friend to decide what's best here. As a consultant I can tell you, with no idea what you want to do, you really should hire a consultant if you want this to be anything more than you making webpages for people you know over the summer.
You're going to be fighting an uphill battle, most businesses won't talk to you based purely on age and lack of business experience. The one thing I would suggest if you do this, do it right and get insurance, because if you're handling something worth thousands, you don't want to be held liable if you break it.
It will remind you why it's good to work in an office later on. It also never hurts to know about manual labor.
If in the midwest, sign on for corn detassling - good money but also hard work.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
So we're supposed to write your business plan for you?? If people here have business ideas or ways of making money they should keep them to themselves :D
I work at a local comuter retailer in my city, one of the top requests we get from our customers is: "Do you guys or do you know of anyone that offers training?"
They just want to know basic stuff, how to use their computer, how to copy files, create folders, etc really basic stuff.
Our business doesn't have the space or the resources to make this happen. But it would be simple to do and something that high school kids could pull off with a little investment of money.
You could check out an auditorium at a city library, they often have facilities for such things, including screens and projectors. You could hook a laptop up to it and do your demonstrations there.
Q&A's, how to, basic stuff. May have to pay a few bucks to use the facilities, but long as you balance the costs:profit, shouldn't be a big dent.
What kind of customers can you expect? The older generation, elderly retired people are new to computers still, they don't learn quickly, have surplus income to spend and have the time and interest to attend such a training class on general computer use.
They're really into geneology and email correspondance. Little else, so although it's not the best use of your tallents, it should be rewarding finacially and equally rewarding improving some old farts quality of life.
How to get the word out. Basic cheap marketing that targets your market. The Newspaper, they're one of the few audiences that still read it. Cheap too. Putting flyers up at senior centers, veterans hospitals, etc. anywhere old people hang out. Charge a minimal fee at first, just to gauge what your expected turn-out will be, jack the price up a bit afterwards once the word-of-mouth starts within their communities.
Should work out well, I do this stuff on the side on a one-on-one basis (since I have a car) and the money is pretty good. I usually charge $175 an hour, but if you're going to have more bodies in an auditorium, shoot for 30$ a person, something basic that everyone can afford.
Good luck, better than working at McDonalds all Summer (although working there would really give you a reason to go to college).
With words like 'paucity' you should probably give up on the tech route and get a job tutoring fellow students for their SATs.
If I had some kind of magical business plan for a company that only needed $1000 in seed money and a couple of high-school students, I sure as hell wouldn't be explaining the details of it on Slashdot.
I'd probably be selling it on a late night television infomercial with Tony Robbins and that other guy with the shiny teeth.
Get more capital first you cannot do much with just a $1000.
Have fun, =Otto(matic)
Call up a couple VPs of{Engineering|Manufacturing|IT} at local tech small to mid size companies and tell them our story. You'll have to get a tax number etc. for them to deal with you, but its no big deal. Somebody may go, "hey we need 500 cables made." Take what ever is offered that you think you can do well. You can even get help from SCORE on some of the biz issues. Start small and assume that you'll make mistakes. Expect your experance to be your real profit.
Make fake ID's. Seriously.
I have an excellent opportunity for you. I am the ASSISTANT COLONEL VICE FINANCE MINISTER of a corrupt third-world dictatorship, and I am trying to embezzle foreign aid money. I have diverted FORTY-SEVEN MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS ($47,000,000) from the International Petroleum Reserve Slush Fund to a separate expense ledger sub-account within my country's incomprehensibly complex banking system.
Unfortunately, my country's laws require me to find a RANDOM STRANGER ON THE INTERNET to complete this transaction. If you have the IQ OF BREAD MOLD, this could be you! I need to transfer the money into a U.S. bank account, rather than an account in an actaul banking haven. We would split the money as follows:
Now, to begin the transaction I simply need $1,000 from you as an EMBEZZLEMENT TRANSFER FEE. For reasons I can't explain, because I'm making this up as I go along, I am unable to pay this amount myself, though it amounts to FIVE THOUSANDTHS OF ONE PERCENT of my profit.
Simply withdraw your money in small bills and FLUSH IT DOWN THE TOILET and my operatives will remove it from the sewer system and deposit the money into your account. I TRUST IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS H. FUCKING CHRIST that you are a trustworthy person who will do the right thing.
Sincerely,
COLONEL DOGUM GUNUN KUTLU OLSUN
I am a small company and I need 500 cables made once in awhile. Do you know how many ways 500 cables can be fucked up? I've got a pretty good idea. I already have a cheap Pakistani cable builder and a cheap Asian board builder. They screw up once in awhile, but they fix their screwups real fast as their house payments depend on keeping me happy.
I would not trust my 500 cables to a couple of kids that have nothing other than beer money to loose.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Here's my advice to high-school students looking to be entrepreneurial during a summer: find a way to make or import something interesting and sell it on eBay. You don't have a lot of overhead and actually wind up with real-world experience of building and/or supporting a product.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
If you are young and want to make money during the summer, your best option is some sort of labour job. The world doesn't need more half assed business that don't serve any particular purpose.
You and your partner need to sit down and think about what your goals are after high school. The trouble with most businesses is that it's almost impossible to make your opportunity cost back (after paying taxes) in 3 months. Most assets (even cheap ones) require more than 3 year payback. Sure sometimes you can sometimes reuse assets that you already own. If you want to go to college after you graduate, I'd say suck it up and get a minimum wage job, sorry. You'll likely have more cash at the end of the summer, and that becomes much more important as you want to pay tuition. If you're thinking more about running with this after you graduate, I'd look for a part time job. Getting a part time job will provide additional investment capital next summer when you get started for real, but will give you free time to build your business this summer/next year. You'll be doing well if your business generates anything other than a customer list or brand name this year.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
That 1000 dollars will keep you equipped with gloves and waders for the whole summer, so everything else is pure profit!!!
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
Consider
1) So, given it takes money to make money, $1000 isn't going to net you much in ROI.
2) Instead, write something gratis that other people will use, and will give you something to put on your resume after college.
3) Open up a sourceforge account to organize your project. Do all the project planning work out in the open - project goals and descriptions, requirements, specs, docs, code. In the future, you can point people to this as a sample of your early work (keep it updated). Have a GUI (I don't recommend Web apps for something like this - too much infrastructure), write it in C++ (what I suggest), Java, or VB, depending on your talent and audience (and resources - Gnu C++ and Java are free).
4) People don't use 80% of software they buy - so make that 80% open-sourced 'infrastructure' libraries and such, and the remaining 20% closed-source plug-ins or specialized customizations (and a good installer - people tend to buy stuff that has a good installer).
5) If someone wants a feature or a bug fixed, see if they will pay for support.
6) Leverage other people for the product.
7) Learn how to market your product. Just see it as an experiment - don't be shy, be outgoing, and specifically, be clever.
Do some market research: go and figure out what someone wants to do that they can't do now, or that the software to do is expensive. How? Ask them!
The criterion for your research should be - you should have a representative sample of the population nearby, they probably should be a small business (since individuals don't pay much and usually need more prettiness-per-unit-usefulness than a small business solving a specific problem would need), they should have some general-purpose computers that are underleveraged (people do one or two applications on them (mail, word/excel/quicken, and Minesweeper) and don't really use them to their full potential).
Consider what target audiences you have around you: small, non-chain restaurants (specifically their back office); professional practices, like small dentist/physical therapist/massage therapists/chiropractor offices; the corner bodega - they might have a cash register, but no computer tracking of stock so they never quite know what their inventory is or how much to buy - sell them that. House painters/plumbers/small general contractors. Churches/Synagogues/Mosques.
Find something some group of the people above do that's tedius, and see if you can make it trivial. Don't be afraid to ask a lot of people, and say 'no' if it looks like too much - even if they will pay you. Do _not_ get in over your head.
KISS - keep it simple, silly. Bang-for-the-buck is the keyword for this sort of development. You are trying to make their lives better/easier/smarter, and they might need 'just one thing'. Consider the first spreadsheets - they merely edited columns of numbers and added them up correctly, and saved and read them to a file. This saved an _enormous_ amount of time for people who had to do this stuff day-in-day-out. Almost nothing subsequently has had as profound an impact on their lives as taking the grunt work out of moving raw numbers around with pen-and-paper.
-J
During the height of the DotCom bubble -- a time when anything went -- a (now former) friend had the brilliant idea to make money by writing webpages. His skill set comprised of DHTML, ASP, VB, J++, and taking public domain and/or example code and putting his name on it. I had worked almost exclusively with application languages, so I did actually get something from the experience.
Mind you, this was before our freshmen years. So I viewed it with much skepticism but, not wanting to disappoint him, I went along.
He wanted to charge people $10 a page, plus $5 for javascript. The worst part is that some people took his offer seriously. They all said that he was too expensive.
Perhaps the one thing he loved more than money was power. He would manipulate me (admittedly easy to do), changing the rules of a situation to his benefit.
He even had the gall to, at one point, post an employment opening on our site (hosted on PWS or whatever POS mini-IIS that came with Win98. To which one poor soul actually replied. My friend took pleasure in emailing him, telling him that he wasn't "qualified" enough.
In short, he was a greedy fraud, an MS shill (his lasting image on me probably intensified my love of free / open source software, at that point in time yet to come), a bona-fide script kiddie, warez junkie, cheater in games, a person completely unworthy to breathe the same air as living creatures, the epitomy of what is wrong in this world; last I heard of him was that his mother had to call the police to break up a fight between him and his brother. I am grateful to myself for having had the insight and fortune to withdraw from that friendship, even though I couldn't see that at the time.
I'm sorry that I wrote all of this here, but I had to purge it, and it is slightly on topic, so...
As a 19 year old college student with a ton of ideas all the time, its hard to pursue any of them. I keep a small notepad with me at all times. Anytime I get any inspiration (if its in the middle of a professor giving a lecture), I write it down. Then I can go and review it later.
But I was in your position a few years ago (I was a Freshman in highschool, not a senior). Here's what I did (in 2000):
The local science fair had a web design contest. I had been doing web design for about a year, mainly for my own amusement and knowledge. I also had a close friend who did the same, and since we needed teams of 2, we formed a web design team. We made a web page (one we actually wrote, didn't use Dreamweaver) according to the specs of the contest, and totally blew away the judges. They thought it was the most amazing thing ever. They both gave us their business cards, told us to contact them, we did, and bingo, $12 an hour work for each of us. We were psyched.
Eventually our client fell out from beneath us and never contacted us back, but we got paid for the work we did, so all was good.
Another science fair story: the magnet high school program I attended required everyone to do a science fair project every year. Since I was(am) a decent programmer, I always did stuff in the computer science category. I loved the stuff, and the category was small so I was always almost guranteed to win. I did a project on Artificial Intelligence one year, and OpenGL another and Massive Parallel Rendering a third year. All the judges loved it, and a lot offered me jobs. I already had a well paying job at the time, so I passed on them, but I got my name out there.
Those are my opinions and experiences, take them for what their worth from someone in your shoes a few years ago. Keep in mind, as well, that all of this cost me nothing (in fact, it all made me $$$ as 1st place at the web design contest got me money, and so did 1st place at science fair, not to mention the actual jobs).
Good luck!
-Vic
The summer before my last year in high school I had a cheap beater of a pickup truck (a 1970 Ford F-150 with a motor and transmission out of a Mustang (V8-302, 3 speed manual tranny) - it was ugly, beat up, and cheap. Also had lots of room in the back for gear. Estimated cost : $500
... something that involves pushing buttons and moving a mouse around ... if you do let us know because a bunch of us would love to do the same.
Bought a used lawn mower, cleaned it up and sharpened the blade with a file. Estimated cost : 100 total.
Got an electric weed-eater for about $40 new w/ a 100' heavy duty extension cord.
Other crap : eye protection, ear protection, maybe a second mower and trimmer because there are two of you.
Total cost, roughly your entire $1000 budget.
Get started by printing out 1 page flyers to put on people's doors in neighborhoods (nice neighborhoods.) Each place you do will take you about 2 hours max with two people, and will pay $40, and needs to be done every two weeks. You can do like 4 each day tops, and if you do a GOOD job you will have awesome repeat business. Totally a cash business, so no taxes.
It takes some time to build up a client base, but once you two do a good job you will have more business than you can imagine. $800 free and clear every week on a full schedule, possibly more. That's $400 a week per person free and clear, $1600 a month.
It is hot, sweaty, dirty, demeaning work - which is why you will have so many people eager to have you do it for them. If you aren't too proud to sweat you will make more doing this than doing 'computer work' - esp. now.
Maybe you will find something that you can do with your $1000 start up fund, something that will net you $5,000 apiece in three months without access to a car
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Anyone else notice that the fortune displayed while reading this article is "You will engage in a profitable business opportunity"?
---- Just another spud server.
(A lot of things depend a lot on where you are, whether your lack of regular transportation effectively traps you in suburbia or elsewhere, whether there are people with money to spend on summertime child labor, etc ... that said, random thoughts)
...
...)
... they will, next summer ;))
... I've tried 5 different brands -- Linksys, D-Link, Siemens, SMC, Netgear -- and they work similarly enough that I wouldn't sweat the difference in most cases: the differences are in interface, bells and whistles, default IP addresses, things like that.
;) and b) so you know which default IP address each uses, how to set up MAC address cloning, etc. Maybe you'll find a favorite brand to recommend. And if you can buy such boxes cheaply, as a commodity, you can sell them for a uniform markup, with a profit that varies depending on how well you can find bargains. Ebay, too. Your customers won't be paying for the AP itself, but for the whole package of box + install + minor training. Or, if they have one already, discount your price in a way that's fair to both parties.
;)
... it's a bit outdated, but the point is, 56k modem + AP with serial port beats a 56k modem by itself.)
computer related:
1) consider an internship somewhere. Less exciting as an idea than starting your own, but it can also lead to contacts, give you experience, etc. All sorts of businesses need computer-smart people, don't just think of ones that sell computers or write software for sale
2) In your own walkable / bikeable radius, offer to install wireless systems so people can work wirelessly and otherwise share their high-speed internet service. Yes, they're supposed to be open-the-box easy, but context is everything; for a lot of people, it would be easily worth paying for your time to, well, open the box. (And often setup is *not* that easy, so
Offer to provide, install, configure and test
a) consumer-grade wireless systems (see below)
b) non-wireless simple home networking (many people don't yet want wireless, and that's OK
(See techbargains.com, and tigerdirect.com for cheap 802.11 boxes
(See http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/c ategory_tlc.asp?CatId=35)
Keep careful track of what households get which models, a) to keep track of which models bring complaints, so you know to avoid them
Recommend and use DHCP + whatever level of security is worth it; charge more for more work, explain why and be up-front about it.
This is the kind of business that's still viable (might not be in 2 years, when practically everyone is wireless, and the cable company / DSL providers all supply wireless boxes by default, etc.), can be done by young people on bikes with backpacks or baskets to hold the necessary parts. Let people know that they are responsible for understanding / dealing with their ISPs' terms of service, though.
Think guerilla marketing: print clever and punchy business cards with lots of contact info; have a clean, legible, simple web site (with a friendly FAQ list); keep track of your customers (and plot them on a map); ask people to recommend you to their friends; be courteous; give followup calls after a day and after a month; tape your business card to the bottom of the AP (and a note of the default IP address!); leave a copy of Knoppix around for when those with Microsoft Windows get sick of spyware, adware and viruses
(Oh, and even if people don't have high-speed access, it's still nice to be wireless and to have shareable internet access: see http://monkey.org/~timothy/dialup.html
Not-computer-related:
1) Circumstances determine what makes sense in your area, but having recently moved to Washington state, I find that there are coffee huts (some substantial, some plywood and duct-tape) *everywhere* selling generally pretty good coffe
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I want to be there when you're sued for child support by one of the millions of would-be kids you tossed into a dixi cup. Oh I know, all kinds of things were signed by all the parties involved. Except one, and oddly enough that's starting to be meaningful to the courts. Tee-Hee.
It is a presidential election year. Volunteer your tech skills to change the world!
... or teen lockerroom videos
OK, first things first: You should be commended for wanting to work and (lack of car, funds and details aside) for wanting to pursue an entrepreneurial path.
Some thoughts...
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
I made a good sideline repairing guitar amps in high school, $50-100 plus parts, sometimes more depending on the issue. The only trick is to only work on old wire wrap tube amps, no IC's, easy to work on. Most of the parts are widely available, the only tools you really need, are a basic electrical tools (get good ones) and a tube tester (buy this used). I actually ran my little business out of the electronics lab at my school, made a decent little bit of cash. One tip, check the diodes in the power supply first. Usually fixing one of these is just a matter of finding the burnt out part and replacing it.
Place an add in you're local music weekly, there's big demand for this. But just make sure that you make it clear that you're not liable for more than the cost of the repair, and don't promise that you can fix everything.
Also don't go cash up front, take a crack at it first, the best case scenario is that someone won't pay for the repair, you have the amp as collateral, worst case you can pawn it for more than you would have gotten anyway. You'll meet some interesting people, have some fun, and get a chance to chill out a bit before college.
Old amps are pretty easy to work on and there's a lot of poor musicians who can't afford to buy a new one, or have it professionally repaired, they're pretty willing to take a small risk to save a buck.
So my conclusion, forget about high tech, there's lot's of competition, find a niche and work it for all it's worth.
Well art is art isn't it, but then again water is water; and east is east; and west is west; and if you take cranberries
Good cash, harvest in the fall, you're young you'll get a lite sentence.
Well art is art isn't it, but then again water is water; and east is east; and west is west; and if you take cranberries
Make a cool tshirt for $10,000. www.pricewatch.com
This is how I financed my college education.
For $1000 you should be able to improvise a small hydroponic operation....focus the money on the lights....you can even just use compact fluorescents for the mother plants for cloning, and keep the HIDs for flowering time.
You can probably turn $5000-10000 profit over the summer (~90 days).
Good luck.
-psy
I wish there were some students around here I could trust enough to pass off all the people who want me to install a virus checker on their win98 boxes.
Get some practice with the main virus scanning tools, anti-spyware cleaners, and other basic windoze utilities. Learn how each version of windoze does things like dial-up, and how the local cable or ADSL provider like user machines to be set up. Then print up some nice flyers and go around to all the computer stores in town and ask them if they'll promote your "summer job" business of doing all the crap work helping (l)users set up their systems and get on the internet.
Draw up a list of jobs you will do, a time estimate for each one, and the price you will charge for each job. Something like installing Norton Anti-Virus should take about an hour, and you should charge something around US$10 or $15. Installing a free firewall, with basic configuration should cost $10. Helping with an ADSL installation maybe $20.
Make sure you are up front that the person with the machine is going to be buying the software, like a commercial virus checker, and your fee will be on top of that. Add $5 if you are the one to run to the store and buy the software for them. Don't get tempted to try pirating commercial software, enough people will then be wary of you, and the recommendations will fall off. Make sure you explain how some of the software is free for personal use, like AdAware and ZoneAlarm, but some effective virus scanners cost $40 or $90.
Have your own collection of freeware utilities, on both a USB key and a CD, and maybe even a floppy with necessary drivers. You would be surprised how many old machines are out there still running win98 or NT, and don't have USB ports or a working CD drive. The owners don't care, since they have 33.6k dialup, AOL, and Word97. They don't really need much else, but the trojans and email virii are hurting their systems and they need somebody cheap to help them out, and the computer shops tend to want to charge large amounts per hour for basic installations.
By the end of the summer, you will have learned you never want to work in technical support again, and you will probably blow your hard earned cash on a high powered rifle and a case of hunting ammo.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
This is my recommendation for all high school and college students. Spend at least a couple weeks working for Labor Ready or some similar work today paid today temp agency.
Since you get paid at the end of the day and the jobs are very menial and degrading these types of places attract many drunks, ex-cons, and drug abusers. They're generally nice enough people who have made terrible decisions and can't get a regular job. They're often continueing to make terrible decisions.
Spend afew days observing the lives these people have built for themselves and you will get a real understanding of the wonders your parents have handed you.
Nothing builds work ethic like seeing the mess that can happen if somebody doesn't have one. Labor ready is the real man's Americorps.
Cheap storage VM.
I started out back when I was 14, doing spot tutoring jobs for $10 an hour here and there for old people, it wasn't glamorous, nor profitable, my parents carted me around, but it laid the foundation. After middle school, i snagged a job as a lab assistant at a local college annex, 3 hours every saturday @ $9.25 an hour, i was originally promised $7 :)
After two years, I had snagged a few key clients whomI tutored at their homes, and started fixing their boxes in the process. This became far more profitable than tutoring/training.
When I was laid off from that job (they closed the lab). I was 16, and convinced my dad to help me start my own business, he'd been running his own for 3 years so he knew what was involved.)
I started a corporation at 16, using it to get around the lack of majority (I did all the work, held all the shares with my dad as the CEO), the process was expensive, and i did get a few boxes for myself out of it.
In any case, after I turned 18 last may, i closed down the now unnecessary coroporation and am operating on my own.
during the two years as a corp, i established many clients, about a dozen or so in the first year who referred me to others, including one major corporation who uses me as an on-site tech guy for their offices in Sarasota and St. Petersburg (the tech guys are based in NY and PC Anywhere only does so much).
Nowadays, I get about 5 hours of onsite and/or bench work a month @ $40 an hour. My website's been spotty for months now, most of my referrals are by word of mouth, it helps that my dad gives a little sales pitch to nearly every client of his (he does remote mortgage/refi closings and goes all over)
Best advice I can give someone in your position is to get the word out, business cards, friends, parents, etc. Even if you don't have a car you can still get rides if you're nice enough.
Polo shirts, slacks and a good pair of shoes are a must, start out small, get in the door by tutoring them (MS word, IE, outlook, the like), $20 or so an hour, work your way up from there, once you're in the door start fixing boxen. There isn't a single box in a client's home that doesnt need something fixed.
Good luck.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
If you live near a college campus (and you get that beater truck), you can buy and sell dorm fridges.
Print up flyers offering beer money ($10-20) for used units as Spring move out time comes. Cruise the alleys in the off-campus student housing area and pick up any you see left out for trash pickup. These can be for spare parts. Rent a garage for $50 a month if you need storage space. Clean them out and check and fix any that you can. Sell them in the Fall for $50-70 each (vs. $100+ new).
To all of those who say that a 16 year old can't make (good) money in a technology oriented job, I am here to tell you off. I may be an exception, but in the last 6 months I have brought in over $10K and I just turned 16 two months ago. It has all been from freelance programming to boot.
To the original inquirers, I can only offer the following advice (what has worked for me). Start out with something like RentACoder.com - I know it is most often similar to working in a sweatshop, but the goal is to find a good business (preferrably one in America who appreciates a good English speaking coder) and set up another more lucrative line of business with it. I currently do contracting work for a few companies that nets me a sizable amount for a person my age. Just keep a positive attitude about things and keep your eyes open for good business relationships.
You're about to leave the last free school you're going to get, most likely. [Unless it's offered as a benefit as a future employer]
And then you get to the paying for education, and then the trying to pay off student loans, and find someone to give you money for your time.
Although it sounds like a good idea to try to make money now, you may actually want to look at things that might help you to make more money later. So pick what you like to do, and go talk to people who work for companies that work in the field, or have jobs of the type that you want. You probably won't get to do it, but it doesn't mean that you can't get an internship, and learn something.
Hell, it might be that all you learn is that you really hate the field, and that's the best thing that you can learn early. You might learn that you don't want to work for that type of company.
But you also start building your resume, and gaining experience. You meet people, who can tell you later in life when there's a position that you might be interested in. And you have so many more people whom you can use as references for that first real paying job.
As for transportation -- public transit. It's not glamorous, but the bus is your friend. Or, look for stuff within walking/bike distance. Hell, even a public library or local government might be willing to take you in, if you're interested in working there.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
just as the above poster said, build customer relationships. start by mowing lawns, mention that you also are pretty tech saavy and people will ask you to fix their aol or remove a pesky virus...
you'll learn a valuable skill: getting in the door is the hardest part of any business.
before you know it you'll have all of the neighborhood kids working for you painting houses, fixing printer jams, setting up wireless ethernet connections, mowing lawns, helping old ladies carry their groceries home, etc.
you can be an entrepreneur without stifling your youth.
The lesson is that the American dream is still alive - if you work like a M-Fer you can still make some decent money. Most people can't/won't work that hard.
..........FULL STOP.
as boring and lame as it may sound, sales at compusa pays really well. I make 7.75 + 1% commissions + Spiffs + etc. Im averaging between 12-14 an hour here. There's a lot of bitch work, but whatever its fun.
NJ Local Music Scene
Figure out where all the APOTAS* are and learn how to meet** them. Spending a summer doing that will be far more rewarding than any crappy business you can put together in 3 months.
:)
:) :)
* APOTAS == attractive people of the appropriate sex
** meet == screw
Take your money, and hire an attorney. Then proceed to sue everyone you possibly can for copyright infringment. You don't even have to have a decent case. If you sue the right people, their enimies will pump money into your legal fund. Just skim a few million off the top of that, and it is a summer well spent.
Recycle old PCs into PVRs! Install MythTV, the right hardware, charge for an arm and a leg and you're cooking! Minimal investment, a bit of tinkering, and a lot of fun too! Start with family and neighbours, and the word of mouth should spread quickly. The uninitiated will be impressed.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
... i've not seen an spam filter that is 100% effective, you could offer a personalised manual spam filtering service!
Go around to flea markets and buy things cheap that look interesting. Then hawk them on Ebay for a slight markup. You'll make some money, I know of two people doing this locally to suppliment their incomes. Interesting is in the eye of the beholder, but it's one idea that doesn't involve mowing lawns.
Another one is to walk around offering to do oil changes on cars in people's driveways. Buy a GOOD jack and jackstands, a torque wrench to properly tighten the drain bolt, brand name filters and oil. Most people are lazy. Identify yourself as a university student or canadate, and you will be suprised at the takeup rate. Using high quality oil and filters will get you a profit in the range of $7-10 as you can charge a slight margin over the cheap guys for doing it right there. You don't need a car - get a cart and hoof it.
..don't panic
Unless you're dead set against it, why not just get a bullshit food service or retail job? Remember, you're in high school. This is the summer. One of the last ones you're going to get.
Think of it like this:
I was blessed with amazing jobs I got through family contacts my last two years of high school, but I worked in a grocery store my sophomore year. It didn't really teach me anything, and the pay was right around minimum wage, but I also got invited to some pretty cool parties I would have missed if I didn't know my coworkers. I was actually rather sad when school started again and my extracurricular commitments forced me to quit.
Hell, to this day I'm thankful for that job. The people I worked with there are, by a wide margin, the largest group of people who didn't leave town after graduation. Gives me people to hang out with when I have to go home to visit the parents.
I work in IT, and make a pretty damn good living now with great job security, but I still look back on wasted high school summers fondly. Unless you are the type who is just miserable in high school, then maybe you would too.
Game... blouses.
So basically you advocate that highschool students undercut people by not paying tax. Hence devalue the market, put people out of work and break the law.
Sounds great. Anyone else have any moral objection to not paying taxes.
[Apologies if I've gotten this bass-ackwards, just in UK IT services are taxable].
You're just a kid. Enjoy your summer. The time of few responsibilities will soon pass away as you enter adulthood.
1. Bad signature
2. ?????
3. Profit
Oh, I have plenty of moral objections to paying taxes.
But I also have plenty of objections to becoming Big Bubba's girlfriend.
several advantages to this job also:
- sell your customer base to a couple of neighborhood kids after your summer is over and you move off to college
- think of it as your last chance to to get proper exercise. once you start sitting in front of a terminal, you magically start gaining pounds. and it ain't cause of the cheezy poofs!
I'm good with numbers -
You won't get anywhere if you're in Southern Cali trying to mow lawns. We have millions of illegals to do that here. That's all they're good for. Well, that and stealing.
1. Get contracts with local stables for cleaning services.
2. Sell the 'proceeds' from the stables as fertilizer
3. Profit!
4. When busted for not paying tax on the fertilizer, point out taxes were paid on sale of the hay the horses ate and exclaim, "We're getting taxed at both ends!"
Great advice except for the no taxes part. That's against the law. You are required to report your income whether it's cash or check. Actually, some of your clients will probably prefer to write you a check anyway so you will have a paper trail.
Furthermore, if you want to account for your time in order to impress a potential employer in the future, you had better have your ducks in a row; there are ways of finding out. Otherwise, you will have to lie and say you spent the summer doing nothing. That might be dodgy given the fact that 30-40 people around your neighborhood will testify that they hired you, and hundreds more saw your flyer.
Maybe you are OK with working under the table like the thousands of carpenters and the like who try to get paid in cash, but if you ever want to do work for the federal government either as an employee or contractor, they will probably want to know every job you had for the past 10 years, so you then have the choice of perjuring yourself or admitting that you owe back taxes, neither of which is particularly great news to the employer.
Finally, you should consider that finances are a vital part of running a business; the accounting and tax work you will do will be useful experience for later on when you start the next great software company or whatever you end up in.
Good luck!
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Take that thousand and hire 10,000 Pakistanis/Sri Lankans/Indians and start to put out flyers everywhere that you have high level tech guys from third world countries for cheap. Charge $10/hr. per monkey, err I mean brown man. Pay them $.02 in peanuts a day, and you're set for life after three months!!!
If you can't identify a need that you can fill with the resourced that you have, you'll fail.
That sounds like a Risky Business. One that no ordinary Tom could Cruise into.
Thanks for the tears of joy, Herr Colonel :)
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
My current employer never asked me if I mowed lawns in high school.
Lasers Controlled Games!
1. Window washing residences and commercial storefronts. Pros: startup costs approximately $300 for a good ladder, promo materials, and proper Ettore squeegee gear; once you get in the groove, it's a great job for an active mind to roam. Cons: not as easy as it sounds, you need to learn some tricks to get your speed and quality up. Most storefronts already have windowwasher contractors.
;-) Cons: sand in everything, and moldy pita bread.
2. Landscaping. -1 redundant, 'nuf said.
3. Document prep: I used to do wordprocessing on my rare and ubermodern Atari. That morphed with time and tech into desktop publishing, a universally needed and generally badly done activity. Pros: Once you get some design principles down, not too hard to float above the scum. Cons: everyone thinks they're a designer, and only the good get paid well; as well, the client will always revise things at the last minute.
4. Databases for small business. It blows me away how many retail and service businesses use crappy data management. I did this in Filemaker because it's good at interfaces (incl. web-based) and flexible form queries (good for users, challenging for developing) as well as cross platform and cheap (at the time). Perfect for that segment, fast to develop in so good cash. Nowadays I'd do it in MySQL with a browser interface when possible, ymmv. Pros: only a few of these contracts needed over a summer, so you can market F2F, and it's a great ladder up to other IT as it often requires some basic networking too. Cons: clients can really take you for a ride through feature creep and not knowing what they really need.
5. Oh, I can't bring myself to admit to this one.
6. Tutoring. -2 Redundant.
7. Sell stuff over the 'net. Set up a website with shopping cart, go nuts marketing (short of spamdammit). Good way to do this is to find a distribution problem (eg. partner with some local craftspeople who're good but not getting their stuff out there). Or work ebay, work it hard, hit all the estate sales. Pros: flexibility, no F2F with nutty clients, decent $ opportunity. Cons: risk of a serious bomb.
8. Sell souvlaki on a nude beach. OK, you may not have the opportunity to do this, but hey! what a great entrepeneurial summer job that was. Mind you, I cashed a good portion of my profits on the all-too-available cold beer supplies at same beach. Pros: who cares if it doesn't go on your resume...
Damn those pesky terrorists
So you want to do your own taxes/accounting. Accounting I might believe, but taxes - no way. First off - read the rules... Oh wait - I don't have time to read feet of small print annually to determine if I am allowed to deduct expenses, or if they are capital expenses so have to be amortized over a "useful lifetime"
By the way - what is your structure going to be, LLC, incorperated, partnership, sole proprieter ? Each with their own quirky tax problems, filing requirements, and expeses.
Frankly - the idea of not creating a paper trail and not paying the taxes (of which for the ammount of money you are talking here - you shouldn't be paying taxes on anyway) sounds good.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I just got done installing dotproject open-source groupware for Opera Columbus. After some tough negotitation, I won the contract (no contract really, they just hired me). They already have hosting with another provider. The provider wanted X to developed web-based project management; I serisouly undercut them with an application suite that was already ready. I had to do some user training, but that's about it for the hard part.
What I recommend is taking very little of your $1000, buy some cheap web hosting, and setting up some open source groupware. Spend a little bit more of that $1000 on printing manuals or throwing together a nice presentation -- charts and graphs, with binders, etc. Physical things, such as paper, will show people that you have an investment in what you are doing, and aren't just talking. They will have it to refer to later when they can't remember what you said. It shows stability and lastingness, that you will be there.
Be selective with the open sources packages, find the stuff that's 1. finished, 2. polished, and 3. easy to use for a non-techie. I highly recommend dotproject; the only problem is that it lacks printing.
Then, setup free demo accounts for users. Give them 30 or 60 day trials. Expect to spend some time training. Offer to do the initial setup, such as user accounts, etc. The people who use it and like it will gladly pay for the setup.
You can charge either
1. recurring fees for stuff you host. If you chose this, be prepared to go the extra mile for support when the thing crashes in the middle of the night.
- or -
2. a larger, one-time setup fee for setting it up on their hosting providers. Be sure to specify rates for future support of the application if you do a 1x set up fee. Here is where you clean up when they need you.
Pick a minimum price you want, and always present something higher. That gives you room to negotiate. Geeks hate negotitaion, business people love it. Be prepared for it. Be prepared to walk away from deals where they want too much; those people are users and they will expect you to work for them 24/7 for way too little money. It's just not worth it.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I taught senior citizens how to use Windows and the Internet. I got paid $10/hr. by the senior center to do this. It wasn't a lot of cash, but it lead to something else.
I was then asked by my students for personal tutoring time and tech support. I charged $20/hr. I couldn't charge more than that because it was a blue collar town, but I made a decent living. I was able to go to college and live comfortably while working only 20 hours a week. I was also able to save up for a new car and a wedding ring when the time came. And the experience has proven invaluable because now I charge $65/hr. to do the same thing, and people don't even blink. They keep asking me to come back.
Well, When I was 17 y/o I went and got a job at an office supply store. Staples #134 in Palm Springs, CA. I was the snot nosed kid who worked the computer section at the time. After I was there a few months, I started getting a good reputation with customers and staff, and got LOTS of side business doing things like:
- installing parts I sold
- setting up peoples new computers
- migrating peoples data to new computers
- teaching them how to USE their computers
- general tech work
Of course I had to make sure that the general manager was OK with that, and he was cool with it as long as I wasn't constantly pimping myself. I usually let people ASK if I knew anybody who could do such and such and I'd say "I know *just* the guy". I'd ask for THEIR contact info, and I'd call them after hours (or before if I was working 1-9 like I did often.)
I charged $25/hr, with a 1hr minimum. I'd go through their computers and make sure they were running good, THEN I'd start teaching them. I made thousands and thousands of dollars this way. It could be hard work but I'd take the stuff that other area consultants wanted $75/hr to work on, or just plain wouldn't do.
It gave me a good base, and you know, I STILL do lots of that stuff on the side, but these days I charge $45/hr and most of the work is web design work that I bid per job, flat rate. Yeah, I'm cheap, but I'm not out to make a killing. I'm out to make a *living*.
The OTHER thing I used to do alot was to find a computer shop online that would wholesale parts to me, and I'd price out uber-cheap computers that were custom built. Then, I'd advertise it in the paper at a really good price, cheaper than most places. Very little profit margin, if any. If they ordered, I'd buy the parts, build it, and deliver. Then if they wanted extra help with it, no problem. $25/hr.
If you want to figure out how to get customers to spend money, go to a pet shop. See those cute fish for 10 cents? Bowl, $5. Pump, $10. Food, $3, rocks, $2. There, now you just made $20 on a 10 cent fish.
The moral of my story? People are sheeple. You need to learn how to lead them into buying from you, but it has to be their idea. Wanna sell $20 of fish supplies? Find the cutest 10 cent fish you can, and sell the heck out of them.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
If you're not stupid, you can do ok.
get them to tell you secrets.
invest $1000 accordingly.
1. Crack cocaine distribution.
2. Extortion of lunch money from minors.
3. Consulting for Mcdonalds.
4. Stealing underpants.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Here in the Detroit area we have a company called Technical Youth that hires up high school and college techies and farms them out as temp work. Looks like good money.
http://chrismetcalf.net
Here's what you should do, assuming you can solder, which you said you could.
Set up a home business modding peoples Xboxes and PS2s over the summer. You're the right age to know a bunch of people who will have them, and will probably have a couple hundred bucks they could throw your way if you hotrod them.
Charge them the cost of the modchip (cheap, like $30) the cost of a hard drive, and 100 bucks for yourself.
Just don't run afoul of the authorities when you do all this, they will think you're cyber-terrorists or something. Not that you're doing anything all that illegal, but don't start hacking DSS cards too.
Hmm...
Anyway, his company was legit after 2 years. Sounds like you're jealous cause he has a nicer house than yours. The taxes on the house alone were enough to "pay" for anything he got out of this country for his first 2 years here. So shut your pie hole and use your mind before you post crap like that.
..........FULL STOP.
Forget anything in the IT field. You won't get a decent job. You won't make a decent business. No one in their right mind would buy a computer you build because you have no way of supporting it, especially after the summer is over. Unless you want to sell computers at a computer store (not a bad idea so you can get an idea of what you don't want to ever do again) get a real job doing actual manual work. You won't regret it. You might actually learn something. I did landscaping for a while. The folks I worked for were a bunch of jackasses but the pay was good. We had overtime every single week because they were undermaned and overworked and then some. The hours will probably have some flexibility to them so you can take a couple college classes during the summer. What?! You're not planning on taking summer college courses. You're one dumb SOB then. Take them and get it over with. Working outside will give you a good tan. Doing manual labor might actually get your fat ass into somewhat decent shape too. Both of these things will be useful when you get to college. Forget the dreams of striking it rich when people find out you know how to work with computers. Do a job that will pay you real money and save the fancy IT job until you have a degree or impressive certification (not MCSE!) that says you actually know what you're doing.
I'm (provisionally) actually looking for someone to do some of the residential support I have to deal with sometimes, because it's not really my primary business and I'm a bit overloaded (things like my client's cousin's home computer needs a new modem...)
I'm in Chicagoland, in the western burbs : )
As for the first job I got - actually I'm talking about the first job I got on purpose, I'd had a couple of jobs I kindof wandered into.
I realized I didn't have a car - so I got on my bike. And I looked at a map to figure out where there were close enough stores, and then I went there and started applying at mad. But I ended up with a job at a computer store - and it was targetted as a summer job for HS students.
It was mostly cleaning computers (with glass cleaner, not software) in schools while they were out of session for the summer. But it paid well (for me, then - but anyone older wouldn't probably have thought so!)
Also, since I did know something about computers and it was a small store I ended up doing some sales stuff and later some tech stuff, which was all great for my resume and for my knowledge.
I'd argue that because the pay rates go up so tremendously as you get older, you might be MORE interested in seeing if you know what field you WANT to go into, and starting a business doing that whether you make any money or not, because it'll make it easier to get the _next_ job - ideally you'll also have a portfolio of what you did, if it's any kind of development.
Temper this with having fun, of course - you're young.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot