One of the very basic segments of our economy is called “goods and services.” Those are all things people need and pay for—they make the economy hum along prosperously. But what are goods and services?
GOODS ARE THINGS. They are made by a person or a machine; you can use them and hold them in your hands. Earrings, cherry pies, hydroponic gardens, computer paper, T-shirts, blood scanners, solar cars—they’re all goods. And for them to be available for purchase, someone has to make them. That requires hard materials and a method for manufacturing. It doesn’t have to mean you go into business with a factory. You can be your own factory when you’re starting out. But you need supplies and a place to put everything together, so your business will have a different set of startup needs than a business that provides a service.
If you’re building furniture from recycled barn doors or screen-printing your designs on trucker hats, you’re producing goods. Dentist appointments and art classes are services. If you’re advising clients on social media strategies or composing theme music or writing algorithms to solve problems, you’re running a service business. We’ll talk more about services in a bit—but first let’s go deeper into businesses that sell goods. To begin with, you need something to show the world. You need them to see what you can do.
MAKING A PROTOTYPE
The word prototype might conjure up an image of a complicated lab, but it’s really just something to show other people what your product looks like and what it can do. It means you’re making a few samples of your work.
Whether your product is a rainproof poncho, a software program that stores passwords, or a special juice blend, you will need to make at least one prime example to show. Start by experimenting. Use whatever resources you have at school or at an extracurricular class to fill in for tools you may not have handy at home. Maybe you’ve come up with a wearable microscope and you can use the after-school lab to design and build it. Rally whatever resources you have available to help you build out your first working sample device.
Don’t worry if your design doesn’t quite turn out the way you planned when it comes to life. All products are going to involve systematic tinkering and refining.
DON’T FORGET THAT PART: ENJOY THE PROCESS. None of this should feel like the worst homework assignment you can imagine. If it does, shift gears. If you are feeling out of ideas or creatively stuck, step back and do something else you enjoy—go for a run, cook up something delicious, grab your pals for a movie night—and then when you are feeling refreshed, try again. Try and try it again. Maybe you’re crafting a new iPhone case out of specialized rubber that also works to erase pencil marks or take handprints off walls. Start mixing your rubber recipe and try out a few different weights, sizes, and shapes until you come up with the best version to show other people.
IF YOU’RE MAKING SOMETHING INVOLVING FOOD, for example, prototyping is when you work out the recipes. Making organic granola? Try all the different combinations until you have several really good ones. Test them on everyone you know. Get your recipes down. Figure out your packaging. When you get the chance to present someone with your product for the first time, make a good impression. Bring your cookies to a party and serve them for dessert. Pay attention to how people react. Who is eating them? Just the kids? Are they peeling off the chocolate chips and eating those first or are they going for the gooey middles? This is the kind of research companies pay big bucks for, so don’t miss an opportunity to get information for free.
GO FOR VARIETY
WHEN YOU FIRST BEGIN SELLING YOUR IDEA, SHOW IT WELL. Take the time beforehand to create lots of different prototypes. Some people are challenged when it comes to imagining possibilities. Instead of simply talking about what a wearable microscope can do, bring a demonstration to potential clients. Instead of bringing one small plaid dog bed and telling a shop owner that you can also make large ones in corduroy, or other ones with pockets, and still others with attached cat toys for felines, bring examples of everything you can make. Don’t give anyone the opportunity to imagine the wrong thing or suppose you can’t really pull something off when you know you can.
If you’re screen-printing sweatshirts, show designs on the front, the back, the sleeves. Show designs for kids, women, and men. Personalize a few. Offer options. If you’re baking cupcakes, bring a variety of flavors, only put the best-looking ones in a box, and decorate everything.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, worrying about capital budgets or vertical integration yet—yes, those are real—JUST START MAKING YOUR PRODUCT. Sew a skirt, write a graphic novel, build a working model, write a concerto, construct a mousetrap car. Work out the miscalculations and refine your concept. At the beginning of your business venture, focus on its potential.
NUTS AND BOLTS, LITERALLY
YOU’LL NEED SUPPLIES. You may need to hit the hardware store. Or the art supply store. Or the lumberyard. Figure out where to get what you need at the best price. Start comparing prices online and in stores. Don’t forget to factor in shipping costs to get those seemingly inexpensive online supplies to your doorstep. It does you no good to find a $1.99 glue gun with 50 cartridges when it will cost $13.99 to ship it. Better to pick up one for $5.99 at a local art supply store.
This may not matter for the first sample product you’re making, but once you have orders for a dozen or a thousand, YOU’LL NEED TO KNOW WHERE TO GET YOUR SUPPLIES IN BULK. To make smart spending decisions, you’ll need to have an accurate cost for what it takes to make not just one fabulous item but many. Don’t forget to factor in intangible costs, like the time it takes to make each one, or overhead expenses like rental costs for machinery or workspace.
THAT THING YOU CREATE MIGHT BE ART
NOT EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS CLEAR CUT. You know that if you’re making scarves out of recycled cashmere sweater pieces that you’re making a product that you can hold in your hand. It’s a tangible thing.
What if the thing you’re doing is a performance? Is it only a startup if you’re starting a theater company or a theater festival, or is it also a startup if you’re launching your acting career? We think you know the answer already, but just to be clear, when you’re creating an artistic product, whether it is on the page or in performance, it counts. Of course it’s a startup. You are launching yourself and your talent, your expression of something you want to share, into the world and letting people know they can hire you or pay you to sing for them or perform magic tricks at a gallery opening.
MIXING ART WITH BUSINESS
WHEN YOU’RE CREATIVE AND TALENTED, there’s almost nothing better than pursuing your art full-time. Whether you’re a painter or a musician or a playwright, you are Boss, and you’re your own Boss. There are specific challenges that go along with turning something creative—which may also be your passion—into a job. You will be criticized sometimes, and it will feel personal. You will struggle sometimes, and that will make you question whether you’re as talented as someone else.
YOU WILL ALSO NEED TO HAVE A BUSINESS MENTALITY about something that is, at its heart, art. It can get tricky. When you want to get paid to write your blog, you will have to be mindful of what advertisers (likely your source of revenue) have to say. They may even want to influence your editorial vision. In other words, if the company selling lipstick is going to pay you to put their ad on your blog, they may not want you writing about how great it is to go out without makeup on. You get the idea. When commerce meets art, art can get compromised. This doesn’t mean you need to hold your editorial vision hostage to the mighty dollar. You’ll find your own line that defines where you will or won’t compromise. It’s a personal decision, and as long as you’re aware of the potential for conflict of interest, you’ll be able to navigate the challenges.
The same goes for your photography business. You may love taking candid, lyrical photos of your subject, but maybe your first couple of clients are schools that need kids sitting in chairs on picture day. Do you turn down the business and stick to your artistic aesthetic, or do you say yes to the dollar and take the pictures the way your client wants them?
BEING PAID TO BE AN ARTIST IN ANY FORM CAN INVOLVE COMPROMISE AT TIMES, but you don’t have to feel like you’re selling out just because an editor has opinions or a client thinks they know more about musical interludes than you do. You can do both the art you love and the art you do as a business, creating work that is just your own as well as pieces commissioned by your clients.
Remember that everyone who pursues an artistic endeavor goes through what you’re experiencing. So share your successes and your failures with fellow artists who get it. They will remind you that pursuing an artistic talent requires hard work and a constant willingness to put yourself—and your art—out there for others to see and judge and evaluate. You need to develop a thick skin and a willingness to keep at it for as long as it takes.
YOU ARE NOT YOUR STARTUP
This is a good place to talk about the difference between you and that thing you’re creating. On the surface it sounds obvious, but think about it: your product is more than just what goes in the box or bag—it’s a part of you. It’s something close to your heart that you’re putting out there for other people to consume. That’s true whether you’re making buttercream frosting or writing a novel. You’ve put a lot of yourself into creating something. You’d like other people to want it. You’d like them to buy it. And sometimes it can hurt if they don’t.
IT’S EASY TO GET STUCK IN THE WHAT-IFS. What if no one wants to buy my knitted scarves? What if someone thinks I have no talent? What if I’m not as creative and talented as I’d like to believe?
You can only get so much mileage from self-doubt. It’s good to have a bit of it, to keep your ego from ballooning. But after that dose, let the rest go. Don’t let your fears stop you from stepping out the door with your fabulous new lines of code or letting someone read your poems. We all go through moments of self-doubt, but you need to separate the fear and self-consciousness from the creation itself. Let your talent and drive—and your gorgeous knitted scarves, your cool dangling earrings, or your innovative game design—speak for themselves.
ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE A PERSON WITH MANY FABULOUS ATTRIBUTES, CREATIVITY, VISION, AND GUTSINESS. Even if an idea is not successful, it doesn’t mean you are not successful. And if one product goes off the charts, it doesn’t mean that your creative self is a lucky one-hit wonder who will never have that kind of success again. You and your abilities and your determination—those are things that don’t change with the ebb and flow of business. Your ideas and your creations come from you but they aren’t you. They don’t define you and your abilities, so don’t let them take on more importance than they deserve. Hard work and perseverance matter more than raw talent.
BRAND IT!
Before you present your creation to the world, think about how to make a great first impression. The look and feel of your product has to be unique to you. Let’s say your avid snowboarding revealed a need for attractive, super warm bandannas and you’ve created three dozen from soft fleece. Now you want to package them up and get people to buy them. You need to have a vision for your brand—a unique presentation that attracts potential buyers.
THREE RULES OF THUMB
CONSISTENCY: When people buy your bandannas, they should be confident of getting the same great design and warmth every time. Think about why a company like Starbucks is so successful: you can go into any Starbucks in any city and have an identical experience. There’s a feeling of comfort your customer gets from knowing that every time they put on your product, they’re in for a toasty ride on their board. Don’t suddenly change to an itchy wool blend or use cheaper fleece that might be irritating.
ACCESSIBILITY: Don’t hide your snowboarding bandannas in sealed-up white boxes where people can only imagine how great they look. Make use of cellophane wrapping or display the bandannas in baskets. People buy things because they look enticing. They can imagine themselves wearing the necklace they see hanging by the cash register. They can imagine the taste of that scone when they see the blueberries peeking out from its browned and sugared crust. Again, think about Starbucks. Do you think it’s an accident that you have to stand in front of the cake pops and butter croissants while you’re waiting to order, and that those delicious-looking desserts are right at eye level? The whole time you’re waiting to order your coffee, you’re ogling the baked goods, which are beautifully displayed on ceramic plates under flattering lights. You can use the same tricks of the trade. Don’t obscure your product’s appeal by hiding it. Let it sell itself.
IMAGE: Cool packaging and an intriguing logo can give your product a whole other dimension. Here’s where your creativity really pays off. Make up an appealing, unique name for your business. Sprinkles Cupcakes started a revolution. Cupcakes were a boring birthday party staple when Candace Nelson started baking. She created flavors no one had seen, intrigued customers with a cupcake vending machine outside the store, and redefined the industry. People lined up out the door because she created a must-have dessert with a creative name. Cupcakes, which had been generic supermarket treats, now had special cachet when they came in a Sprinkles box.
MAKE IT SUSTAINABLE FOR YOU RIGHT NOW
The number one rule for launching something that will succeed is making it something you can work into your life. If you’re taking a full classload and playing two club sports and an instrument, you may not have the bandwidth for the startup of your dreams right now. That’s okay. You can still get started.
BE REALISTIC about how much time you can devote to something, but don’t let fear of not having enough time hold you back. Find some way to fit in what you want to do. If that means taking a break during the school year and going full bore into a project in the summer, do that. Or if it means asking a friend or family member to help you carry the load, consider whether you can share the burden. Not everything has to get done right away. All of our Bosses who’ve worked on their ventures while in school faced those challenges. They figured out ways to get things done and still keep their grades up. Sometimes it feels like a trade-off, but that’s the life of a student. It’s a tremendous balancing act, and you can handle it.
REVISE AND REFINE
The idea you start with may not be exactly what you end up with. Starting anything is a process of seeing what works and what doesn’t. The beauty of starting small and launching in your own backyard is that you’re free to shake out the mistakes and redirect yourself. Your business may also need to change and adapt over time—what worked at the beginning might not always be the best way to run things.
JUST ONE MORE THING
It’s entirely possible that you’re not ready to start something just yet. Not everyone has a startup on the brain or an app ready to manufacture—at least not yet. Does that mean you need to stop reading now and hope for inspiration at a later date? No.
Start now by doing something that brings you closer to what you might like to do. Even if you’re not ready to launch something of your own, start collecting information and getting acquainted with what’s out there in different industries. Internships or summer jobs are a great way to do that, as are classes or community service projects after school. Think big, but always be willing to do small jobs or internships that may seem slightly far afield of what you want to be doing. They can give you great skills, or turn into a bigger job, or set you going on a direction that could change your life. Finding the right internship can be as simple as searching for something that interests you on internships.com, which sources interning opportunities across diverse industries all over the country. You can also get very specific and look at the Careers section of most companies’ websites, where they’ll post both paid and unpaid opportunities, along with descriptions of the qualities they’re looking for in an applicant. So if you’re a coder who loves playing video games, you can look at the job listings at a company like Riot Games or check the job board in the engineering department of a nearby college for postings for people with your skill set.
