Teenage Entrepreneur: Tips to Help Teens Successfully Plan and Launch a Business

Starting an entrepreneurial venture as a teenager takes a significant amount of time and energy, making self-care an important part of the planning process. Ensuring your own physical and mental health and wellbeing will help you stay focused, on task, and ready to meet any challenges that come your way. Here, Leangap helps you navigate mental and emotional issues that arise along your journey, providing you with healthy coping strategies to keep you moving ahead.

 Establish a Work-Life Balance

 You’ll have to do a lot of juggling as a young entrepreneur, and going into the venture with a commitment to a healthy work-life balance will keep you grounded. IndustryWeek points out that  “a healthy work-life balance requires managing our professional and personal life in sustainable ways that keep our energy flowing, our minds and bodies healthy and our whole selves happy and content.”

 Designate consistent start and stop times for work and plan for personal and family events just as you do business meetings. Hire help on the homefront, like meal delivery, housekeeping, or landscaping services, and hire out business services as well, especially in areas where you don't have expertise. An accountant, social media manager, website designer, or IT pro can help you get your business off the ground and running in short order.

 Manage Your Mental Health

 Launching a new business can be mentally taxing, and it’s important to pay attention to your mental health. Make sure you're getting enough quality sleep, and be on the lookout for symptoms of stress so you can address them before they become overwhelming. According to toWellRight, stress prevention is a health priority.

 You may experience “situational anxiety” in which you’re not necessarily developing a chronic condition, but rather, a condition directly associated with a particularly hectic time of life. You can take care of yourself with yoga and meditation, paired with a healthy whole foods diet, but it’s also wise to consider short-term therapy or even medication if you need it to help you maintain clarity while you’re at critical junctures of your launch.  

Maintain an Exercise Routine

 You may feel like you’re constantly on the go, but you might not be enjoying the full benefits a regular exercise schedule provides. Not only will staying active help you reduce stress, but it will also help you get better rest, and can even reduce stress. You’ll also be able to burn off those occasional fast food meals that most entrepreneurs inevitably find themselves consuming at some point during busy business building periods. Consider a home gym, a fitness club membership, or an exercise buddy who will hold you accountable to a regular routine. You can even combine exercise and relaxation via tai chi.

 Organize Your Business

 Being organized from day one can help your startup go smoothly and reduce stressors. First things first: You’ll need to choose how to structure your venture, whether it’s as a sole proprietor, a corporation, or a limited liability company (LLC). Many entrepreneurs opt for the latter, as an LLC provides personal asset protection, as well as tax advantages over operating as a corporation. Completing and filing business formation paperwork doesn’t have to rest completely on your shoulders – farm it out to an online formation service like ZenBusiness, which can complete the process quickly and affordably.

 Get a business license, write a business and marketing plan, and decide on your incorporation status. Incorporating your business will protect you from some types of liability, streamline the tax-filing process, and give you flexibility. You can do all the filing work yourself, hire an attorney to manage the process, or your best option, use a formation service.

 Also do some research into what, if any, special use permits or liability insurance your business may need to secure. Additionally, you’ll need to secure a workspace and outfit it according to your business needs. The more organized you are, the better positioned you are to manage your time.

 Look into the tools and software available to help you get and stay organized. Adobe Acrobat, for example, is a fantastic tool that can combine PDFs into one file, an especially helpful application when different team members are working on individual documents. Each team member can add their files and merge them, allowing the workflow to continue in real-time. As the document manager, you’re able to then organize individual pages or share the combined PDF.

The Small Business Administration offers wide and varied resources designed to meet the needs of all U.S.-based businesses, so visit the site and access tools as needed.