How a 16-Year-Old Started His First Business

I was 16 when I started my first real business. Not a side gig or something I thought might turn into money — an actual business where I was trying to solve a real problem and charge people for it.

I'm going to tell you what that actually looked like, because there's a gap between "someone started a business" and "here's what actually happened." One sounds glamorous. The other is messy and real.

The Setup

I was already thinking a lot about systems and problems and how things work. I'd been listening to podcasts and reading about business. So I wasn't totally green. But listening to business stuff and actually starting a business are completely different.

The idea came from noticing something in my actual life: I and a lot of people I knew were using these different tools and services for school and side projects, and a lot of the tools were either expensive or annoying to set up or didn't work the way we needed. There was friction. And I thought, "I could probably build something that would make this better."

That was it. Not a eureka moment. Just looking at a problem I had and thinking I could solve it.

The First Month Was Chaos

I started building something. I didn't have a business plan. I didn't have a formal structure. I just started building. I had some money saved up from freelance work, so I could pay for tools and hosting and stuff without asking for investment or anything.

The building part was actually not the hardest part, which surprised me. I can code pretty well, so I could make something that worked. The hard part was everything else.

I had no idea how to price it. I had no idea what features people actually wanted because I was just building what I thought would be cool. I had no idea how to talk to people about what I was doing. I definitely had no idea how to actually get customers.

I spent the first month making something that worked technically but wasn't solving the problem very well. I built features that nobody cared about. I didn't talk to any potential customers because I was self-conscious about the whole thing and I didn't want to seem like I was trying too hard.

That was a waste of time. Not total waste — I learned stuff. But it was a missed month.

When Things Started Actually Happening

About six weeks in, I got frustrated enough to actually talk to some people about what I was building. Not to sell them anything — just to ask what they actually needed.

That was the shift. Because the second I started asking people what they wanted, the entire direction of the product changed. I'd been building the wrong thing. Not completely wrong, but wrong enough that it wouldn't have worked as a business.

I changed the pricing model. I got rid of features I'd spent time building. I added features I hadn't thought about. The product got way simpler and way more useful.

And then I had like three people interested in actually using it. Not customers yet — interested. But that was different from zero.

The First Customer

The first customer was someone who knew me through my dad. That's a real thing that happened. Not a stranger who found me online. Someone who knew about what I was doing and decided to help.

Getting that first customer felt huge. Because suddenly it was real. Someone was going to pay money for something I built. But also it was genuinely terrifying because now I had to actually deliver and not mess it up.

I remember being super paranoid about making sure they were satisfied. I checked in too much. I added features on the fly. I was probably annoying. But they stuck with it and I got better at just letting the product do the work.

What Went Wrong

A lot of things went wrong. Here are the ones that mattered:

I underestimated how much time it would take. I thought I could run this on the side while doing everything else. I was wrong. There's always more to do — customer support, new features, marketing, fixing bugs. I had to get way more disciplined about time.

I spent a lot of time building things that didn't matter. Fancy dashboard animations. Email templates. Features that sounded cool. It took a while to figure out that the only thing that matters is whether customers get value. Everything else is distraction.

I was too in my own head about whether this was "good enough" to sell. I had this thing where I thought I needed to have it perfect before people saw it. That's wrong. Getting it in front of people faster and iterating based on feedback is better than trying to make it perfect in isolation.

I was bad at actually selling it. I'm still kind of bad at it. I don't like pushing myself on people. It took me a while to realize that selling something good isn't sleazy — it's just letting people know about something that could help them. That mental shift changed everything.

What Actually Worked

What worked was actually talking to people. Every time I talked to a customer or someone interested, I learned something I couldn't have figured out alone.

What worked was charging money from the beginning. I didn't do a long free trial period where I was just hoping people would eventually pay. I set a price I thought was fair and told people about it. That forced me to actually think about value and whether what I was building was worth money.

What worked was my dad being an actual resource. Not financially — just knowing someone who understood business and could answer questions when I got stuck. That's actually really valuable when you're starting.

What worked was being willing to change direction when something wasn't working. I didn't get attached to my original idea. If something wasn't working, I changed it.

The Real Situation Now

I'm still running this business. It's not making me rich. It's making money though. Enough that it's real. More importantly, I've learned stuff that I couldn't have learned any other way.

I've learned that starting a business is way more about talking to people and understanding what they need than it is about building something perfect. I've learned that the first version doesn't need to be polished — it needs to be useful. I've learned that I'm good at some parts of this and bad at other parts, and I need to either get better at the bad parts or find people to help.

I've learned that I like building things. Not because it's cool or because of the money, but because I like solving problems and making something that works. That's useful to know about myself.

The Thing I'd Tell Anyone Thinking About This

If you're thinking about starting something, the main thing I'd say is: start before you're ready. Not recklessly. Just before you have everything figured out.

Because the second you start actually talking to people and getting real feedback, the game changes. Everything else is just you guessing in the dark.

Also: don't assume anyone cares about your idea as much as you do. They don't. You have to give them a reason to care. And the only way to figure out how to do that is to try it and pay attention to what works.

And finally: it's not as scary as it looks from the outside. Or it is, but it's not as complicated. You start. You deal with problems when they come up. You iterate. You move forward. There's no magic to it.

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In our house, we're fixing that. Malakai and Lucas are learning about assets, cash flow, and investing right now — at 16 and 14. We're working through real numbers, real budgets, real conversations about money. Not theory. Not a chapter in a textbook. The actual mechanics of building wealth.

When your kid understands money before they leave the house, you've given them something no school ever will.

2. Sales and Communication

Applying for a job? You're selling yourself. Asking someone on a date? Sales. Pitching a business idea, negotiating a raise, convincing your kid to eat vegetables — it's all persuasion and communication.

But school teaches you to sit quietly, raise your hand, and wait to be called on. That's not communication. That's compliance.

I learned to sell out of necessity. When I was building my real estate business, nobody was going to hand me clients. I had to learn how to talk to people, how to listen, how to present value, and how to handle rejection. Books like How to Win Friends and Influence People taught me more about human interaction than four years of college courses combined.

Now we're teaching our boys the same thing. We're building a podcast together, and that's where the real communication training happens. When you have to sit across from someone, ask the right questions, hold a real conversation, and put it out for the world to hear — that's a different level of growth. It's uncomfortable at first. It's supposed to be. That discomfort is where growth lives. And every time they do it, they get a little sharper, a little more confident, and a little more prepared for the real world.

3. Discipline and Health

School teaches you to follow a schedule someone else made. That's not discipline. That's obedience.

Real discipline is waking up early because you have a mission, not because a bell told you to. It's choosing to work out when you don't feel like it. It's putting down the phone and doing the hard thing when every part of your brain is telling you to take the easy route.

And health — physical and mental — is the foundation everything else is built on. You can have all the money in the world, but if your body breaks down, none of it matters.

This is personal for me. Building a business with my brother and sister taught me that mental and emotional health aren't luxuries — they're necessities. Stress, anxiety, burnout — these are the things that destroy people, and nobody in school ever teaches you how to manage them.

4. Problem-Solving and Adaptability

School gives you a problem with one right answer. Life gives you problems with no clear answer at all.

When the real estate market collapsed in 2008 and I lost everything, there was no textbook for that. No study guide. No professor to ask. I had to figure it out — adapt, learn new skills, find a new path forward. That ability to pivot and problem-solve under pressure is what eventually led to building a successful business from the ground up.

The world is changing faster than it ever has. AI is rewriting entire industries. The jobs that exist today might not exist in four years. In a world like that, the most valuable skill isn't what you know — it's how fast you can learn something new.

We're raising our kids to be problem-solvers, not test-takers. When something goes wrong with a project or a plan, we don't hand them the answer. We let them sit in the discomfort, work through it, and figure it out. That's how you build people who can handle anything life throws at them.

5. Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence

This might be the most underrated skill on the list. And school doesn't come close to teaching it.

Self-awareness is knowing what triggers you, what motivates you, what your strengths are and where your blind spots live. Emotional intelligence is the ability to read a room, manage your emotions under pressure, and connect with people on a human level.

These are the skills that determine the quality of your relationships, your leadership ability, and ultimately, your happiness. And you won't find them in any curriculum.

Malakai experienced this firsthand at Tony Robbins' Unleash the Power Within. Being in that room, surrounded by people doing deep personal work, he started to understand himself in a way that no classroom could have given him. He came back different — more aware, more intentional, more grounded.

As a family, we prioritize processing emotions, managing stress, and staying clear-headed. It's not something most 16-year-olds are doing. But most 16-year-olds aren't being prepared for the world that's actually coming.

The Real Curriculum

Here's what I believe: the five skills listed above — financial literacy, sales and communication, discipline and health, problem-solving, and self-awareness — are more valuable than any degree you can hang on a wall.

If you're a parent, you don't have to wait for the school system to catch up. You can start teaching these things at home, right now, today. A book. A conversation. A real-world challenge. That's all it takes to start.

If you're a young person reading this — pay attention to the skills that actually move the needle. Not the ones that earn you a grade, but the ones that earn you a life.