Youth Entrepreneurship: Nurturing Natural Interests into Successful Ventures

Young entrepreneurs can thrive by monetizing their interests and providing exceptional value to clients.

### Finding and Monetizing Business Ideas for Young Entrepreneurs
* 👶 Young entrepreneurs, especially those aged 14-20, have a unique advantage in **learning and adaptability**, making it an ideal time to **explore interests and build significant ventures**.
* 🚀 The key to success is understanding the difference between a startup (**finding a model**) and a business (**scaling a proven model**).
* 🎨 Start by observing your natural interests and creating products or services that appeal to others, focusing on **what excites you**.
* 💰 It's crucial to validate your ideas by getting people to **pay for your products or services**, even if it's initially on a **small scale**.
* 📊 Avoid the common mistake of trying to **scale too quickly**; instead, focus on delivering **exceptional value** and learning from each transaction.
* 🌱 The process involves four stages: **choosing a product**, **generating leads**, **making sales**, and **establishing the legal framework**.
* 🔄 Iterate through these stages multiple times to find a business idea that **truly resonates with you and your customers**.
* 🎁 "Business is not just about making money or ambitions; it’s a special way of interacting with people. Building relationships with people is better based on the principle of **giving, where you give more than is asked of you**."

I know that you have a technology, and you have developed ways to find business ideas that can be pursued not only by serious adults but also by school students. There are case studies available; can you share them? We initially started as businessmen focusing on young people, and now we target those up to 27 years old. We did not include ourselves in this group because during the young age, especially from around 14 to 20 years, there is the most intense speed of learning and change, and the lowest level of fear. This is precisely the time when one can actively engage in something, explore interests, and build something significant. Importantly, this age does not require extraordinary efforts. The main problem arises when discussing the primary mistakes that people make; this issue can be termed cargo business. People see examples of large businesses that have already been established and think that a big business is something...

The sales department of a building is focused on traffic scaling, and they are taking their first steps in business, just like large companies do. They imitate the behavior of big corporations as they have seen on television or online, but this has nothing to do with reality. Americans divide all businesses into two parts: the first part is what they call a startup, and the second part is what they refer to as a business. 

What is the difference? In a startup, you do not yet have a model, and the main task in the early stages is to find your own model. There is a technology called a pilot, which allows a person to test many different options, make mistakes, and ultimately find what will generate income and joy, as well as the potential for scaling. This process involves having a team. Until a model is found, the individual tests what will easily bring in money and meets their quality standards. Only when they have identified this model through a series of operations can they move forward.

Если у него здесь не получается, ничего страшного. Он просто отбрасывает и идет дальше. Это метод, когда-то называвшийся fast fail, то есть ошибайся дешево, ошибайся быстро. Когда он нашел модель, условно говоря, он уже зарабатывает о миллионах, может быть, даже рублей на том, в чем пока еще нет системы. Значит, уже есть интерес, то, что мы называем AI, индикатор интереса со стороны людей. Это интересно, как правило, складывается какая-то первичная команда. То есть это интересно не только тебе, у тебя уже есть деньги, которые ты заработал на первом этапе, и есть желание сделать из этого что-то большое. И только после того, как модель живучая, мы это называем зародыш, после того как у тебя есть зародыш, ты начинаешь это масштабировать. То есть начинаешь масштабировать через хороший трафик, через упаковку, через отдел продаж, через построение системы и так далее. В чем ошибка? Как правило, все начинают делать бизнес в кавычках, то есть начинают сразу с технологий, бизнес-плана, масштабирования и так далее.

Next, as a business, like any other activity, you can easily and naturally do this. In these sessions, the first stage is self-observation. The second observation is to look at what naturally interests you. Why are you naturally drawn to certain things? For instance, some people are attracted to marketing, others to cars, and some to working with cartoons or other interests. The first thing that happens is that we often undervalue the area of our natural interests. For example, we have a guy who sells axes in online games. It’s a 3D online game where he sells axes. He has several teams in Ukraine and other countries that level up characters. You can visit his site, and if you don’t have much time to level up your character, you can pay him a fee, though I don’t remember how much.

Somehow, this team runs with you to kill a huge monster. They kill it, or you drop the axe, and you take that axe. It's cool; a person has a big business and earns more than one and a half million. All of his clients are from the USA, that is, in English. It seems that this person's area of interest is online games, and he managed to monetize them. First of all, from his interest, it might not work out too well for us. 

Now we have a guy who is 16 years old. This 16-year-old earns about 800 to 900 thousand rubles a month. He has several businesses and makes, I think, 50 shipments a day. He doesn't work with 16 people in the company. What does he sell? He has a product business, and the most interesting business he has is selling ant farms. He produces and sells ant farms that look like a cube, and there is a civilization of ants inside. You can observe how the civilization develops.

In which Grigorovich, the guy, sells ants, and the company is cool. It means that from close by, the guys launched something at our university. They started selling exotic animals, like anteaters and some snakes. It turned out to be a whole market; it's funny who buys wild, venomous snakes. It's unclear who spends crazy amounts of money on them. We have guys who are from Ukraine, and when they were just testing their first niches, they sold a macaque. They needed to find a macaque, so they looked at the requests for macaques. They posted an ad saying they needed to sell a macaque and sold it. Then they found another macaque somewhere in another part of Ukraine, crossed them somehow, and now they work in Russia, focusing on lead generation for companies. So, after observing this, you need to learn to do something. A hobby is when you do something and create a ready-made product. For example, we have one guy who...

A large company called Ignis Pixel sells LED poi. They create different fire-related products. This is a classic story: a person who understands this market because it is his natural interest. He enjoys what he does. He studied at Bauman University, is intelligent, and is an engineer. He combines his engineering skills with his passion for poi. He looked at what was missing in this market and created LED poi. You spin the same items, but instead of fire, these poi display patterns through movements that you can upload via a flash drive. You can create different designs, and it’s beautiful. The interesting thing about this guy is that he started by engaging schoolchildren and students, and now he sells to the international market. His main market is international, which means there’s nothing stopping these guys.

Our young people are also selling to Western markets. This is a trend led by leaders in the movement worldwide. Here, we have well-known individuals in local communities in Anapa. This is their packaging, showcasing different types. This is an example of a person who turned their natural interest into a business venture. Most people initially try to start a business by buying a franchise or saying, Let's open a content café. The motivation for starting a business is often very unclear. The simplest approach starts with your natural interest. The second step is to create something for people so that they become interested in your product. It's simply interesting to people, and if you do something cool, they'll ask for more. The next challenge is to ensure that people are willing to pay you. When people pay you for your services, it becomes a crucial moment; it indicates that they are ready to invest in what you offer.

For example, Misha and Danil are engaged in attracting clients. It's a classic business theme; you can work with cards. But when the first clients appear, especially for young people, they need to understand that there are two paths they can take. The first path is to start selling more. Let's sell websites; we have a client. Let's take 10 clients and gather 10,000 rubles from each. That will give us 100,000 rubles. This is a bad path because people immediately try to scale an unprepared model, and they don't have a product as such yet. At the first stage, it is very important to do what we call an exchange with a surplus. When a person pays you 20,000-30,000 rubles, the most important thing at the beginning is not the money you receive but the experience you gain. Having the opportunity to learn while getting paid for it is already happiness in itself. And this is one of the...

Ошибки заключаются в том, что гнаться сразу за быстрыми деньгами неправильно. В любой нише, когда ты получаешь первые заказы, можно накапать много заказов, а потом сидеть и просто получать прибыль. Но самое главное — это не получить опыта в том, чтобы делать что-то с хорошим качеством. Необходимо постараться за те деньги, которые тебе платят, сделать в десять раз больше, чем ты получил. Короче говоря, с самого начала бизнеса нужно делать так, чтобы клиент, для которого ты работаешь, был супер доволен тем, как ты выполнил услуги для него.

Когда к нам пришли эти ребята, они, как всегда, захотели установить большую цель — миллион. Они думали, что быстро к ней доберутся. Сказали, что для достижения миллиона им нужно десять заказов по 100 тысяч рублей. Мы ответили: Нет, не так. Вместо того чтобы гоняться за большим количеством клиентов, возьмите два-три клиента и сделайте так, чтобы отзывы и результаты по этим клиентам были максимальными. Упакуйте эти результаты. Это изменило мышление ребят. Вместо того чтобы...

In order to chase volume, chase traffic, and chase leads, they began to focus on creating a very good quality product. If we say it straightforwardly, during the first three years of starting a business, it's better to do without traffic altogether. It's better to rely on word-of-mouth marketing, to refine the product, and to emphasize that the product is outstanding. Of course, there should be some money involved, but it’s important to understand that there must be a call to action. 

You mentioned the first stage as observation. Let's take a school student who is engaged in something like dancing, for example. How can they take the next step? If a person observes something they like, how can they find a product to sell based on what they enjoy, or a service? Perhaps there is an algorithm for figuring out how I can do this for others, how I can start doing this for others as soon as possible. Let me provide some more examples.

There were also other guys, like Ivanov Gleb, who studied for a career in public service. It was clear that public service was not for him; he ended up there by accident. He has a girlfriend, and together they started creating cool toys from scratch. They made these toys for themselves and for their friends, and gradually they realized that what they were making was interesting and enjoyable for other people. Consequently, they began to create toys for others as well. 

The most important moment was testing their product with other people. They would ask, What do you want? What interests you? Here, I made you this gift, and soon people started reaching out to them, buying their toys for birthdays and other occasions. The key point here is that in Western technologies, especially those involving in-depth interviews, the most crucial aspect is the iteration process with clients in the initial stages. The more feedback you can gather, the better.

They asked what you need and what I can improve in your product because essentially people started asking what I could do for you. For example, you could create a cosmic lion, or you could create a cockroach with mother-of-pearl and disadvantages, and they said, Why not? Why not? Why not? Gradually, they began to test the technology. They came and saw that we have our logo, which features a unicorn and a lion, and they created a unicorn lion for us in such a way that they acquired the skill to do something. They enjoyed it and had a natural interest, but they were testing it for other people to understand what the market actually needed. Then they went to sell this, probably at a fair. The technology was very simple; they started to promote it through Instagram, which became popular among their friends, and they began to recommend it. Eventually, they achieved their first results of 300,000 rubles.

In the past two months, I allowed them to quit all their jobs and simply perceive this not as Fabio, but as their main activity. Now, let me show you my son, who is 6 years old. He has a small furniture business. I will show you that he just sold another product—these stools. We have been working on his stool together. Then he assembles it and paints it. First, he burns the design into the wood, then he paints it and covers it with varnish. They sell for 500 rubles each, and for 2,000 rubles for a holiday. This is the task of the first stage. The goal of the first stage is not to earn a huge amount of money, but rather to synchronize the area of your interest—what you like—with the market, what people like. The excitement that arises from this operation is the foundation of a future business. There comes a moment when people are willing to pay money, and then, for business, it can be hard or easy. It’s hard when you...

You are pulling him with great effort, and the product is great; people like it. You just need to throw some firewood into the fire, and it will burn on its own. For this to happen, you need to have many organic clients. We call this a ture disbalance, meaning that the number of clients should become greater than what you can serve. You achieve this not by just running a lot of traffic; it happens in a natural, organic way. Then, you find yourself needing to build a team. You understand that you need assistants to manage everything smoothly. Naturally, you transition to the next stage. 

The next stage is represented by an arrow, a circle, and a square. What does this mean? It means you now have many clients, and you need to build a technology for attracting clients. You need to figure out where to get your traffic from: Instagram, YouTube, Direct. You also need to package yourself. Again, this can be through Instagram, YouTube, or a website.

The system for processing the first person who would take calls is now done automatically through WhatsApp, various messengers, and a framework for production. The goal is to attract clients and generate leads so that they are funneled into a converter. This could be a website, a ticketing site, an Instagram page, or simply a one-page landing site. This traffic can come from various sources: it could be from social media, YouTube, contextual advertising, bloggers, and so on. You need to create a stable flow of clients because this is where the transition from hobby to business occurs. Business, as defined by law, is an activity aimed at generating systematic profit. Systematic means that even if you stray from your path, it still brings in income. Therefore, you need to build a model for how you acquire leads; you need to establish a model for how you...

Converting these leads into orders here, and from leads into purchases, on one hand, it's simply about selling through scripts; here we need scripts. On the other hand, this can be done live, and now it can also be done automatically through auto webinars and such touchpoint chains with bots. It’s not necessary to inflate the large model of this. 

The fourth component is the establishment of your own production, because it is important not to forget that people pay you for the final product. Often, people get immersed up to 90%, getting warmed up to sell and sell and sell, but many problems truly arise here. When it comes to the product, we need to work on the last 10-20% as well. We use technologies like NPS (Net Promoter Score) at school days, where you rate on a ten-point scale how likely you are to recommend this to a friend. The NPS technology indicates that...

развиваются эти бизнесы, которые клиенты оценивают как 9 или 10. Вот их рекомендуют, там 78% вообще не учитываются, потому что это нейтральная оценка. Такие люди не рекомендуют, а 6% — это критики. То есть необходимо быть в продукте на уровне 9 или 10. После того как я построил эту всю цепочку своими руками, ты отстроил личный поток, ты построил продажи, ты отстроил производство, ты можешь выйти за контекст уже сюда и строить. Там можно сравнить с кубами. На первом этапе ты занимался чем-то, было весело, это был день. На втором этапе ты отстроил, ты получаешь лидов и понимаешь, что такое возврат на инвестиции. Ты понимаешь, что ты покупаешь любовь к себе, что это для тебя выгодно и рентабельно. Второй кубик, который ты подстраиваешь, — это кубик конвертации лидов в покупки, и здесь у тебя тоже есть стоимость клиента. Третий кубик, который ты отстраиваешь, — это кубик производства. И после того как ты отстроил вот эти кубики, вот здесь...

Inside, it's important for you to go beyond, to come here and already build management. Management is a completely different technology; it's about goals, it's a map of key tasks, it's a system of motivation. This is what allows you to manage this entire process from the top. In other words, it's about getting out of the soup, and this stage is called scaling. All these seven aspects of management that you once built, you can now scale this technology. But for this, a certain amount of time should pass. The mistake is starting from the last aspect, meaning you should come to it organically. To do this, look at what you enjoy doing and try to earn money from it. Money doesn't lie; what you can earn money from can be your area of interest. And there are cases you seem to have shown, even before the war, showing different people and different cases. For example, there's a girl named Dobrynina; at that time, she was sixteen hours already, and she was making cakes. She came to the workshop in the summer because there were...

During the summer vacation between the 10th and 11th grades, she made wonderful cakes and desserts. She did this not only for herself but also for her friends. She started selling them to friends and acquaintances, earning her first 20,000 rubles. When she realized this, she began to look for ways to sell her cakes. Selling them personally didn’t seem interesting enough, so she explored different options. She understood that the most profitable for her was to create dessert tables for events. If there was an event, she would arrange a sweet table, which was a corporate order with a higher ticket price. Instead of making just one cake for a client, she would prepare a variety, almost like wholesale. To achieve this, she needed to meet with clients, going to 20 meetings, which was, of course, daunting. She visited events, met friends of friends, and consulted with agencies. She had a very simple technology that she would apply when she arrived.

With the dessert and the cake, you say, I want to treat you; try the cakes. Here are the photographs of how I make them. If you're interested, let's make some for you. After that, she managed to earn 120,000 rubles. Could she have made more? Yes, but for her, that was a comfortable amount. After this, she even worked as a pastry chef in a top Moscow restaurant for a while. It's clear that it wasn't the right job for a young girl, but she gained valuable experience. She didn't succeed in that position, and now she thinks about what she wants to do next. They say she is now grooming dogs. We just need to take an interview to see what she is doing now. The fact is that at 16, she already gained experience in monetizing her interests, and now she can choose what she wants to pursue. Interestingly, since she is a schoolgirl, the main question was where to study, and she realized that with her...

Earning potential can lead you anywhere; the whole world is open to you. For instance, there's an interesting guy named Vadim who earned a million through sales. He started at a regular fitness club, where he was quite happy. He went to a good fitness club and began building the sales department because he realized that there wasn't an existing one. He ended up creating his own sales department, where he sold memberships worth 15 million rubles. After that, from the 15 million rubles, they paid a million rubles in expenses. He built a sales department with scripts and even bought himself an iPhone. Then, he went to the USA with his mom. His focus was on building a sales department. This doesn’t mean that this niche he chose will be his lifelong career; rather, at 16, he gained experience in what it means to earn money and monetize his interests. Moving forward, he will choose where to go next.

He will go where he goes. The technology itself, if it's incorrect, is very painless. You don't need to take out loans or have outstanding debts; taking on unfulfilled obligations is not necessary. What you need to do is go through four stages. The first stage is choosing the product itself. You either choose something you can do or something that interests you, or it can be from your first circle, like your uncle, dad, or acquaintances. For example, Vadim's mom had a fitness club; he came and started selling services there, and why not? Someone has a sawmill, and someone else, Uncle Slava, sells welding services. For instance, when I started at 15, I also went through this technology. In our neighborhood, friends and I started selling mobile phones. It was a time when pagers had just ended, and mobile phones were just coming in, and we realized that the mobile phone niche was already occupied; people were engaged in it.

My friend and I wanted to start a business, so we figured out what we could do. The first idea came from my friend's mom, who had a store with goods, and there were people with vans transporting items. We thought, why not do freight transportation? We chose the product and created announcements on A4 sheets with tear-off tabs. We had our first mobile phone and searched for freight transportation services, then posted our flyers in the suburbs. The next day, we received a call, and we were so scared that my friend just hung up. We ended up selling two orders, and we had this freight and a driver because my friend's mom knew some drivers. It didn't cost us anything. When we got an order, we took that guy along with us to transport the goods. I remember we earned our first three thousand rubles, with a margin of about five hundred rubles from one order. It was great; it was either you doing it yourself.

Either take the first round or actively search for products and suppliers. Many people start engaging with trending products, but that doesn’t mean they will always focus on them. It signifies the first step when they are trying and testing. The first step is product search; typically, we write down 5 to 10 ideas for advertising. 

The second stage is generating leads. To get leads, you need to create a converter, meaning you should post an advertisement and drive traffic to it. The advertisement can be simple; it could be through various channels like word of mouth, a website, direct mail, or Instagram—anything works. You need to cross the advertisement with traffic to ultimately generate leads. Once you have leads, we move on to the next stage.

The next stage is the sales phase. Leads don’t pay money by themselves; you need to convert them into sales. Therefore, it’s essential to learn how to receive orders, make calls, and close deals. The next part is the scheme itself.

You need to understand the legal framework, which means you must not bury your head in the sand. You should know how you will accept payments through checks and which model is the most suitable for your small business. Yes, you need to find a partner or associate through whom you can make the first deal or receive funds. There is nothing wrong with that, but for the second, third, or fourth deal, you must follow a proper legal framework. You won't be able to build a large business and scale it if you don't understand how it works. 

It's called spinner because you need to go through this process once, implement the legal framework, and fulfill obligations. If you remove this aspect from the equation, if this is taken out of the picture, as an entrepreneur, you and all these guys have gone through this one cycle to find your business. You need to keep spinning it, make another iteration, and continue.

another iteration, it's called beer. That is, a painless operation during which you understand what works for you and what doesn't. After about five or six turns, you find the activity that is definitely yours. Cool, thank you very much! Thank you for the unusual methodology with a lot of examples. I hope it helps many people. It was very interesting. Great! I wish all the guys to start ethical businesses. They will be ethical when you take the technique of exchange with an excess as a rule from the very start. What is exchange with an excess? It's when you deliver more than expected. If someone pays you 10,000 rubles, you provide value worth 100,000 rubles. If someone pays you nothing, you still deliver more. Because business is not just about making money or ambitions; it’s a special way of interacting with people. Business shows how you build relationships with others.

Building relationships with people is better based on the principle of giving, where you give more than is asked of you. However, you can give more when you have more to offer. You have more to give when you possess something that you have a natural interest in; something that comes easily to you but is valuable to others. If you base your small business on this, everything will turn out great for you.

БМ: Бизнес молодость | 7 этапов создания успешного бизнеса | Интервью - Петр Осипов и Н. Мрочковский

Nikolay Mrochkovskiy

The focus is on helping individuals aged 14 to 27 explore business opportunities during their most intense learning and changing years.

The concept of a startup is emphasized, where the main task is to find a viable business model through testing and making mistakes.

The process involves self-observation and identifying natural interests, with examples of successful ventures, like selling axes in online games, highlighting the potential for unique business ideas.

Unique Business Ventures of Young Entrepreneurs

A 16-year-old is making 800-900 thousand rubles a month through multiple businesses, including selling ant farms and exotic animals.

Another entrepreneur, inspired by his passion for poi, created a successful company selling LED poi and now caters to the international market.

The key to their success lies in turning natural interests into business ventures and creating products that genuinely interest people.

The Importance of Experience Over Quick Money in Business

Misha and Danil's client attraction strategy highlights two paths: scaling too quickly for money or gaining valuable experience.

The key to success is focusing on a few clients, delivering exceptional quality, and relying on word-of-mouth marketing.

Testing the product with others and gathering feedback is crucial for refining the offering and achieving long-term success.

People started testing a new technology, creating unique products like a unicorn lion, and promoting it on Instagram, leading to their first success of 300,000 rubles.

The goal of the initial stage is to align personal interests with market needs, generating excitement and organic client growth.

As the client base expands, the focus shifts to building a system for attracting clients and generating leads, ultimately transitioning from a hobby to a systematic profit-generating business.

Converting Leads into Orders: A Step-by-Step Approach

Converting leads into orders can be achieved through scripts, live interactions, and automated processes like webinars and bots.

Establishing your own production is crucial, as the final product is what customers pay for.

Using NPS technology to gauge customer satisfaction can help in building a business that clients rate highly, ultimately leading to successful scaling and management of the entire process.

Young Entrepreneurs: From Baking to Sales

A girl started her cake and dessert business during summer, earning 20,000 rubles and later 120,000 rubles by creating dessert tables for events.

She gained valuable experience working as a pastry chef in a top Moscow restaurant before exploring new opportunities, like dog grooming.

Similarly, a boy named Vadim built a successful sales department at a fitness club, earning 15 million rubles and gaining experience in monetizing his interests at a young age.

The first stage is choosing a product, either from personal interests or acquaintances.

The second stage involves generating leads through advertising and driving traffic to the posts.

The final stage is converting leads into sales by learning to receive orders and close deals.

The Importance of a Legal Framework in Business

Understanding the legal framework is crucial for small businesses, especially when accepting payments and making deals.

The process of iterating and refining your business model is essential for growth and success.

Building ethical businesses through the principle of giving more than expected fosters strong relationships and creates value for both parties.