Last December I realized that I made a big mistake with JuniorBiz.

I’ve talked to hundreds of high school and middle school students and I found that most of them are curious about entrepreneurship but very few are serious about it. They all want to start businesses “someday.”

I want to help people start businesses right now. Not just help them think about doing it. So I created a site that’s designed to help the 20-something entrepreneur become a successful entrepreneur. I call it 14 Clicks.

About 14 Clicks

14clicks.com officially launched March 14th, 2011.

The name comes from the fact that it takes 14 clicks to reserve your business name and register your LLC. That’s the easy part.

I want to help people with the hard parts: getting customers, building your website, becoming profitable, and growing to the point that you can walk away from it. I want to help people become successful entrepreneurs.

This is what I call the second “14 Clicks.”

First-Month Stats

The official launch date was March 14th but I spent the first few weeks fixing bugs and finalizing the design. So it unofficially launched on April 1st.

These are the first-month stats from April 1st – May 1st.

• Unique Visitors: 1,034 (Goal 1,000)
• Pageviews: 2,078 (Goal 2,000)
• Pages/Visit: 2.01
• Bounce Rate: 63.93%
• Average Time on Site: 2:29
• % New Visits: 62.19%

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Get a Free Digital Copy of My New Book

In addition to launching the new site, I wrote another book, Get Started with Entrepreneurship: Everything You Need to Know to Become a Successful Young Entrepreneur.

In it I gathered just about everything I know about starting a business to lay down a process for becoming a successful young entrepreneur.

Here are a few things you’ll learn:

• How to choose the perfect idea and dramatically increase the odds of its success from the outset.
• Where you’ll find your first customers and how to reach them with the golden sales pitch.
• A checklist to see if all systems are ready for launch and the best ways to maximize sales in the first week of your business.
• Everything you need to know about the legalities of running a business and how to pay taxes as an entrepreneur.
• The truth about the entrepreneur’s role and the only five ways to grow your business.

Get Your Free Digital Copy Here

Late last night I got an email that boggled my mind, in a good way.

It came from a young man named Kazuki Kinoshita. Kazuki is currently living amidst the devastation in Japan after the earthquake last Friday. I’ve heard the stories and watched the videos, but one thing I didn’t consider was that many of the businesses were wiped out as well.

That means people don’t have jobs or any way to make money.

Kazuki mentioned in his email that all they have are their mobile phones and internet is limited. They need to make money quickly so they don’t have time to learn new skills. Then he asked, “How will you make money if you are in the same situation as them?”

So this morning I asked my Facebook friends what they would do, and I think we have some solid ideas for how the Japanese can make money today. Kazuki, I hope this at least gets your gears turning.

What you can’t do…

Whenever someone asks me how they can make quick cash, I tell them to provide a service for someone they know. But that’s not really an option for you or anyone else in Japan. I imagine the government and foreign aid programs are paying people for cleanup, but I’m sure those jobs are in high-demand.

So, a simple service isn’t the best idea for your situation.

You also asked about somehow documenting your experiences (photos, videos, eBook) and selling that, but that’s a fair amount of work and there’s no guarantee that you’d get paid. There are so many reporters and journalists there now that global media isn’t starved for content. Then taking the time to write an eBook without knowing exactly how to sell it is risky.

There’s a chance it could spread across the internet, but it’s a small chance.

What you should do…

Providing a service is still the best way to make guaranteed money quickly. With that said, my friends Kerwin McKenzie and Allen Duck both recommended offering Japanese translation services.

Really, any service that you can provide digitally to someone abroad is the way to go. That might be transcription, graphic design, web development, data entry, or even small tasks like clearing someone’s email for them (as King Sidharth suggested).

Here’s how to do it…

You’ll find plenty of freelance and odd-ball jobs on sites like Elance, oDesk, Freelancer, and maybe even Fiverr or Cashcrate.

• Elance - It’s the biggest freelance job posting site in the world. When I searched, “Japanese Translation” I found 11 active jobs.
• oDesk – oDesk is a growing site for outsourcing jobs. Here I found 50 active jobs for “Japanese Translation.”
• Freelancer - I found 8 more active jobs here.
• Fiverr and Cashcrate - Both of these sites pay you small amounts of money to do small things. But my friend Eddys Velasquez said it takes 3-4 weeks before you get paid.

In addition to the translation jobs, you’ll find over 50,000 other jobs that people have posted right now.

I’m not sure about how long it takes to get paid from those sites. If you find that it’s too long, find another service that you can provide to someone who has money to pay you today.

Let us know how we can help…

This may not be the answer you were looking for or even something that possible considering you’re situation. But I hope we at least opened some doors for you or inspired you to think about entrepreneurship in a new light.

Kazuki, thank you for reaching out to me and I hope this helps. I’m honored to have an opportunity to make a small impact on what’s going on in Japan.

If you guys have any other ideas for what they can do, leave them in the comments below. Kazuki is going to spread this post to other people in Japan who are desperate for your ideas. Thanks!

Photo by: Stuck in Customs

The biggest complaint that we’ve received about our book is that it doesn’t give enough ‘how-to’ advice. We’ve taken that to heart.

So we spent the last two months digging into our young entrepreneurs and picking apart how they built 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-figure businesses from the ground up.

What types of businesses are they in? How did they get started? What did they do to expand their fledgling businesses into mini empires?

Nick and I found six consistent ways that young entrepreneurs are making money.

But simply “finding out” wasn’t enough. So Nick wrote-up a free, 60-page how-to guide (don’t worry, it reads fast) that details the step-by-step processes that you can replicate to make money like these young entrepreneurs.

Here’s what you’ll discover:

• Why Scheidies agreed to write this book without any interest in entrepreneurship and how he has 180-ed since.
• How to make a healthy income as a freelance whatever.
• How you need to sell thousands of books, then get published.
• How to become a professional speaker and actually get paid for it.
• How to make money online by selling other people’s stuff.
• How to get other people to sell your stuff online.
• How to create a gigantic online brand that’ll have larger brands knocking on your door.
• Why one drop of ___________ is better than an ocean of _____________.

What you need to do next

Enter your email here to get the free report:

It’s very important to us that everyone receiving The Report actually wants it. Once you enter your email, you’ll need to confirm that you want to receive it by clicking a confirmation link. So check your inbox after you sign up.

Delusional people love the idea of working from home. So much so that they google “work from home” 2.2 million times every month.

Once they start working from home, they’ll realize that it’s one of the worst parts about being an entrepreneur.

Today, Alex Papa from Business Opportunities Expo is going to pinpoint five pitfalls of working from home and how you can avoid them.

1. Where’s My Secretary?

The euphoria of being your own boss dissipates when you realize that you are also your own secretary, receptionist, publicist, marketer, human resources director, accountant, etc.

When you work for a corporation, all these things are handled for you. It’s more overwhelming than you could have imagined, and your dream of spending more time with your friends dissipates with your entrepreneurial euphoria.

Solution – Outsource small tasks or hire a virtual assistant.

2. Free Time is Nonexistent

As you become more successful, you will have to work even harder, putting in more hours, getting less sleep, spending less time with the family, and spending more time worrying about your business decisions.

Your time is spent in front of the PC, opting for a sandwich at noon and a hurried, litany-laden dinner at night. Then it’s back to the office for more calls and emails.

The next morning, you are back at the computer by seven and the cycle begins again. This is not what you thought it would be.

Solution – Set and acknowledge a quitting time. There will always be more you can do. Don’t postpone your life.

3. Work and Home are Inseparable

When you work at an office, you shut down everything at five and go home to a totally different environment.

Now, your work is at home. Even if you just have a laptop in the family room, you will be checking your emails, calling clients or freelancers, and writing blog posts.

Your mind doesn’t shut down either; it’s always mulling over what you did or didn’t do today, and what you have to do tomorrow.

Solution – Get up in the morning, eat breakfast, take a shower, and get dressed for “work” before you get on your computer. Then put change into your pajamas when you’re done.

4. Your Parents don’t Respect your Work

Have your parents ever told you to “get a real job”?

They come home from work and have no idea how hard you’ve been working. Since you’ve been home all day, they assume you’ve just been watching TV and playing Call of Duty. When in reality, you’ve been working just as hard as your parents and will continue to work well past their bedtime.

Solution – Explain what you do all day to your parents.

5. Home Distractions Cause Daily Failures

Your home is designed to be distracting. It’s meant to be a place where you can relax and occupy your time with fun activities.

Trying to work at home is like trying to make an important phone call at a concert. Every time you lose your focus, it could take 20 minutes before you gain it back again.

Solution – Establish a dedicated workspace.

On the flip side…

Three of the world’s top 25 brands started in a garage.

It can be done. If you know what to expect, what NOT to do and how to avoid the pitfalls of running a home based business, you’re more likely to be successful.

Which Three Big Name Brands Started in a Garage?

Take a guess at which companies that you see everyday started in a garage:
How World’s Top 25 Brands Got Started >>

Photo by slworking2

I’m pretty level-headed but there are a few things that get under my skin.

Last week Yahoo! put up an article about our interviewees and over 400 people commented. About 90% of those comments were, “hooray teenagers,” “go for your dreams,” “that’s inspiring,” blah-dee-dah. But that other 10% really made me tick.

I can’t help but fire back. Below I’ve listed five of the more intelligent comments that hate on young entrepreneurs and I’ve detailed why they’re flat-out wrong.

They’re successful because they’re born rich

“The key trait? Being born rich, or being wildly OVERPAID for nothing! Like Justin Bieber!!” – James

I agree that a lot of our interviewees were born into at least middle-class families and that certainly helps en route to success, but success was far from handed to them.

Farrhad Acidwalla’s parents lent him $10 to buy his first domain (first month of hosting is 1 cent). Everything thereafter was self-funded. Emil Motycka’s parents co-signed on his $8K loan when he was 12, but Emil paid all of that back himself.

The only one who started with a significant initial investment was Catherine Cook. Even then, the $250K investment came from her older brother who earned that money from his own entrepreneurial ventures.

As far as being overpaid for nothing, smart entrepreneurs give people what they want – even if it is Bieber Fever.

Their parents paid for everything

“Yeah I would be rich too if my mommy and daddy paid all the rent, insurance, car payments, phone bills, and bought all of my food and clothing…” – Boondocksaint

You’re right, but that’s the point! I know not every young person grows up with a roof over their head and electricity in their outlets – and that’s a shame. It’s one of the reasons 17-year-old Mark Bao started a foundation to aid homelessness. However, most kids do have their basic needs covered by their parents.

Our interviewees realized this and capitalized on it. Just because you didn’t start your business when you were younger doesn’t mean you can hate on the ones who did.

These are the lucky few out of thousands

“Once again, no one ever shows the 90% of unsuccessful teens who have the EXACT same traits but fail time and time again!” – Kiven

I’m sure there are thousands of teenagers who have similar traits but keep failing. So did our interviewees. They all worked hard and failed countless times. They are some of the biggest failures in the world.

But eventually they did something different. That’s why we wanted to showcase them. A lot of their success is luck, but they gave themselves the opportunity for luck by never giving up.

They’re not creating anything valuable

“What horror. All the new businesses is nothing but selling, website, nothing is produced. Just being middlemen–albeit with higher technology. How sick. This is why we are going downhill.” – Janina

If you read the article, you would have known that starting with something manageable was one of the keys to their success.

I know that innovative technology and new products are imperative to long-term sustainability, but young entrepreneurs can’t always afford to be innovative. They can’t put up the cash for research and development. And if they could, you would’ve whined about how they got a handout.

This is just the beginning of their fledgling, entrepreneurial careers. Now that they have money, they can afford to develop new technologies and expand into more sustainable industries.

Money is the only thing that’s important to them

“Teenage millionaires value money more than anything else. Always focused on money, and they were successful. When their money becomes worthless, will they still be ‘valued’ as an example? Or simply called foolish teenagers who loved money more than anything else….even at the cost of their childhood.” – Charles M

The headline read “Teenage Millionaires” so that it would grab your attention. Business Insider knows that its readers are fixated on money. (By the way, this is a good example of the press grape vine embellishing things: not all of our interviewees are teenagers, nor millionaires.)

One of our interviewees actually told me that he misses being poor because he’s no longer motivated by making money.

Money is just another stat to them. Along with how many users they have, how many foundations they’ve started, and how many lives they’ve changed. Money provides them the ability to give back more than any other teenager could.

They’re missing their childhood

“This all sounds cool because of the money, but throwing your childhood is the worst experience one can have. Gosh, I’m 13 and everyone talks about becoming rich and famous and I can only name two who will be.” – Skyfire

Yep, they’re missing out on prank calls, watching TV and prestige-ing through Call of Duty.

I know it seems like they’re missing out on playing sports, volunteering their time, and otherwise enjoying being kids. But starting businesses is what they enjoy. It’s what they’ve fallen in love with.

They wouldn’t have it any other way.

My Favorite Comment

“Common Trait #8 – They didn’t spend their time posting crap on Yahoo! message boards.” – Seeker

There are always going to be people who see the glass half-empty. Michael Dunlop told me to ignore them, but I couldn’t. I hate the fact that people hate on young entrepreneurs for being successful. Hopefully I’ve cleared a few things up.

You disagree with me? Great! But you’re a coward if you don’t leave your grievances in the comments below.

How did these dweebs get on Yahoo!?

Find out how we got on the homepage of the fourth most trafficked site in the world:
How We Got on Yahoo! Finance >>

Photo by Sylvar