For two years I scraped and scoured the internet hunting for the world’s top young entrepreneurs so I could harvest their secrets.

If I wanted to be successful, I had to learn from the best. I needed to hear their stories. How they started. How they grew. How they are building their empires right now. And I needed to hear it straight from their mouths.

So I narrowed my list of 100+ young entrepreneurs down to the top 25. We contacted them, gathered their secrets and published a book. Here’s a list of the world’s top 25 young entrepreneurial success stories.

Read their interviews, visit their sites, follow them on Twitter and learn as much as you can from their remarkable stories. Oh, and grab the free interview at the bottom.

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Learn more about 50 Interviews: Young Entrepreneurs.

JuniorBiz wouldn’t exist if we felt that the public school system was already giving kids a fair chance to explore entrepreneurship. Most schools in the U.S. don’t even try.

But Cathy Hettleman has taken on the challenge. She is the new coordinator of ACE Transitions at Ft. Collins High School (FCHS) in Ft. Collins, Colorado.

ACE is a program that has traditionally helped kids develop career skills through special programs and internships. It’s also traditionally full of students who don’t fit the ‘straight-A’ mold. Since Cathy started at the beginning of the year, four of her 18 students have already dropped out of high school.

KLYD’s Closet is Born

But the remaining students have proven that high school is a great place to dive into entrepreneurship. They’ve started a consignment store to sell used, donated, or unclaimed doodads – everything from iPods to old VHS tapes. The only space the school would give the students was a storage closet, so they named their store KLYD’s Closet.

Says Cathy, “I was even surprised we got a closet.”

Since opening in November of 2009, KLYD’s Closet hasn’t exactly been a cash-cow, but it has quietly sold a growing stream of products. The store gives the school a way to get rid of its lost-and-found items, it gives the students a chance to buy products on the cheap during passing periods, and it gives the ACE kids a chance to learn about business by managing and operating one first-hand.

For all this, KLYD’s Closet recently won the ‘Career Education Project of the Year’ award in the Poudre Valley School District. Cathy plans on using the profit from the project (about $800, so far) to give her students and the ACE program more opportunities to grow.

A Closer Look at an ACE Student

While I was chatting with Cathy, we were lucky enough to be joined by James, a senior at FCHS. With long hair and a black ‘Slayer’ t-shirt, some people would guess that his greatest talent was head-banging.

Not so. James was using his class time to create a survey for fellow classmates. It was market research for his grand entrepreneurial plan: bringing in a pair of old-school arcade machines into KLYD’s Closet. At $150 per console and 50 cents per play, James had already calculated how much students would have to play the games during passing periods in order for the revenue to top expenses.

For James, entrepreneurship started with a passion for videogames. He has been buying used videogames at stores, pawn shops, and KLYD’s Closet – then flipping them on eBay and Craigslist for big profit. In one case, James bought ‘Chrono Trigger’ (a 15 year old Super Nintendo game) for $1.00 and sold it back for $50.00.

By using his videogame expertise, James demonstrates what high school kids are capable of accomplishing when somebody gives them the chance.

Where does KLYD’s Closet go from here?

James is just one of 14 students in the ACE program – and they all have unique skills and ideas. Cathy makes a point to encourage all of them. “If they come to me with an idea, I say, ‘Try it’. The word ‘no’ is the worst word for these kids,” she said.

One fresh idea is to resell the slightly wilted or damaged flowers that grocery stores often throw out. The manager of a local Safeway offered to donate imperfect flowers so that ACE could set up a flower shop at FCHS, in a now-defunct security area near the cafeteria.

When you can make money out of something that other businesses just throw away, then you know you’re thinking entrepreneurially. But the flower shop is just one of many ideas for the program to grow; Cathy eventually hopes to make KLYD’s Closet an LLC, give students a cut of any profit, and start a clothing shop in a dusty corner of the school library.

KLYD's Closet with Cathy Hettleman and Patty Daniels

At JuniorBiz, we’re always excited to see educators introducing their students to entrepreneurship. We wish the best of luck to Cathy Hettleman, her students, and all of their entrepreneurial endeavors!

Do you want your high school entrepreneurship program to be spotlit on JuniorBiz.com? Contact us detailing what you’re up to, how you’re doing it and we will get back to you shortly.

Have you ever asked yourself why you want to be an entrepreneur? It’s an interesting question to try and answer.

While I was in D.C. I had some of the other young entrepreneurship scholarship winners do just that and their response was just as varied as everyone who reads this.

Check out the video below.

Aaron Darko, Millionaireat24.com

Aaron is a 20-year old entrepreneur from the UK who made a promise to himself when he was 19 that he would be a millionaire by the age of 24. And that’s how his journey started. Last December he started a blog about entrepreneurship that details his journey. Check out his site and make sure you sign up for the free entrepreneurship interviews on the right.

Aaron’s Reason: To serve more people.

Michal Birecki, PS3Center.net

Michal is young entrepreneur from Montreal, Quebec who owns the world’s largest PlayStation Gaming Resource, PS3Center.net. His site has 100,000+ visitors every month and he just released his gaming CMS platform so he can help other people create successful gaming websites. Did you catch our misquote of Michal in the video? We thought it was funnier that way.

Michal’s Reason: To give everyone the opportunity to make a website.

Luke Kimmel, Internet Entrepreneur

Luke is another one of those young entrepreneurs/students who specializes in Cost-Per-Action (CPA) marketing on the internet. I asked Luke and he told me, but I’m still not too sure what that is . If you’re interested, why don’t you ask him…

Luke’s Reason: To maintain personal freedom.

Thank You

Thanks Aaron, Michal and Luke! It’s always good to get other’s opinions on why we’re doing the things we’re doing. I had a blast hanging out with you all at Yanik’s Event and I’m sure I’ll be talking to you all again soon.

So… Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? Answer in the comments area below.

In November 2002, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Federal Wire Act prohibited the electronic transmission of information for sports betting across telecommunications lines.

Thus, gambling laws in the States were tightened, which not only spelt bad news for the many millions of casino-loving people that were unlucky enough to live nowhere near Las Vegas, but credit card companies lost a lot of revenue too – while online casinos had to shut up shop…or start looking elsewhere to generate income, given that almost 50% of their profits were from American gamblers.

Of course, where there are losers, there are normally winners too – the translation industry did exceptionally well in this case, as online casinos started looking to non-English speaking countries to make up the shortfall the US ruling had created.

And a similar situation has arisen with the credit crunch too. With a number of economies entering into recession, businesses from across many industry-sectors have been forced to look for opportunities elsewhere, where things perhaps aren’t quite so bad. Or, even, where thing are actually going rather well.

Indeed, the fact that the global economy has reached a somewhat stagnant state of late doesn’t mean that businesses’ growth initiatives have stuttered to a standstill too. And this is why many companies have been investing in translation services as they seek to build business relationships in new and emerging markets.

Language barriers

German is the most commonly spoken language in the European Union (EU) with 18% of people speaking it as a mother tongue, followed by English and Italian with 13% speaking it natively. But if we take second languages into account, then English is spoken to some degree by over half the EU.

English is currently the dominant language of the internet in terms of content, but over fifty percent of all Google searches are in languages other than English. This figure is likely to rise as online populations grow far quicker in foreign language-speaking emerging markets such as China and Russia, than in the west.

Furthermore, over 70% of the world’s population don’t speak English to any degree. In the open-all-hours age of the internet, language is one of the last remaining barriers left in creating a true global village. As such, translation is certainly one of the safer professions to be in.

How much to charge as a translator

What a translator earns depends on many factors. As with any profession, their experience will dictate how much they can charge. But their subject-specific experience will also dictate how much they will earn.

For highly technical texts such as pharmaceutical or medical documents, a translator must have in-depth knowledge of this field. Indeed, often a translator will have an additional qualification in a particular subject area, meaning they are fully in tune with the relevant terminology.

Furthermore, the language they are translating from will dictate their fees. If it’s a rare language combination, such as Swahili to German, then this will command a lot more than English to German, simply because there are far fewer translators with this skill-set.

Most translators charge per 1,000 words and the fee they command can differ greatly depending on the above factors. A rough ballpark figure would be anywhere between $60 and $90 per 1,000 words, though it can be more or less than this.

Subsequently, how much a translator earns in a year will vary greatly. Many linguists work part-time, flexible hours; some work twelve hours a day. For dedicated linguists at the top of their game, it may be possible to earn well in excess of $70,000 per year, whilst those who are simply looking for some extra spending money will be happy with a fraction of that.

How to become a translator

So how does one become a professional translator? Well, assuming you’ve studied another language and are ‘fluent’ in a foreign tongue, you are in a fairly strong starting position.

But contrary to what many people think this – in itself – isn’t enough.  To provide convincing translations, you need in-depth, first-hand knowledge of the culture of the source language which is why any translator, English or otherwise, should only ever translate INTO their native language from a language in which they are fluent.

Language fluency is a necessary but not sufficient condition for successful employment as a translator.  There are a number of courses available for those who wish to become qualified translators and most countries will have their own professional bodies offering a similar level of certification. It’s worth contacting the ATA in the US for further information, which is the American Translators Association.

The life of a translator

Having done all the hard work, and passed your exams, you need to know what to expect from a career as a professional translator.

Given the fluctuating demands for language combinations, most translation companies only have a handful of in-house translators covering the most common language combinations, which means that the vast majority of translators work on a freelance basis.

From a lifestyle point of view, this is great as you have the freedom to work where you want, when you want and for whom you want. All you really need is a networked computer, email address and you’re good to go.

More than half of Lingo24’s translators earn income from sources other than translation – some are teachers, writers or accountants, others are secretaries, IT consultants or lawyers. Many are full-time parents too, and translation offers the perfect, flexible part-time position to fit in with their other commitments.

So if you like being your own boss and having the freedom to pick and choose who you work for, how much work you do and how often, then freelance translation is the way to go. And as far as job security is concerned, there are few safer professions.

Just because you start a business, doesn’t mean you’re an entrepreneur. In fact, I consider a very small percentage of business owners to be entrepreneurs.

There are four distinct types of start-up ventures: non-profit organizations, lifestyle businesses, salary-substitute businesses and entrepreneurial businesses.

Non-Profit Organizations

Not only are non-profit organizations not entrepreneurial, they’re not businesses. A business is intended to make a profit. Obviously, non-profit organizations are not.

This doesn’t mean we, as entrepreneurs, should think less of non-profits. In fact, they often have the purest intentions. Unlike businesses, they aren’t directed and driven by profit margins. Thus, these organizations have the capability to contribute to the common good more than an everyday business.

Over the next year or so I’m going to be working with two of these outstanding non-profits with audiences of young entrepreneurs (Junior Achievement and Lemonade Day). You should check ‘em out!

Lesson: If you start and run a non-profit organization, you’re not an entrepreneur.

Why? Because you’re not making a profit.

Lifestyle Business

Let’s say you love to bake cakes. And you notice that other people enjoy baking cakes, but they’re just not as good at it. So, you start a cake baking service and a class to help these people. Also, this provides you with an income by doing something you love. This is an example of a lifestyle business.

Lifestyle businesses provide the owner with a way to make a living by doing something they love. They aren’t meant to be outrageously profitable. But this doesn’t mean lifestyle business owners are thwarted from becoming entrepreneurs.

So, you own a cake baking service that also holds classes. In the daily grind of baking cakes you develop a new way to bake a cake with pockets of frosting on the inside. Your customers love this cake. You start a webinar detailing how to make this cake and sell admissions to other cake baking agencies across the country. Now, you’re an entrepreneur.

Lesson: If you just want to start a simple business to pursue a particular lifestyle, you’re not an entrepreneur.

Why? Because you’re not offering anything new or innovative.

Salary-Substitute Businesses

Dry cleaning, restaurants, hair salons and most services are classic examples of salary-substitute businesses. These types of businesses provide their owners with a similar level of income to what they would earn in a conventional job. The vast majority of small businesses fit into this category.

Additionally, the vast majority of young businesses fit into this category. If you’re offering a gutter cleaning service, initially you’re not trying to clean every gutter in America. You’re goal should be a small percentage of households in your neighborhood. Just enough so you won’t have to flip burgers, right?

Luckily most of these types of businesses are scalable, to the point that they can become entrepreneurial. For example, you clean a few gutters in your neighborhood the first year. The next, you expand to other neighborhoods. After that, you spread your services across town. Then you expand into other cities and subcontract that work. All of the sudden you’re business is too big to handle yourself. Now, you’re an entrepreneur.

Lesson: If all you want to do is replace your steady income, you’re not an entrepreneur.

Why? Because you’re not trying to grow your business.

Entrepreneurial Business

Everyone has junk. People have three options when it comes to their junk: keep it, throw it away, or try to sell it. Selling it sounds good! One way they can sell it is through a garage sale. But these people don’t want to have to deal with a garage sale. This is where an entrepreneur (i.e. Ben Weissenstein) comes in.

The problem: People don’t want to manage their own garage sales.

The solution: Offer to organize and run the garage sale for a cut of the sales.

However, Grand Slam Garage Sales was only a salary-substitute business. Until… they began selling franchises. What started as a simple service has become an entrepreneurial business as they are selling their services across the country.

Lesson: If you bring a new product or service to the market by seizing an opportunity, you’re an entrepreneur.

Why? Because you’re intending to make a profit, you’re offering something new, and you’re trying to grow your business.

So, what if I’m not an Entrepreneur?

The difference between an entrepreneur and a business owner usually comes down to the mindset. And when you consider yourself to be an entrepreneur, you are more likely to start thinking like an entrepreneur – that means big, innovative ideas.

So don’t be afraid to tag yourself with the ‘entrepreneur’ label, even if your business doesn’t technically count: it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you enjoyed this article, you should get JuniorBiz by Email. Thanks for reading and leave your comments below.

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No matter how intelligent, daring, or successful, every business person has made the same mistake: they’ve all misspelled ‘entrepreneurship’. To help us learn how to spell this notoriously tricky word, I’ve concocted a few entrepreneurial acronyms.

The 16 words are tricky in their own right, so this should be a lesson in vocabulary as well as spelling.

ENTERPRISING – energetic in undertaking a difficult project or untried idea. Entrepreneurs must be enterprising if they want their business to be successful.

NEWFANGLED – of a new kind. Entrepreneurs often rely on creative, innovative thinking in order to jumpstart their business ventures. Newfangled ideas are the cornerstone of successful entrepreneurship.

TRENCHANCY – characterized by energy, vigorousness and effectiveness. When the going gets tough (as it inevitably will), tough entrepreneurs get trenchant.

ROMANTIC – imbued with a passionate desire for adventure. Entrepreneurs usually pursue somewhat romantic ideas that other people would call impractical; it is their passion for these romantic ideas that set them apart.

EARNESTNESS – serious in intention, purpose and effort. Any entrepreneur will tell you that their success began with putting forth an earnest effort.

PERSPICACITY – keenness of mental perception, understanding and overall intelligence. Entrepreneurs develop a natural perspicacity for the business world because they’re involved in every facet of their business.

ROUSING – stirring up excitement! Starting a business is often a rousing experience for new entrepreneurs because it is foreign from any other experience they’ve ever encountered.

EDIFYING – encouraging intellectual, moral, and spiritual improvement. The entrepreneurial process is a trying, yet edifying, experience that entrepreneurs will undoubtedly benefit from throughout their lives.

NEOTERIC – modern, new and innovative. The most successful entrepreneurial ventures are businesses that offer something neoteric because they can easily differentiate themselves from other products and services.

EFFERVESCENT – high spirits and cheerfully optimistic. Entrepreneurship is demanding and the entrepreneurs who maintain an effervescent attitude towards those demands are more likely to pull through.

UNDAUNTABLE – unable to be discouraged. Entrepreneurs are often undaunted by the obstacles in front of them because they have confidence in themselves and an unwavering desire to succeed.

REGENERATIVE – of, pertaining to, or characterized by being revived or recreated. For the first time entrepreneur, the success of a business can be a regenerative experience.

SAGACITY – soundness of judgment. Entrepreneurs develop a sense of sagacity for business because they’ve been forced to make so many sound judgments.

HEEDFULNESS – paying close attention and being mindful. Entrepreneurs are heedful towards the needs of the market so they can develop a product or service that consumers will demand.

INDUSTRIOUS – working energetically, diligently and devotedly. Entrepreneurs must be industrious in their work because there are so many tasks that must be completed.

PIGHEADEDNESS – stupidly obstinate and stubborn. Entrepreneurs are notorious for their pigheadedness. Sometimes this quality can lead them to ignore sound advice in favor of fruitless folly, but blind determination is just as often the key to an entrepreneur’s success.

How many new words did you learn?

So maybe those 16 words didn’t teach you how to spell ‘entrepreneurship.’ If this is the case, I have another solution.

Another Spelling Solution

The most commonly misspelled piece of entrepreneurship is the ‘neur’ in the middle. For whatever reason, people generally switch the ‘e’ and the ‘u.’ Here are a few more acronyms you can use to remember the ‘neur’:

• New Entrepreneurs Undertake Risks
• Noble Entrepreneurs Utilize Resources
• Never Eat Uncooked Rascals

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Can anyone be an entrepreneur? Absolutely. Can anyone be a successful entrepreneur? Probably not. Successful entrepreneurs are a rare breed. Not everyone meets the requirements. In general, there are four characteristics an entrepreneur must possess in order to be successful.

Take Dorsey, Brin and Page, for example.

Passion for the Business

First and foremost is passion. Do you think Jack Dorsey is passionate about 140 character messages? I do. Do you think Sergey Brin and Larry Page are passionate about indexing and organizing? Probably.

Maybe those three aren’t passionate about those things, specifically, but I know they are all passionate about helping people. Twitter makes it efficient for people to communicate. Google makes it easy for people to find information.

A lot of hard work goes into making a business successful. If you don’t enjoy that work, if you aren’t passionately in love with that work, you’re not going to finish it.

“As we go forward, I hope we’re going to continue to use technology to make really big differences in how people live and work.” – Sergey Brin

Product and Customer Focus

“If you build it, he will come.” This timeless quote from the Field of Dreams no longer holds true in today’s marketplace. You can’t just make something cool and expect people to buy it.

Google was created to solve a problem. It’s hard for consumers to find good information, and Google designs its services to help alleviate this problem.

As an entrepreneur, you have to figure out what people need and want. Then proceed to create a product that satisfies those needs and desires. People pay for solutions.

“We have a mantra: don’t be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone. So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing.” – Larry Page

Tenacity Despite Failure

Four out of five new businesses will fail. In other words, the average entrepreneur isn’t successful until their fifth try. Entrepreneurs must be stubborn and stupid to not give up, right? Wrong, sometimes.

As evident by the all-to-present “fail whale,” Twitter can attest to this characteristic. I’m not going to stop using Twitter just because it won’t load every time I want it to. But it would be nice to see the big blue/white whale less often.

Jack Dorsey and crew are working on this, but it’s easier said than done. If they haven’t given up yet, I’m confident they’ll find a way to make Twitter successful and profitable.

As an entrepreneur, you’ll undoubtedly run into setbacks. These setbacks will only become failures if you lack the tenacity to push through.

“Ideally, we’d like to sustain it (Twitter) through revenue. But we might need to take more money.” – Jack Dorsey

Execution Intelligence

How many business ideas have you had? How many businesses have resulted from those ideas? Execution intelligence is the ability to fashion a solid idea into a viable business. This is where most entrepreneurs get stuck.

Sergey and Larry had a brilliant idea, but the execution behind bringing their idea to market was even better. They had an idea, created a beta, rose over $1 million in funding, monetized their business, and bought the Googleplex for $319 million. All within 10 years.

Of course there were other pivotal/fortunate steps along the way, but Sergey and Larry did a world-class job of executing a business.

Passion, focus and tenacity are all vital characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. But if you don’t have the business intelligence to back it up, you can forget about being successful. This is where JuniorBiz comes in!

“If you can run the company a bit more collaboratively, you get a better result, because you have more bandwidth and checking and balancing going on.” – Larry Page

Other Common Entrepreneurial Traits

Here are a few more characteristics of successful entrepreneurs:

• Achievement motivated
• Alert to opportunities
• Creative
• Decisive
• Energetic
• Innovative
• Lengthy attention span
• Moderate risk taker
• Networker
• Optimistic
• Persuasive
• Promoter
• Resource assembler/leverager
• Self-confident
• Self-starter
• Strong work ethic
• Tolerant of ambiguity
• Visionary

Source: Barringer, B. R., & Ireland, R. D. (2008). Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.

In case you don’t know, Jack Dorsey is the creator of Twitter, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page are the founders of Google.

If you enjoyed this post, you should get JuniorBiz by Email. Leave your comments below. I like reading them.

Photo 1 by: rich115

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Some Chinese proverbs are literary while others humbly originated from families and commoners of Ancient China. I have filtered through a wealth of Chinese proverbs and selected 40 that are of special interest to entrepreneurs.

Below each proverb I offer a brief explanation of a how you can apply this ancient wisdom to your entrepreneurial aspirations.

Chinese Proverbs

1. “In every crisis, there is opportunity.”

Most entrepreneurial ventures arise from a solving a problem. If you are faced with a problem, craft a solution and sell that solution to others. As an interesting side note, it’s a common misconception that the word crisis and opportunity mean the same thing in the ancient Chinese language. This misconception initially gained momentum when John F. Kennedy incorrectly cited it in a speech in 1959. (source: smallbusiness411.org)

2. “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

Entrepreneurship starts with an idea and ends with a destiny. You craft your destiny with your actions, habits and character. You make your destiny, it doesn’t make you.

3. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

Aside from 20 years ago, there is no better time to start a business than today.

4. “If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people.”

The goal of every entrepreneur should be to start a business and find capable people to run the business so that they don’t have to.

5. “A bad workman blames his tools.”

A bad entrepreneur places blame on someone or something else when things go bad. First and foremost, you should hold yourself accountable for a negative outcome of your business.

6. “A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood.”

As an entrepreneur you always have to be open to new opportunities. If you aren’t actively looking for new ways to make your business more innovative, you won’t be very successful as an entrepreneur.

7. “A fall into a ditch makes you wiser.”

When bad things happen, a good entrepreneur learns from them.

8. “A fly before his own eye is bigger than an elephant in the next field.”

When you focus only on the opportunities that are right in front of you, you might miss the larger ones that take effort to find.

9. “A jade stone is useless before it is processed; a man is good-for-nothing until he is educated.”

A strong education is often the foundation of a strong business. The more you know about entrepreneurship, the more equipped you will be to face its various challenges.

10. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Every entrepreneur in the history of the world started their business with a single action.

11. “A person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the man doing it.”

As an entrepreneur, you will undoubtedly encounter people who will doubt you. Don’t let those people get in your way. Instead, use their doubt as motivation.

12. “A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.”

You can learn a lot from talking to experienced entrepreneurs. They have been through the process and can teach you more than most any book.

13. “All cats love fish but fear to wet their paws.”

All people love to make money but few people pursue entrepreneurship because it’s full of challenges and uncomfortable risks.

14. “Cheap things are not good, good things are not cheap.”

As a small business owner, always focus on providing quality.

15. “Customers are jade; merchandise is grass.”

What good is a business without customers? You should value your customers more than any other aspect of your business.

16. “Defeat isn’t bitter if you don’t swallow it.”

You will encounter setbacks, but don’t let those setbacks defeat you.

17. “Defer not till to-morrow what may be done to-day.”

One of the most challenging things for an entrepreneur is simply getting things done. According to numerous entrepreneurs I have spoken with, procrastination is one of the largest causes of failure in new businesses.

18. “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.”

Though a good entrepreneur isn’t afraid to take risks, never rely too heavily on projections of profitability, success in a certain market, etc. A good entrepreneur always considers, and has a plan for, the worst-case scenario.

19. “Don’t stand by the water and long for fish; go home and weave a net. “

Instead of complaining about how you aren’t making much money, find new ways to earn it.

20. “Easy to run downhill, much puffing to run up.”

It’s easy to run a business when the going is good, but the true test of an entrepreneur is how he or she behaves when faced with challenges. As the current economic climate makes overwhelmingly clear, every market has its ups and downs.

21. “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

This one is so clear, it requires no explanation.

22. “Falling hurts least those who fly low.”

The less amount of money you spend, the less it will hurt if your business fails. It’s common for entrepreneurs to bootstrap the initial costs of their business. Bootstrapping means doing whatever you can to spend as little as possible.

23. “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”

If you’re going to put effort into starting a business, then make sure you put 100% effort into every aspect of your business.

24. “If you get up one more time than you fall you will make it through. “

When you get knocked down, get back up. If you don’t get back up, your business will fail.

25. “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”

When you get to the point of hiring employees; the more you pay, the higher quality effort you will receive.

26. “It’s as difficult to be rich without bragging as it is to be poor without complaining.”

As an entrepreneur, it’s important to remain humble, especially when you’re rich. Humility is difficult to maintain when things are going well.

27. “Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.”

Learn from your business and it’s something you will never lose.

28. “Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come. “

If you make your customers happy, they will talk and those they talk to may become new customers.

29. “Patience is a virtue.”

Having patience with your business is essential to your success. Very few businesses are profitable in their first year.

30. “Rich not gaudy.”

When you become rich, don’t become gaudy, or tastelessly flashy.

31. “Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself.”

Being taught something will only get you so far. You must independently apply that learning to become successful.

32. “The diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor the man perfected without trials.”

You will encounter trials and tribulations as a business owner, but these trials and tribulations will mold you into a better entrepreneur.

33. “The emperor is rich, but he cannot buy one extra year.”

Your business and the money it generates are not the most important things in your life.

34. “The loftiest towers rise from the ground. “

Even the most successful businesses in the world started with the conception and implementation of an idea.

35. “The palest ink is better than the best memory.”

When you conceive an idea on how to improve your business, write it down!

36. “There are two perfectly good men, one dead, and the other unborn.”

No one is perfect. Always be open to learning from other people.

37. “To open a shop is easy, to keep it open is an art.”

Starting a business is simple in comparison to keeping it.

38. “We all like lamb; each has a different way of cooking it.”

Entrepreneurship is like an art: there is not always a right and wrong way of pursuing your business goals. Let your personal taste and style as an entrepreneur be your strength.

39. “Who is not satisfied with himself will grow; who is not sure of his own correctness will learn many things.”

Remember you don’t know everything. Actively seek out advice and information, and you will learn.

40. “A smile will gain you ten more years of life.”

What’s the point in owning a business if you’re not having fun with it? If your business doesn’t make you smile, then it’s the wrong business for you.

Other Proverbs

The Chinese aren’t the only people with great business advice. Here are a few entrepreneurial proverbs taken from a broader swath of cultures.

“When all resources – food, wildlife, trees, fuel – are destroyed, man will not be able to eat money.” – Native American Proverb

“Building a castle is difficult. Defending and maintaining it is harder still.” – Asian Proverb

“He who begins many things finishes but few.” – German Proverb

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb

“Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength.” – Hasidic Proverb

My Favorite Quote

One notable Chinese proverb I left out of this list happens to be my favorite quote, ever; and it is especially applicable to my entrepreneurial journey. I only left it out so I could highlight it at the end.

“Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” – Confucius

If you know of any applicable Chinese proverbs I missed, please leave them in the comments below. Also, if you like this post, you should get JuniorBiz by Email.

What is your favorite Chinese proverb?

By the way, if you’ve noticed a drastic increase in quality of this post compared to my other posts, please thank my new Senior Editor, Nick Scheidies.

Photo by: Bartek Kuzia

This is a guest post by Ben Foster, owner of TeenLawnCare.com.

Mowing lawns is a great business. Below I have outlined 5 reasons why you should start a lawn mowing business instead of, say, an eyelash clipping business.

1. Continuous service for just a few customers.

Businesses that sell products must find large numbers of customers that purchase only a few times. Lawn mowing businesses, however, have a set list of customers that purchase time and again. This means once you find your customers, you do not have to be constantly finding new ones.

Also, having only a few customers allow you to have a close relationship with them. There is a softer side to lawn businesses: Not only do you sweat in the sun, you also work with people.

2. High profits, low expenses.

Most businesses have a profit margin of about 20%, if they are lucky. Lawn business, however, usually have a profit margin of about 97%. Think about it. If you are the only one in your business, all you have to pay for is oil and gasoline for your mower, and sometimes new equipment. Even if you have a larger business, you still only have to pay for employees, trucks, and maybe a secretary, but then you aren’t doing the manual labor. With a lawn business, you are are going to have high profits and low expenses.

3. You don’t need special skills.

When I first was thinking about starting a business, I made a list of what marketable skills I had. To be honest, I was pretty stumped. Some people tutor guitar, but I wasn’t good enough to teach someone. I’m not so good with computers, and I can’t fix bikes. Most teenagers are not good enough at something to market it to other people. Heck, we haven’t even gone to college yet!

However, anyone can learn to mow a lawn in half an hour. Of course, there are finer points to lawn mowing, but those come with time. You can make a lot of money simply because people don’t feel like doing it or don’t have time to.

4. There is work for every season.

At first thought, a person might believe that mowing lawns is only a spring and summer business. Well, it was, but then your customer asked you to rake leaves in the fall.

Then, in the winter, you thought you were going to have a fun snow day off of school. Nope, you have to make $300 dollars shoveling snow. As you can see, lawn care is not limited to a single season. You can make money all year.

5. You get to work outside

For a lot of people (haha, even for people staring at a computer screen right now like you) working outside is appealing. Everyone will think your farmer’s tan is manly. Plus, mowing lawns will help keep you in shape, if coupled with a healthy diet. Mowing lawns is plain good exercise.

Conclusion

I personally believe that mowing lawns is a fabulous way for a teenager to make money. You can make a lot of cash, and have a lot of fun running the business.

This post was contributed by Ben Foster. Ben is a young entrepreneur who has his own teen lawn mowing business as well as a teen lawn mowing blog. Ben has also graciously written a review of the Official JuniorBiz Lawn Mowing Guide. He is a very nice person. Thanks for everything, Ben!

By the way, (excuse the self-promotion) as of yesterday you can now purchase the OJ Lawn Mowing Guide on LawnMowingGuide.com and LawnMowingBook.com. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Photo by: super-structure

This is a guest post by Andriy Noble, owner of SecuritySlacker.org.

I’m going to outline the steps for setting up a blog with all the added features that you would want. Then we’re going to add some security to it. Alright so we are going to work with the WordPress platform, it’s well developed and by far the best one for blogging.

We will setup a configuration so that it Twitters your posts while also blogging your tweets. This will give you a good layout on the networking world. If you can start building up followers then you will also add a good amount of traffic to your site. Thus, we’ll add a little help for your server with WP SuperCache. In the end you will have a blogging platform that will be able to stand up to quite a bit.

Alright so let’s start with setting up your blog. I’ll go from the download version; I think if you have an installation script such as “Fantastico” then you’re just about set. So let’s head over to http://ceege.net and then go to “Sign Up!” and sign up for the free hosting. We get all of the cool stuff that comes with a full host, just that it is a sub domain. And free. Your domain name will be http://yournamehere.ceege.net so be prepared that you may have to either hand that out, or get a domain. I would recommend http://godaddy.com or http://massdomains.com for good deals with people who you can trust.

So let’s go over to http://wordpress.com and download the latest version of WordPress. Unzip it, and then get an FTP client, and upload it to the main directory. (This is if you want WordPress and the first thing they see for your website.) Otherwise you can make a directory called “blog” and that will allow you to have a different website.

Now let’s go over and setup a MySQL database for all the information. Click the link to “MySQL Database Wizard” and add a new database called “MyBlog”. Now go over to the installation process. And add it to the install.

So once your blog is all done and installed, let’s add some themes and a few plugins. The plugins we want are going to be linked here. You can install them from within WordPress.

1. WP Security Scan – This will add the ability to remove version number and lots of other information that you don’t want shown. Things like plugins installed and everything.
2. CyStat – This will let you see a lot of information and visitors coming to your site. Really good for seeing where the visitors are coming from and the robots that are going over your site.
3. WordPress.com Stats – Will track your page views, referrers and clicks. (You will want this it helps a lot)
4. WP Super Cache – This will save the page so that users who visit your site will see an HTML page instead of a file that the server has to run or PHP page. Will take less ram, and keep the server admin happy.
5. WP to Twitter - Updates Twitter when you create a new blog post. Great for getting information out.

So make sure that WPSecurity is up and working, keeping you safe. You can do a lot more on the server side. But always keep WordPress and the plugins up to date. Good blogging!

This post was contributed by Andriy Noble. Andriy is a young blogger who specializes in blogging security. You can find his site at SecuritySlacker.org or contact him by email at anoble@securityslacker.org.

Photo by: tokyogoat

Entrepreneurship is unique in that it encompasses and concentrates all areas of business into one entity, a stool in this case. Additionally, a business grows much like a person. Except, in most cases you want your business to grow fat.

That fat person resides on your entrepreneurial stool and it’s your responsibility to make sure it doesn’t collapse.

The 3-Legged Stool

Entrepreneurship can be broken down into management, marketing and finance. Understanding and maintaining each of these “legs” of the entrepreneurial stool is critical to the success of your business. If you remove one, then the stool falls over. If one is weak, then the stool collapses.

Management

Proper management of a business is the first leg of the stool. Within entrepreneurship, management includes everything from conceiving the business idea to organizing your time to eventually managing employees.

For example, if you start a business that sells shoelaces, there are a number of things you will have to manage. You’ll have to find a supplier of your shoelaces (probably just a store). You’ll have to monitor your inventory (return to the store when you start to run low). And you’ll have to make sure your customers are happy so they’ll return to your business (maybe as simple as a phone call or email).

The management leg should be structurally sound and the first leg you attach to the stool.

Marketing

The second leg is marketing. Marketing consists of everything you do to introduce potential customers to your business and eventually sell them your product or services. As I mentioned last week, marketing is more than just advertising.

In the shoelace example your marketing will consist of finding people who need shoelaces and convincing them to buy from you. One strategy could be to go to a mall or somewhere with a lot of foot traffic and watch people’s shoes as they walk by. If their laces are frayed or coming untied, then they might need new ones. That’s when you approach them and introduce your product.

The marketing leg must be accentuated with illustrious designs and appeal to your customer. Attach this leg second.

Finance

Finance is the third and final leg of the stool. In many cases it doesn’t take too much start-up cash to create a simple business. But once you want to really grow your business, you’ll likely have to make a substantial investment. At which point you’ll probably need to find funding. Additionally, keeping track of the money you spend and the money you make (a.k.a. accounting) should be included in this leg.

With your current shoelace, guerilla marketing strategy you’re only selling about 10 packs of shoelaces a week. You realize that there are a lot of people who need shoelaces but you simply don’t have a chance to meet them. So you decide that creating a website is in the best interest of your business. However, this website is going to cost you at least a couple thousand dollars. Financial decision-making will help you determine if this is a viable option.

The finance leg is going to have a lot of unsightly knots in it but will round out your entrepreneurial stool.

The Fat Man

So now that you have constructed your 3-legged stool, it’s time to establish your business. When you first start out, your business will be a baby on the stool. But as your business grows, that baby will also grow, hopefully becoming a very fat man. However, as your business grows, you’ll also have to work on its foundation, the stool.

Infancy

The birth of your business is like putting an infant on your stool. At this point the stool doesn’t have to be very big or sturdy in order to support the baby. But it still must have all 3 legs. As you start making your first sales, the baby will start to grow. As the baby becomes a toddler, you should closely monitor the sturdiness of your stool, but probably won’t have to make any adjustments.

Coming back to the shoelace example, in your business’s infancy you’re selling a few shoelaces here and there but not really on a consistent basis. So the management and finance aspects of your business won’t have to change much. But you should start adding jewels or other decorations to your marketing leg to make your business more attractive to potential customers.

Childhood

As you start making consistent sales and building a loyal customer-base, the infant becomes a child. Children become unruly and will put extra stress on the legs of your stool. Once you have a child, you’ll have to start looking into fine tuning the legs of your stool.

Now you’re starting to sell shoelaces fairly consistently and have a couple loyal customers. This is where you can improve your management leg by going the extra mile to make sure those customers are happy. You might want to put a stained-finish on your management leg. Additionally, you’ll have to keep track of your finances by adding tick marks to the finance leg.

Adolescence

Adolescence is one of the most awkward points in life and business. You’re not sure whether you want to grow up or remain a child. For this example, the person on your stool chooses to grow up, but it’s not that easy. There are tough lessons to be learned and even tougher obstacles to overcome. This is the point in which you’ll really have to examine the sturdiness of your stool.

So you have loyal customers and you’re making plenty of other 1-time sales, but what do you do now? You can choose to settle with the current state of your business (childhood). Or you can choose to grow your business by entering other markets with new potential customers (adolescence). If you choose the latter, you’ll probably need help.

Perhaps you hire a friend/personal assistant to manage your inventory and customer service. Maybe you hire a graphic designer and web developer to provide you a logo and a website where you can reach other markets. You could possibly bring in a Certified Public Account (CPA) to handle your finances. Each one of these will provide stability to your stool so you can support your growing business.

Adulthood

Once your business hits adulthood, you’re competing with the big guns. Ideally your stool-person will continue grow fat by eating your profits. But you have to supply him with those profits in order for him to get bigger which is hard to do. However, if you do manage to consistently grow your business, then you’ll have to develop your stool at the same time.

This is when your shoelace business becomes a shoelace enterprise. At this point, you’ll definitely need help. To ensure that your stool doesn’t collapse under the pressure of your business, you’ll have to add new layers to each leg. You’ll need a team/department of people for each leg of your business. Because if one of those legs break, it’s hard to repair it and get you fat stool-person back up on the stool.

Summary

Management, marketing and finance are the 3 legs of the entrepreneurial stool. Each leg is just as important as the others to the entrepreneurial success of the stool. Stools are only as sturdy as their weakest leg.

As your baby business grows into a fat business, each leg of the stool needs to be monitored and developed accordingly. If they are not, then your business won’t grow and maybe even collapse.

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Photo by: Evil Erin

(I couldn’t find a cool picture of a 3-legged stool.)