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What was your first business??

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Nepat PAT Testing

I have been told i used to sell playing cards & conkers at 12 to friends in the school yard... strange that i have blocked this out of mind.. :)

What was your first business?
 
If we are going back that far, I had a gardening round at about the same age. Used to put the mower and tools in a wheelbarrow, I had about 1/2 dozen lawns and cut them once a fortnight after school.
 
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Me and a mate used to do landscape gardening when I was about 14/15. It was hard graft. I had the opportunity to take on a small collection round for Vernon Pools and Cancer Research. I soon realised that growing the rounds (door-to-door canvassing) was much less strenuous than shifting tons of earth :-)
 
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I had a short stint doing PC repairs when I was 14/15. No insurance + some very difficult repairs meant it wasn't really worth the hassle.
 
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Pens- mum bought me a fountain pen and I sold it - so she bought me another - I sold that too......ended up I was doing around 20 pens a week at age 11.........

Dad had cottoned onto it at some point, and there was always a supply of fountain pens available for sale - after probably 6 monts or so, I was called to a 'meeting' in our front room......from now on I had to buy my own 'stock; - that cut down on profits big style, but gave me a taste for haggling (with the local stationers for a better prices for buying 50 at a time instead of 1!) and pricing for my growing customer list at school - even sold one to my teacher at the time!
 
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Some quite clever young businesses.... I think i progressed into Car washing around the local streets... (You dont see it happening much these days)

From what i remember we made a right mess of peoples homes getting bukets of water from the kitchens!!...

Keep them coming... there quite and inventive, sadly nobody seemed to make enough to retire like some of these young online millionaires around.

www.nepat.co.uk
 
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I believe my first business was selling sweets, i was at a private school and the majority of pupils were boarding there so i would bring in sweets from shops that they could only get about once a month.
 
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My first "business" was in school, I use to buy loads of sweets in the morning and would be like a walking tuck shop in school. :D We had a really good little newsagent who ordered some great sweets - I remember it well! hehe

Some of my best profits ever made really... I use to pay 15p for a pack of these super hot Gobstoppers, and people in school bought them for £1. (Yes I know it sounds really bad taking their dinner money for a pack of Gobstoppers lol ;) :D)

Then again in school, I had a stint in selling games and application for computers... This was around 1993-5, before the internet really, so passing disks (and tapes!!! - remember those! lol) around the school playground was still the done thing, but would be massively frowned upon these days.

I've been into computer repair and support since....

When I was 16 - just left school, going into 6th form, I started buying motorbikes and doing them up and reselling them on again, and not long after (once I acquired enough space) I started with cars from the auctions too, earning a pretty good side income.
 
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Just remembered that I also used to be an Avon lady - it was surprisingly easy to make money just knocking on doors - only problem was as a teenager I spent all my earnings on cosmetics for myself!
 
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Nepat said:
I have been told i used to sell playing cards & conkers at 12 to friends in the school yard... strange that i have blocked this out of mind.. :)

What was your first business?
Click to expand...

I was a little bit artist when I was a kid.

Once I draw a poster for an event (social) for some local group, they gave me 40 taka which is now about USD 0.60 :D.

I think that time I was in class 5/6. :D

Thanks.
 
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Any one else out there?? doesnt have to be as young ofcourse... although the younger ones seem to be the funniest.. :-)

Im i bit worried the dog walker will use more rubber on her soles than she is paid. I think paddypaws needs to up her price ;-)

Keep them coming

www.nepat.co.uk
 
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We used to have a huge jumble sale in my home town once a year in aid of the boy scouts. It was held in the market place. I bought a job lot box of snowfire cream from one of the stalls and sold each jar seperately at a huge profit. I had no idea what I was selling, or what it was supposed to do, so I just made it up. They sold like hot cakes!
 
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Haha, I love these little trips down Memory lane,

I've had many of the same jobs when I was in school, from buying sweets from local "cash & carry" in bulk and selling them on, to naughty things when I was older..

One I remember which will always sticks in my head is we managed to get a DVD Screener copy of the 1st Lord Of The Rings film Trilogy.. back when DVD burners were still really expensive! (2001) we got hold of some blank VHS and some old recorders and did the business! haha.. *obviously sold them outside of school as not to get caught, but that was the quickist £200 i made in my life ;)) *Obviously I condone it now, but we've all bent the law in some way in the past*
since Then I Started at PA Hire company, mainly out of chance really. (Did some artwork for someone, he could not pay me, so gave me a 300watt PA and Amp).. Did some local parties with this, word got around.. hired it out to some people. Word Spread etc, etc..

Owned the company for less than 2 years and then sold it for a VERY tidy profit! :D - I believe its still going.
 
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Earliest memory was selling peoples dinner tickets for them. They used to give them to me to sell for them as they wanted cash or ciggies. I think my cut was about 10% and we all lived off crisps :) oh, happy days :)
 
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When I was a student the first time round I used to buy dolls' house kits, build them and decorate them and sell them on. Worked pretty well until I started trying to build them from scratch, haha, it taught me a great lesson about underestimating the time it takes to do something and about undervaluing my own time.
 
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I began selling imported playing cards all over India in 2009.
Now in 2012 I have started my company that manufacturers playing cards, card games etc. Lets see where it goes !

Rajas P.
 
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I not only sold conkers but would take other kids to the best conker sites for a fee. Cheeky bugger I was.

Then I did the local paper delivery thing. It was poor cash but better was to sub contract out the delivering and just co-ordinate the delivery. Easy cash that.

Bought and sold fruit machines and spares, often gained after a shop had been broken in to.

Bootleg software was a great one with twin tape decks back in the day.
 
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Nepat said:
I have been told i used to sell playing cards & conkers at 12 to friends in the school yard... strange that i have blocked this out of mind.. :)

What was your first business?
Click to expand...

Selling peanuts to the other kids during break.

I had a table, a till, signs and I bought stock and everything.

I think I must have been about 8 yrs old.
 
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When I was about 9 me and my younger brother who was about 7 had to cut down a holly tree in our neighbours back garden because it was growing over our shed, wa christmas time so we started to sell it in bunches door to door, used to do this every christmas even made christmas logs some years,
funny thing now is he owns a door to door sales company,

When I was in secondary school was about 13 me and my best friend started up a valet business in his garden cleaning cars, we were making a couple of hundred euro profit each weekly and had a trade account at the local motor factors, used to drive the cars in his garden as it was huge, thats were I learned to drive.

Then when my bro got a dvd recorder one christmas i was 16 I think,we bought a porno dvd and copied it and were selling huge amounts in an all boys school haha, took so long to make as it had to play the whole thing while it recorded....

If only things were so simple these days
 
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Selling branded designer jeans which i picked up from London Central. They certainly looked real! and being from a bit outer London everybody wanted to catch on to the " London Style " and these trendy teenage jeans. Bought for £40c and sold on for £70-80.

Remember the o2 sim cards that offered you 300 free texts a month for topping up £10? Well this was a big thing with PAYG simcards and a new thing that not many people knew about. Plus they were free at a point from o2! so i just got them in and sold them on for £10.00 just for the sim card

More recently though i dabbled in free view tv boxes :)
 
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I bought boxes of DVDs and sold them online via a website and to uni mates etc.

In the end I had about 50 left, kept a few and then bundled the rest to a second hand shop as it took a lot of effort with low margins that crashed several times. I reckon I earned a few dvds, a tenner and a lot of easily gained experience for hours of work!

Got to start somewhere I suppose!
 
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