I started a side hustle in my neighbours’ gardens as a kid & made £54k at 19 – it’s a simple idea anyone can copy
A YOUNG entrepreneur has revealed how he started a side hustle business at just 13 to make some extra cash.
By the time he was 19, he had made £54,000 profit in one year, and when he was 21, he sold the business for a six-figure sum.
The summer that Jack Fleming turned 13, he decided he wanted to make some cash, so offered to mow his neighbours‘ lawns.
He went out knocking on doors until someone agreed to let him cut their grass, and naively, he charged them £23 and estimated that the job would take him 45 minutes .
Eight hours later, an exhausted Jack finally finished the job, having earned just £2.80 an hour for his efforts.
Speaking on The Side Hustle Show with Nick Loper, Jack said: “I lost a whole Saturday and thought wow, what did I get myself in to.”
Undeterred by the lack of money earned in his first job, Jack continued knocking on doors, joined by his best friend Nathan.
The duo, from Denver, Colorado, made some leaflets and knocked on 1,000 houses in one week.
By the end of the week, the teenagers had come up with an impressive sales pitch, and knew exactly how to get customers interested in their services.
Through word of mouth, the two boys, who called their business Yard Boyz, began to grow a large customer base in their local area, and grew close relationships with their clients.
He said: “We got a lot of rejections, which really hurt at 13, but then you realise that they’re not rejecting you, it’s just not the right service for them”.
Jack started his business with absolutely zero costs, as he borrowed his neighbours’ 20 year old lawnmower to cut people’s grass.
Then, when business started to pick up, he hired his 13 year old sister to answer the phone to customers, and deal with the admin side of things.
As Yard Boyz became more successful, they branched out and started to do major landscaping projects, which brought in large profits.
To advertise their business, Yard Boyz relied on word of mouth and customer testimonials on sites such as Facebook and Nextdoor.
They also stuck signs in the gardens of the houses they were working on so that people walking by would know which company was doing the work.
Top five easiest side hustles
- Dog walking
- Babysitting
- Selling clothes on Vinted or Depop
- Start a Youtube or TikTok channel
- Tutoring
Despite the fact that he already had a very successful business, Jack decided to go to university, and used the money he had made from the lawn business to pay for it.
He said: “I recognised that one of my biggest goals was to go to college and to graduate debt free with my degree.
“So rather than looking at this business as the be all and end all, it was an opportunity to get to a bigger goal, which was teaching others how to better run their business. “
When he left for university, Jack continued to manage the business, but hired staff to carry out the manual labour.
Then, after he finished studying, at age 21 the entrepreneur sold the business for a six figure sum.
Jack has now launched a paid online course, to teach teenagers the skills he learned in the nine years he ran his business.
He said: “This business has paid for a lot of opportunities, but the real growth has been learning how to become an entrepreneur at such a young age.”
Sharing advice to anyone planning on setting up their own business, he said: “Wherever you’re at, you probably have enough information to get started and just haven’t started yet because you’re nervous.
“Don’t overthink things, just go for it”.
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