Looking back to my childhood, I always had a business mind. I'd often daydream about how I could make money, thinking about how I would buy the car I was racing on my Scalextric.
My first venture was a car washing business which my friend and I started. It wasn't by any means sophisticated but I figured it was better then doing a paper round (which my parents wouldn't allow anyway due to it being too dark in the mornings). We'd work together knocking on doors asking people if they'd like their cars washed and if they agreed, we would use their water and our kit. A few important lessons were learnt, number one was that it was hard to make money. We'd spend hours knocking on doors and figured out a way to streamline the process, alternating between houses so we didn't waste time waiting for someone to respond. We realised it was a numbers game, and the more houses we called at the more likely we'd make some money.
We would do the best job we could and then go to collect our earnings. The second important lesson we learned was that it's tough getting paid. As we were very young (and small) some adults would backtrack on our agreement and pay a smaller amount or not at all. We've been known to spend hours washing a car to leave with nothing!
These lessons were useful in later life and looking back Im grateful for having the experiences.
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