Teen entrepreneurs mean business

Breton Wiessner, a North Yarmouth Academy junior, has started an in-home tech help business. Contributed / Breton Wiessner

Breton Wiessner, 16, always liked to tinker with gadgets. Growing up he would spend time in his basement picking things apart – like a speaker or an amplifier – to see how they worked. Later, he graduated to buying used computers and devices off of Craigslist or at the thrift store and fixing them up.

Eventually, the North Yarmouth Academy junior realized he could use his abilities to have a wider impact. “I was thinking, you know, I have these skills. I know how to help people with problems. I’ve been doing that for years (with) my family,” he said.

He spent part of last year helping seniors with their tech issues as a volunteer through the town of Cumberland. He would help older people with their software or hardware problems. Assisting with Zoom setup and finding files were common requests.

But it took a little push from his school to transform the volunteering into a money-making venture. Wiessner joined North Yarmouth Academy’s Startup Club, which is run by history teacher Peter Sillin. The club has invited business owners to speak to students and even held a pitch contest.

“The Startup Club was a big help, because I just knew nothing about entrepreneurship at all. Never even really considered it. But because of that programming … I realized it’s not that steep,” he remembered. He started with some good old-fashioned marketing, paper flyers and posts on Facebook.

Since launching his business – “In-Home Tech Help” (he’s still tinkering with the name) – this past spring, he’s brought in roughly $1,200 helping people with their tech issues for $20 an hour.

Wiessner is not the only teen business “owner” in the area (neither his venture nor the other venture mentioned in this story are incorporated entities). Some students sell clothes, do landscaping and property maintenance, or clean cars for money.

Luca Cianchette, 17, is a Greely High School senior who has built a small empire detailing cars. His business, Cianchette Auto Detailing, operates during the summer and has expanded to the point where he has a spiffy website and hired roughly eight fellow high school students to help him – each part time – this past summer break.

It started when Cianchette was 14 and a neighbor asked him if he wanted to make a quick buck cleaning his car. The work wasn’t so bad, and later the neighbor let him drive the car in his driveway, “which was pretty fun for a 14-year-old,” Cianchette remembered.

Cianchette had a hunch there was a demand for this kind of service and reached out to people that he babysat for to see if they would want their cars cleaned, too. “I figured if they have kids, their cars are probably pretty dirty.” He bought some cleaning supplies and set up shop cleaning cars in his parents’ driveway.

Cianchette declined to say how much he made in total this summer, but he paid his employees (who start at $20 an hour) roughly $7,500 for their labor.

When booking your appointment with Cianchette Auto Detailing, prices range from $185 for a basic, interior-only cleaning session for a sedan. The most expensive package is a “deluxe,” inside and outside cleaning for a three-row SUV.

“This is my little sales pitch,” he said, launching into how he explains the difference between deluxe and basic. “(With) the basic, there’s nothing that will be dirty anymore on the inside, but it’s not like ‘in your face’ clean. The deluxe is like when you buy a used car from a big dealership, and it’s all shiny and the inside smells good.”

Trending teens

Cianchette and Wiessner are a part of a generation that is leading an uptick in teen employment. Last year, teen employment reached a 14-year high, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal labor data, following multiple decades during which teen participation in the labor market declined. Simultaneously, the country has seen an increase in child labor violations, with many of those violations stemming from the fast food industry.

The federal data echoes what’s been happening in Maine. Nearly 4,800 Mainers ages 14 and 15 applied for work permits in the first half of 2022. That number outpaced the year prior and exceeded the average yearly permit requests for the previous two decades. So, too, has the number of workplace violations involving young workers increased.

James Myall, an economic policy analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy, pointed to the tight labor market and inflationary pressure as the two most likely drivers behind this trend, which in some ways “tell two different stories.” A tight labor market signals that teens can command higher wages because employers are desperate for workers, and inflation suggests that teens might want to work because they or their families are struggling with costs, he said.

And while teens doing odd jobs for money or babysitting is hardly a new phenomena, Cianchette and Wiessner do add anecdotal support to the idea that Gen Z are interested in being their own boss.

Fifty percent of people ages 16 to 25 aspire to become an entrepreneur or start their own business, according to a 2023 report from Morning Consult and Samsung, which surveyed over 1,000 people in that age range. Gen Z has even been dubbed the “Hustle Generation.”

Wiessner said this rings true to him to a certain degree. He worked at Hannaford one summer and “hated it.” He has found being in charge of his own schedule freeing.

Referencing the much-discussed work habits of Gen Z, Cianchette said “I don’t think there’s anything crazy … in the water these days,” but he concedes that there is a strong work ethic among his peers, and he thinks it could in part be a psychological reaction to accusations that Millennials are lazy.

Sillin said he thinks the draw of entrepreneurship transcends generations. “I think one thing that’s broadly true about students is they’re attracted (to) ways in which they can shape their own future, right? And so entrepreneurial tools give them the opportunity to make their way in an uncertain world.”

Myall, for his part, said that entrepreneurialism can be a sign of strength in the economy.

“There is, in general in the economy, a burst of entrepreneurship and creation of small businesses. And I think some of that actually could be a sign of sort of economic security. Often when starting a business there’s kind of a risk involved,” he said.

Long-term, Cianchette and Wiessner are planning to put their businesses to rest and pursue college. Cianchette is interested in running a business again in future, and Wiessner thinks he may study mechanical engineering.

But the business person in Cianchette is still thinking a few steps ahead. Cianchette has built up a long list of clients. “I’ll probably try to sell it,” he said.

Copy the Story Link