Many of today’s teenagers dream of entrepreneurship: the power to set their own schedules, write their own paychecks, and steer their own lives in any direction they choose.
But entrepreneurship doesn’t have to entail spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a prototype and launch a product, buy a franchise, or cover start-up costs for some other venture. In fact, there are several independent or freelance career paths teens might be overlooking that offer the benefits of entrepreneurship without the need for a unique idea or hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital.
Freelance Game or App Developer
There are two-year and four-year degree programs that offer education in design and development, but many successful game and app developers are self-taught. If you enjoy tinkering with code and creating unique applications and games for users, a career as a freelance game or app developer might be well-suited for your interests.
Photographer
Have a knack for taking awe-inspiring photos? Photographers earn a living by capturing major events such as weddings and parties, as well as conducting shoots for senior photos, family pictures, and more. You don’t need much to set yourself up as a professional photographer other than a top-quality camera and some photo editing skills.
Real Estate Agent
There are different licensing requirements for real estate agents in different states, but most require prospective agents to take a course and pass an exam for certification.
Once you’re licensed, in most states agents sign up with a real estate broker. Real estate agents are typically free agents, in charge of getting their own clients, setting their own schedules, and handling other transaction processes with the support of office staff at their broker’s office.
If you want to learn more about working in real estate, you might contact agents in your area and ask them if you could shadow them for a day or two. Shadowing or interning for an agent will be a great way for you to learn the ropes.
Freelance Graphic Designer
Like freelance game and app developers, freelance graphic designers often pursue higher education to hone their skills, but you can also become a graphic designer without formal education.
But this is a highly flexible field that provides ample opportunities for skilled designers to secure freelance work, which provides the sense of freedom most entrepreneurs are looking for.
Freelance Writer
Freelance writing is a prolific field for those who have a way with words, and there are a multitude of career paths you can choose. Some freelance writers specialize in writing sales pages and other sales collateral, while others focus on corporate or business communications as a whole. Still others take the full-creative route and pursue careers as fiction authors.
No formal education is required to become a freelance writer, but you should have an excellent command of language and grammar.
Becoming an entrepreneur doesn’t have to mean having a brilliant, ground-breaking idea or inventing the next gadget that changes the world. If you crave the entrepreneurial lifestyle, consider these career paths to reap the benefits of writing your own paycheck while taking a simpler path to get there.
Lexie Dy has always loved learning. In fact, even as a child, she would spend her free time at the library studying topics of interest. And today, she continues to spend countless hours at the library as a grad student. When she isn’t preparing for exams and research papers, she enjoys helping teens prepare for the job market through her work with ReadyJob.
*Image Provided via Pixabay – Photographer: geralt*
