#cashmoney

meets young entrepreneurs with the digital smarts to turn their ideas into bucks in the age of social media.

For teenagers, or those in the murky not-yetadult years of their early twenties, it can be difficult juggling class, friends, sports, and a handful of other commitments. And then there’s work, because how are you going to fund everything else, right?

But some bright teens have clicked on a way to pay the bills without having to work the deepfryer, or tuck someone else’s kids to bed.

Young entrepreneurs say there are a handful of benefits; no startup costs, independence, and the ability to market your company when you’re sitting in a lecture, bar, or lying in bed.

And they’re using the very thing they’re criticised for using too much – social media – to find success.

Jake Millar, who at 20 is behind two start-up companies, says starting a business is ‘‘very cheap’’.

‘‘It can be really easy to get your product in front of your audience, if you’re using the right tools,’’ he says.

Jake’s current project, Unfiltered, is a business education company aiming to ‘‘plant the seed of inspiration’’ through video interviews with world renowned business leaders.

He says social media has played a huge part in pushing these companies to success – this is where his primary audience is and the advertising costs are relatively low.

The founder of Nails on Cornwall, a gel manicure company operated entirely on Instagram, would agree.

Annelise Katz is midway through her first year of a commerce and property degree at Auckland University. The 18-year-old says the best thing about running her own company is that she can pick her hours, and it doesn’t interfere with her studies.

The downside? She has to make her bed every business day – her salon is an extension of her bedroom on the bottom floor of her parents’ house in Remuera.

‘‘I wanted to be as independent as possible throughout uni, and try to not have a student loan,’’ Annelise says.

‘‘It’s so flexible. I can make it fit with my uni timetable – when I’ve got assignments coming up I can pull it back a bit and when it’s ball season and there are events happening I can push my marketing forward a bit.’’

As a platform, Instagram allows her to display her mobile number, and to do her own marketing through posting images. She encourages her customers to post a picture of their completed nails, and tag her page, which she says works more subtly and more effectively than some traditional marketing means.

‘‘Marketing on billboards and that kind of thing, it’s really in people’s faces. Whereas Instagram, it’s kind of just there,’’ she says.

‘‘When people go and get their nails done, and they post a picture on their own Instagram and say ‘I just got my nails done by Nails on Cornwall’, I think that is more powerful.

‘‘It’s not me that’s advertising it, it’s someone else.’’

Rosie Ackland is another young Aucklander familiar with using Instagram as a shop window.

The 21-year-old is the brains and the model behind the Beach Knickers Facebook page – a vintage-inspired clothing brand selling beach wear as well as nighties.

Beach Knickers was born from Ackland’s own observation of a gap in the market. She’d finished a fashion design degree at AUT at the end of last year and was based at Mt Maunganui over summer.

‘‘All the togs I’d been seeing and hunting through, everything was kind of Kylie Jenner style. Really skimpy, all about the boobs and the butt. I just wanted something cute.’’

Ackland was working part-time but figured she could do with some extra cash – and so Beach Knickers began.

She says figuring out how to run a business has been a learning curve. Instagram can be considered as a literal shop window, requiring its own display: pictures need to sit together so they’re aesthetically pleasing and draw potential customers into the page.

But the experience has made her realise how much she doesn’t know about business, too.

At some point, she says, she’ll go back to university, do a few business papers and master the basics of running a company.

Growing up in the digital age is something Cody Carnachan can also attribute to his success, having started teaching himself web development at the ripe age of 14.

Cody dropped out Auckland University after his first semester of computer science, instead taking on a year-long media design course that led him to the creation of Hatch – a creative design and development agency that builds and develops businesses’ online presence.

One of the latest projects is a wedding directory – which 22-year-old Cody describes as a ‘‘one-stop-shop’’ for planning a wedding.

The job costs the clients a tidy $60,000 to $70,000, he says.

However, starting up Hatch was never about the money. ‘‘We still do well at it, but that’s not a defining factor,’’ he says.

Young Enterprise Trust chief executive Terry Shubkin helps run the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) – a programme coaching students through the process of setting up and running a business that markets their own product or service.

Shubkin says YES is all about the learning experience – although many of the businesses fail, participants learn the important of resilience and working together in a team.

Exploring all forms of marketing is emphasised – though Shubkin says she doesn’t teach the groups how to use social media.

‘‘A lot of them are more competent in it than I am,’’ she says.

Often participants are knocked back four, five or six times, she says, before they can come up with an idea that flies and develop the skills to execute it well.

The YES programme works to fast-track this experience, she says.

Almond yoghurt company O’lelei Yo is one of the programme’s success stories – something chief executive Matt Billington can attest to.

The 18-year-old Henderson High School student created O’lelei Yo – the first New Zealand-made almond yoghurt product in the market – through the school-based YES programme last year.

Within a few months and after the exposure of running a stall at the Auckland Food Show, the group had landed their product in the fridges of Fresh Choice in Glen Eden.

They’ve pulled the original product from the shelves though, to refine the recipe as they work on their new product – an almond milk ice-cream.

The team’s plan is to relaunch them together in the forthcoming months.

The O’lelei Yo Facebook page has been a valuable marketing tool, allowing them to reach potential customers and network with other companies, Billington says.

It’s also where the idea for an almond milk icecream originated – through Facebook followers having their two cents’ worth on what would fly in the market.

Billington says an added bonus is that social media offers cheap marketing, something that’s important as they’re ‘‘not losing money, but [they’re] not millionaires yet’’.

‘‘I think it’s that learning experience that’s going to help us in the real world. It’s just invaluable,’’ he says.

Although the early experience is teaching young entrepreneurs valuable business skills, Carnachan points out that the independence has also helped him figure out what a healthy work-life balance is – and how to let it work for him.

Carnachan’s attitude is that work should fit into the rest of your life, rather than dominate it.

‘‘I think it’s a pretty sad state of affairs that everyone has to spend so much time working to afford their life – which they don’t get to have because they spend so much time working.

‘‘I had the approach that if I was earning something, having fun and living the lifestyle I wanted then the money side of it didn’t really matter.’’

I think it’s a pretty sad state of affairs that everyone has to spend so much time working to afford their life – which they don’t get to have because they spend so much time working. Cody Carnachan