A Young Entrepreneur's Advice

Just 21 years old and already an experienced entrepreneur, Alex Tew has some sage advice for anybody looking to start their own business.





If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
"That old saying is a cliché, but it's absolutely true," says Tew. "Had I known this was going to be so successful I would have probably prepared a lot better for it. But playing it by ear and making adaptations along the way has been a valuable learning experience, and I know what mistakes not to make next time."

Part of being prepared means writing a business plan.
"It can be difficult to do cash-flow forecasts when you haven't started a business or to write a proper business plan when you don't know how much you're going to make," Tew says. "But you have to lay out in your mind exactly what you're trying to achieve."

Be creative.
"The biggest thing I've learned is to have faith in creativity because ideas work," Tew says.
Go big. "Make sure your hobby is big enough to make money," Tew advises. In 2002, Tew launched Humanbeatbox.com, an online community for vocal percussionists. The site now has more than 11,000 members and is one of the largest sites for beatbox artists, but the experience taught Tew a valuable lesson. "The mistake I made was that beatboxing was such a niche thing that there wasn't enough money to make a sustainable business. As people start businesses based on hobbies, [they should] make sure there's a big enough market for that hobby."

Keep trying.
"I've had lots of ideas over the years that haven't necessarily been as successful as this one, but I've learned lots of lessons with each one," says Tew. "There's no such thing as a failure because every time you fail, you learn something that you don't do next time. So always keep going. And good luck."