High School Teenpreneur Shahed Khan has spent his summer networking with everyone and pitching to Venture Capitalists. Why? Because he has ambitions to see his business idea be successful. While he is only 16, he has already got a team of 4 people for his company Viatask.
Viatask is a social errand running platform. It connects people who need errands done, but are too busy to carry them out themselves, with people who have some free time to carry out these errands and gives them a chance to make some cash.
Shahed separates these people into 'Posters' & 'Runners', I think you can guess which is which. He got the idea after watching 'Million Dollar Listing' where a rich business man paid his concierge to travel to America and buy him a house for his family.
He realised there are many people who may have the time to accommodate doing errands in their spare time and getting paid, while their are many people who don't have the time to run errands due to work commitments and are able to pay others to complete these simple tasks.
Whilst many people come up with business ideas, Shahed went through with it and started up Viatask and has been pitching for investment during his summer holidays. The 16 year old businessman looks at the positives of being a young entrepreneur, “My age alone is a great marketing strategy for the company. Not a lot of entrepreneurs meet young entrepreneurs like me, so I get a lot of their attention." he says.
Although people tend to remember him and give more attention, he does find attending many networking events impossible as they are held in over 21 bars! He is also due to head back to school soon but is determined to make it work. He has a good sized team who can all contribute, he says ”Without a great team you can’t build a startup.”
The number of teen entrepreneurs is on the rise and as barriers to entry are low and more successful young entrepreneurs start to garner media attention, I'm we will see more and more teenpreneurs. Good luck to Shahed on building his startup.
