How I started my first business

I started my first business during high school. I sell t-shirt printing service to the clubs in my school. Business was fantastic. Because I am from a boarding school, the market of printing club t-shirt was basically monopolised by me and my partner, which is my best friend. Sounds harmless? Well, its not as fun as it sound.

At first, business was great. We have good suppliers, good customers and good cash flow. Basically, business was great. We don’t invest in any capital. We only act as the middleman and get commission from our suppliers. After two or three projects, our portfolio was strong enough and people trust us. We know that we are on the right track.

One day, we secure a project with one of the student body in our school. Not a big project, but we know that this will be good for our portfolio. If we can cater to one student body, there’s a chance that we can cater to all student body that exist in our school. We hope for a happy ending, but we end up putting that hope to high.

Our suppliers print the shirt wrongly. Wrong design, wrong colour, and the material was bad. We had put our faith in that single supplier yet the supplier had let us down. In the end, we end up paying back all the money to our customers. The supplier promise to pay back to us all the money but he never did. There we are, being cheated in business for the first time at the age of 17.

The moral of my story is, never have faith in your supplier. No matter how well you know your supplier, if they are not your parents, don’t trust them. Trusting suppliers in business means that you are betting your life to a stranger. Our mistake was we had no black and white agreement with the suppliers. So, my piece of advice, always have an insurance, or else, you’ll end up being the biggest loser when things goes haywire.