15 year old me was all about making money, but like most high schoolers, I didn't want to get a part time job at a restaurant or retail store and make minimum wage, unless my friends all worked at the same spot and it became more of a hang out than a job experience.

My early path was to become a DJ / Turntablist, and invest in turntables, a mixer and a ton of vinyl records - a hobby turned legit business that I made money on almost every weekend from age 15-20.

But I'm not here to talk about my experience in high school. I'm here to talk about how current high school and college students should spend their time to make money now.

Step 1: Find a crappy website. We see them all the time, especially on mobile devices. Let me give you a clue where to look first - RESTAURANTS. Ever try to find a menu for a local restaurant? Good luck.

Step 2: Spin up a GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting Account. Just Google it. It's like $12 a year. You also get a free domain name for a year. Use this domain name for something that would catch the attention of the owner of the crappy website you identified.

Step 3: Google "top WordPress themes" - buy one for less than $100.

Step 4: Upload your theme into your GoDaddy Managed WordPress hosting account and start playing around. Stay patient and read the theme documentation, and try to find YouTube videos to teach yourself how to customize the theme. You don't need ANY coding knowledge.

Step 5: Rebuild the crappy website you identified, take it to the owner of the business and show it to them.

Step 6: Sell it to them for your asking price. Email me with any questions on how to do this. 🙂

In many ways this is a valid business development strategy for any digital agency with balls to try it.

After all, "any ole' high school kid down the street can build your client a website" right? 🙂

You don't need to save up your money and spend $2k on DJ equipment before you have a business high schoolers. Follow my formula, learn skills and make money now! 36 year old me is in love with this strategy, and I can't imagine what 15 year old me would have done if this technology existed in 1996.

If you're a parent of a 15-21 year old and disagree with this, trust me, not only will your son or daughter make money, but they'll develop impressive skills along the way. Skills and experiences that will differentiate them from other job candidates throughout their entire career.

Set them free on this path and watch their confidence soar!

Thanks for reading / watching - and have a great day!

Paul Hickey has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 10 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing and Email Marketing. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.