Good point. Again, I was just trying to help Baron get the ball rolling on the new sub-forum for entrepreneurship. I should re-phrase the question to read generically-- "what are some good small business ideas outside the traditional trades". I was talking to someone who's kid was training to shoe horses of all things. Apparently there's good money in being a farrier. Thats different.
There's also airplane maintenance tech or pilot. Some community colleges have those programs besides the usual hvac or automech.
Keep in mind if he is not smart enough to go to college he probably is not smart enough to compete and not get killed (literally or figuratively). You want to get him something that is low profile, low on competition, does not have a lot of expensive equipment to be stolen or vandalized, does not require a lot of pricey land to be stolen (it happens, has happened to me, repeatedly, if anyone knows a good criminal for hire let me know). Stay under $10,000 and better under $5,000. More than that and you are almost surely getting ripped off. Even better, just buy a bunch of books on that subject and roll your own business. Even when you start the business think of it as research. Assume from the start it is going to fail and have hard criteria for when you will call it quits. But plan hard like you mean to keep it. Think of it more as a career where he is his own boss. Get a business where he will have NO employees it is a legal nightmare and a huge bonus to any enemies or competitors that want to play nasty. Lastly if my advice works well for you, message me and send me a check!!!
Starting a business has significant risk. Most will fail. Better bet is to learn any of the trades in this link. You will never, ever be out of work for any lengthy duration. If you want to travel you'll be able to write your own schedule, work 8/9 months out of the year going from outage to outage, and make well over 100K annually. Get a couple years under your belt, it's one of the few areas you can go into some management positions that won't necessarily require a degree. Made my living this way for many years. You'll work, you'll sweat, you'll get dirty, but you'll also make much more money than most people, college degree or not. https://www.roadtechs.com/
I recommend they come up with an idea on their own, do that, fail, do another one, fail, do another one, fail, etc, until they figure it out on their own, because that's how it goes with entrepreneurs most of the time. They learn from failure. They don't learn from their pop coming in and setting a business up for them for less than 200k$us. Said another way ... if YOU want to be an entrepreneur, set up a business for 200k$us and have your kid work to manage it. If THEY want to be an entrepreneur then they should be fighting against you as you attempt to force them into a 9-5 job and tell them that their dreams will never come true. I'm joking in that last bit, of course, but not much. What I'm really getting at is that the kid needs to gain experience BEING an entrepreneur, it's a skill like any other, and it is learned like any other skill, through practice. Helping them out over much does nothing but destroy their learning opportunity, because this isn't the kind of thing they can learn in school, it's the kind of thing they can only learn on their own. Another thing - 200k$us is TOO MUCH MONEY to start. Entrepreneurs could be dropped naked in a country were they didn't speak the language and make money. It isn't about what you start with, it's about ending with more than you started with. If they're making 50% a year, year over year, then it doesn't matter if they started with 200k$us or 200$us. It's yet another skill an entrepreneur learns, limiting their risk ... if you give him 200k$us, hopefully he'll be smart enough to put 190k$us into treasuries and figure out how to make it on 10k$us, that way he has 19 more chances.
I am sorry, but maybe if your child first will spent some more time to travel, especially travel insideoneself and look for his/her inner purpose first? Then maybe greatest idea come to him? It looks that tomorrow big problem will be too many free time, so tourist business and all self-grow centers should work well.
This is like the most millennial aged suggestion I've ever heard ... might as well suggest the kid gets a comfort animal to help him through the trials of learning what his true self yearns for while you're at it.
Let me ask - are you just watching movies and making mind driven conclusions or you are throwing yourself to gain experience? For profitable trading the second is must, the first is fatal.
now sure what has transpired in these pages but things I wish my dad did.. that he didn't -follow and encourage my interest -even know my interests and passions -allow me the space, time, money to pursue these interests -encourage failure -teach me to get excited by challenges -the journey is the fun, because the destination lasts one second seriously though, if you want your kid to define success by what he makes and the title he says he does ( which is not WHO he is.. ) then that is failure in my eyes. Im not even sure if you do, but this is 99% of Americans as evidence by wanting them to be a doctor or Lawyer or something that makes mega money... if you are at work 8+ hours a day, shouldn't you LOVE what you do, be excited by it, endless life long learning, fulfills your spirit.. because sitting in a mansion with the trophy wife being miserable is what comes when you have a job you don't love, or your main goal was money and you actually achieved it. the highest level things are always simple.. we are all programmed with what we love to do inside, it just needs to be expressed and nurtured in various ways. Ans you won't like this as if you were raising him right you would have followed the child and this discussion wouldn't need to take place, he would have automatically persued what he was interested in, instead of mom and dad throwing out ideas to him. "go do this, don't you like that, this sounds interesting, oh this helps people, wow that seems like a good fit... ... .... "