Life Lessons Learned as a Teen Entrepreneur

This wasn’t exactly how I prepare for a speaking engagement.?

But one thing my son taught me in the two years we built OctoGifts together is that there is more than one way to skin a cat.?

So I decided to trust the process…even if it wasn’t mine.

The night before Sebastian was scheduled to speak at The Entrepreneurial Hour at Tech Alpharetta , he still had not done a single dry run (!) even though I had offered myself as a practice audience several times.?

All I knew was the general theme of his talk based on the flyer he’d created:

“Lessons learned from being a teen entrepreneur and how you can apply them to your own life.”

No slide deck I could peek at. No talking points. No handwritten notes.?

Yet he was confident he was ready. The words were all in his head.

“You should at least practice saying them. Don’t let tomorrow be the first time they come out of your mouth, when you’re in front of a room full of people,” I advised him.

He promised me he’d do at least one dry run in front of the mirror before going to bed.?

Bottom line: when he got up to speak, I was hearing his talk for the first time along with everyone else. I was excited, nervous, and proud...all at the same time.

It turns out that Sebastian was prepared after all.

His talk wasn’t perfect, but it was from the heart. It’s for children and teens who are interested in entrepreneurship, the adults who care about them, and for anyone who runs or owns a business and wants to empower the next generation.

Check out the videos and transcripts below. Scroll to the bottom for more resources!

Many thanks to The Entrepreneurial Hour for giving him this opportunity to share his message. Thank you also to everyone who made the followup Q&A session fun, lively, and thought-provoking for all ages.

VIDEO LINKS

Below is an 11.5 minute video of his talk.

And below is the 31 minute recording of the Q&A session, packed with insight from educators, entrepreneurs, business owners, startup founders, and consultants. Sebastian shared how he got started, what his plans are moving forward, what frustrated him about working with his mother (me), why a recent initiative didn't pan out like he'd hoped, and more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGtCdcdAhmI&t=133s

If you're pressed for time, check out these three snippets. They are all under 3 minutes each.

If you watch nothing else, watch this one. It has the most important takeaways for people of all ages...and a call to action for adults in the business world.

Sebastian and his older brother have been swimming for years. Who knew that you could learn something in the water that you could apply to a business? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBtT17YDmNk&t=10s

He's had his share of disappointments. Here's one of them, and what he learned from it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5K5LQbO-XU

TALK TRANSCRIPT

Chuck Kaucher, The Entrepreneurial Hour moderator (00:50 ):

I'd like to welcome you all to The Entrepreneurial Hour where we provide practical advice to entrepreneurs. We're supported in part by Tech Alpharetta, which functions as an innovation center for startups. Today, we have a special treat. We have Sebastian Flores with us today. He is the founder of OctoGifts and he started this in his basement when he was in seventh grade. OctoGifts is an arts and crafts company built to spark joy and connection through fun. It is a unique product that appeals to kids of all ages, even adults. Sebastian faced a few obstacles when he started this, not the least of which was his age. He could not form a corporation nor bank account nor set up an online store. So he needed someone of legal age to serve as his co-founder, that being his mother. Together, they launched OctoGifts and got it off the ground. OctoGifts grew and grew. Earlier this year, Sebastian fired his mother and became the acting CEO, an experience that I don't think many of us will ever have. So Sebastian, the floor is yours. Tell us about your experience.

Sebastian (02:26 ):

Good morning, everyone. As you said, I'm Sebastian Flores. I'm now 15 and I'm a sophomore at Denmark High School. I started OctoGifts in 2019. This talk is going to be a little different from what happens here normally, because I'm not actually pitching my idea. I'm just here to share my experiences, because they've been pretty unique. I started it in January of 2019, when I was in seventh grade in my basement and it was my first real business, because -- I mean, I'm not really sure I'd call them businesses, they were more like lemonade stands in my basement -- like my etsy shop that had one customer who was my aunt. So yes, this was my first real business. And I started out selling these paper hearts that I had made that were these special candy dispensers.

?(03:22 ):

So you would buy this around Valentine's Day. And I thought it was just really cool, like a kind of keepsake, like a twist on the classic box of chocolates and I made them by printing out sheets of paper that I designed in PowerPoint, cutting them out with scissors and then putting them together. It took three hours to make one of them. But you know, to me it was worth it because I had no other way to make money. And when I had saved up enough, I bought some new materials and I grew the business and I eventually turned it into an actual legal entity. And from there I launched a website and then as kits so that I wouldn't even have to make it myself. Earlier this year, I got my biggest order yet, which I spent maybe a month filling, and it was for 75 of them. So I sat down there in the basement every day after school, just cutting out pieces and assembling them into these machines for a local children's institution.

Assembling kits in the basement

?(04:24 ):

So I'm here to share my experiences and looking back, I can see four essential skills or lessons that I learned by doing this. The first one is one that a lot of people struggle with. I did too when I was a lot younger. It's public speaking, which I mean, you could tell right now I've kind of gotten better at. A lot of people get nervous when public speaking and it's really an essential skill that you need to have as an entrepreneur, because you need to be able to speak about your ideas and talk to people like we're doing right now.

?(05:04 ):

And even at my first pitch competition, I didn't even want to speak. I was going to have my mom, my co-founder, go up there and do the pitch competition for both of us because as a 13 year old, I was nervous about going up in front of a group of adults and talking about an idea I had, being so much younger than them, but she convinced me about five minutes before. And I managed to read and memorize the pitch that we had written together. And I went up there and I gave it, and it ended up being really fun because I got to see all the people's reactions to something I had made.

?(05:40 ):

So after that, I was really a lot more comfortable with public speaking. And eventually I was on a panel and this is one of my favorite memories that I've had from OctoGifts. I was on a panel of entrepreneurs speaking at Clark Atlanta, to a group of middle schoolers, who at the time were the same age as me, about what I had done. And it was just amazing to see them. You could tell that they were really inspired by my story.

And I think that really resonated with me. So since then, I've become a lot more comfortable with speaking about my ideas and about myself in front of groups.

2019 Entrepreneurship Panel at MantisEdu's STEM Summer Camp for Atlanta Public School middle schoolers at Clark Atlanta University

So that's the first skill. Second one ties back to the first one. And it's being able to pitch both my ideas and my products and myself to other people. So since I started this, when I was like 13, and I obviously I've never had a job before, like a traditional job, so I've never had to write a resume. I never had to do an interview.

?(06:39 ):

So being an entrepreneur and being a part of OctoGifts has been a great opportunity for me to practice those skills because I've had to do multiple podcasts and interviews for articles and just chances to practice like pitching myself as a person and talking about skills and because of it, I'm so much more ready for getting an actual job and doing those interviews, both for colleges and writing about myself. So those first two are kind of tied together.

Now the third one, the third skill that I've picked up because of being an entrepreneur is the ability to streamline and reduce waste for processes and for just everything. So I mentioned earlier -- oh, actually I don't know if I did mention it -- but if you don't know, I'm a swimmer.

I've been swimming for six years now. And a big part of swimming is reducing drag from the water around you so you can move faster. You can take that concept and apply it to everything in life. So like with production, when I was filling those 75 orders, obviously I want to do it the most efficient way possible and reduce the drag so I can do it quickly and get it done.

?(07:57 ):

So reducing the drag, I guess you could say from the outside, was obviously one of those important things. And I learned that because when I was first starting out, as I said I was printing out these sheets and cutting them out with scissors and it took about three hours and then eventually I got it down because I saved up the money I had made from those first few sales and I bought a desktop cutting machine. So I could cut out the pieces of paper really quickly and they'd be more precise. And that took a little tweaking because I had to learn how to use it.

?(08:28 ):

And after that I upgraded again and I got a die machine. So I could just like run sheets of paper through it. And it would cut out 50 on a single sheet. And that was a life changer because when you're cutting 200 of the same piece at the same time, doing it by hand with scissors would be basically impossible. And from there I've scaled up and up and I've found new, faster ways to do things. And that's the same concept that I've applied to my whole life. So from swimming to OctoGifts to schoolwork, everything I do, I try to do the most efficient way possible and I can attribute that to being an entrepreneur and OctoGifts.

Now the last lesson is the most important one and it was kind of mentioned earlier and it's independence. So when I first started my mom and I were these equal partners.

?(09:20 ):

And then eventually it kind of grew and I kind of like took a step back and she went in and filled the role. And then I decided earlier this year that I wanted to be the one in charge. So yes, I fired her <laugh> and I took over every aspect of the company. And it was a breath of fresh air because I was able to be in control of everything and make all the decisions. And I was able to see the effects my decisions had on everything that happened in the company. And it was like I was the boss of myself.

?(10:00 ):

So that independence was the first time I really felt something like that because you know, being in school is always like the teacher above you, or there's your mom working on the company beside you. But when I was alone in the basement and I could design my own processes for the products that I created on the website that I had built, it was really liberating. And that's an experience that I think this has given me that I'm really never going to forget. And it's really amazing that it's something I can learn this young.

So for this talk, what do I want you to take away? All of you are here obviously because you are involved in local startups and small business. And that's great. It's amazing. And that's something that you need to be taking to teenagers because this is an experience before college.

?(10:55 ):

If you can already know that entrepreneurship is the path that you want to go to, or that this is what you want to do with your life, having those experiences this young and learning those lessons that I learned can really help you both in college and after. So for all of you in this room...if you have children who are teenagers or if you know local teenagers, involve them in your businesses and get them involved in local startups that they can have experiences, just like I did. Thank you.

Q&A SESSION TRANSCRIPT

Chuck: So let me ask you a question to start off. Where did you get your ideas from??

Sebastian: Well, this one actually came and I've written a lot about this, and basically everyone asks this .So I'm pretty well practiced in answering this question. This idea came to me when I was 11. So I don't know what grade that was when I was 11…? Fifth grade. I had this one friend who would always come over to our house and he would find his way into the kitchen, into our candy jar.

Sebastian: So for his birthday, I wanted to make him a candy dispenser. But I looked online and I couldn't find anything about how to do that. So I went in the recycling bin and I found a bunch of old scraps, like an old candy box and a paper towel tube and random pieces of paper. And I sat down with this pair of scissors and hot glue. I cut them up and made them into a candy dispenser with a little greeting card on the back. And I gave it to him and he loved it.??

Sebastian: And it kind of stuck with me. But I never did anything with it until later when I wanted to make money, because being a 13 year old, I wanted to have money, but I couldn't go get a job. But what I could do was I could start a business, because in the state of Georgia, you can work on a family business once you're 12, which is younger than the legal age to work...like at Publix or something.

Sebastian: So I thought about all the different things I'd done, and that kind of stuck out to me. So I thought I should try that again...So I made these little hearts here with this little knob and when you turn it and see the candy actually comes out, it's entirely made of paper.

Sebastian: This took a few prototypes to make, so once I got it down well enough, I posted it on the Etsy shop that I mentioned, and I had my mom post it on Facebook, and I think I got like five up there, and they sold out in about 12 hours. So I made more stuff there and those sold out in 12 hours.

Sebastian: I was still just making them by hand, so eventually, as I was saying, I scaled up and I made them into kits. So now if you bought one you would get it as a kit and you would put it together yourself.

Chuck: Now, let me ask you a question. Hold that there. What are the raw materials that you needed to put that together?

Sebastian: Just paper and plastic.?

Chuck: And that's it, and that's what you created…

Craig Bilderback: OK, Sebastian, I like coming to these events, these kinds of things, especially when I see a young man like you because you're inspirational, you know, and I see somebody like you and I go wow. So it's such a raw talent, such a gift that you have. And it inspires me.?

Craig: OK, I've been an entrepreneur for, you know, 20 something years. I've been an inventor. I don't like the word entrepreneur because when I look at you, I don't look at you as an entrepreneur, nor as a very general term that's used and you're either entrepreneurial or you're entrepreneur. I see you as more of a pioneer, a trendsetter, an inventor. Right. You're an inventor. You invent.?

Craig: So I would like for you to use that terminology, not just entrepreneur, but kids your age are going to relate to an inventor, innovator. Things like those are those are terms that I would use for you, because you're kind of one step ahead, right? You are the future.?

Craig: So my advice to you is this: at your age and I say this with sincerity, it's OK to fail. I want you to go into life in your journey as an entrepreneur, an inventor, a trendsetter, whatever you do and know it's OK to fail because you will find that failing will get you the next step and the next step and the next step.

Craig: People are going to say failure is wrong. We are always afraid of failure. Failure is not wrong for someone that has a business. Failure is part of it. And it's what's going to get you to the next step.?

Craig: So for you, it's OK to fail. All right. I'm giving you the green light...Because you're learning right now, you're learning like, OK, I made a mistake. I had too much waste. I'm not a very good public speaker.?

Craig: But every time you get a little bit better, a little better, OK, because of that failure, you acknowledge that you move to the next step...But for you, you're an inspiration. You're a dream. So I wish you the very best. Your mom and dad have done a great job with you because you are very inspirational.

Sebastian: Thank you.?

Tom Berger: It's interesting that I think firing your mom was a great thing for you because you became the CEO, the chief everything officer, and so many entrepreneurs miss that point. You know, they focus on development, they focus on sales, and their businesses fail because you can do all of these different things.

Tom: So the exposure you got to building the product, selling the product, fulfilling orders, all that is going to be a skill that's scalable and usable in any business, whether you're in hunting apparel or high end computing, all those skills as a chief everything officer will always go with you.?

Tom: The other thing I tell people, why do most companies fail? So there's focus and execution. They tried to do too many different things at the same time. And you're not doing that. You're focused on the product. But execution, execution really comes about.?

Tom: It's easy to make one of those. It's hard to make 50 of those. OK. And so learning how to scale a business is a critical skill that...actually probably half the entrepreneurs have a great idea. They get a few customers. They can't scale a business.

Tom: So you realized that early on. That's another great skill you've got. So I agree with Craig. You've got a very, very bright future ahead. I'm excited to be able to say someday that I knew you when.?

Chuck: Carolyn?

Carolyn McCarthy-Jackson: I work for the public school system and I want to say to you Sebastian that what you're hearing from him about failure is not the message you get at school. And Denmark's a great school. We have great schools. But we have failed you [and] all your parents by not allowing you to fail. And so listen to what they're saying.

Carolyn: I've done this job. I've placed kids in internships with Fulton County schools. And I'm telling you that because business person after business person, college professors, esteemed doctors of biomedical engineering have said it and I've asked them what are we doing wrong?

Carolyn: What can we do better for Sebastian and for Samuel? And they're like "Well, it's unfortunate your system is not set up to allow them to fail." And you get off to school. Maybe you're going to major in engineering.?Maybe you're going to major in business. Maybe you're going to just go into business. Listen to what he is saying.?

Carolyn: Now, I don't mean use this speech against me when you fail something <laughter> The F is not the new A. But I suspect you're going to get a totally different message at school. The expectations of your parents is that you're probably more than capable of making good grades in school.

Carolyn: But listen to what he's saying. And that's where you learn. I mean, college professors have said that to me. These freshmen come to Georgia Tech. They don't know how to rebound from failure.

Carolyn: And that's what he is saying. Just know that the message you're getting at school is not wrong. It's just slightly flawed because we're not preparing you for the real world, especially in inventing and everything else.

Tom: There's a great saying that success is on the far side of failure…

Louis Gruver: So, first of all, I’ve watched you since the beginning.

Chuck: Could you speak up a little??

Louis: Yes.Well, first of all, I've watched you since the beginning, and it's been great to see where you were then and where you are now. The comment is they always say don't work for your family or with your family in any business, because it never works out. So that's not the truth, obviously, with you. And I think people will see that but the curiosity is when did you finally decide I've got to fire my mom or fire my family and I want to take complete charge of everything that I'm doing?

Louis: Because you're still in high school. It's not like you're in college or graduated. So I was just curious when you decided and kind of a little bit why maybe help the group understand that process in your mind, if you can?

Sebastian: Well, I think I really decided that I wanted to in maybe like 2020 but I didn't actually do it until maybe December 2020 is when I kind of decided that I wanted to. And I didn't actually do it until April of this year because I was kind of worried how my mom would take it.

Sebastian: But really, it was because, you know, we're together all the time because we live together. And she'd be picking me up from practices or events. And we'd just be sitting in the car and she'd bring up something like, I have an idea or do you want to do this?

Sebastian: And it's just I just don't want to talk about it at that point. It was just kind of I never really had a break from it. So that's really why I decided to do it.?

Louis: Makes sense.

Melanie: Yeah, he asked me, actually. He actually said at one point, sometimes I wish you were just my mom just instead of my partner. I feel like you're my boss. I just want you to be my mom.

At the end of the day, he just wants me to be his mom.

Chuck: One of the interesting things about what you've done is sort of getting on Caroline's comment is that school has a tendency to eliminate risk. Everybody gets a trophy. Everybody gets an A. But in the real world, not everybody gets a trophy and not everybody gets an A. And the biggest part of being a startup or an entrepreneur is managing risk.

Chuck: Now, you can take on risk as this nebulous sort of thing. But generally, it's the risk of failure and the cost of that risk to somebody like yourself, and in fact most people under the age of 25 who don't have to support kids or put them through college, is that the cost of failing with that risk is very small.

Chuck: So the opportunities that present at your age and probably for the next 10 years is that you can assume a lot of risk, but risk with a purpose. Not just to do things crazy, you know, like driving your car off the road and some other things I won't discuss about my past. But you can actually assume a lot more risk than people who are older than you, and you should take advantage of that.

Chuck: That's a real important thing to realize. And I think that's one of the things that Caroline is referring to is that real lives in the real world. You just don't let your school get in the way of your education.

Tom: So something else just for the audience here, I've known Sebastian for a while...we bought four of these gifts. I gave them to two of my grandchildren and then to a niece and nephew who were graduating from college. And all four of them loved these things.?

Sebastian and Tom Berger, May 2021

Tom: So...this is a great gift, you know, Thanksgiving, Halloween time, Halloween with the candy...I don't know how your production ability is with school, swimming, and everything else. The question here is, have you thought about expanding or hiring people to help you with the business or where do you stand going forward with the business??

Sebastian: Well, actually, I decided like in August that I was kind of done with this, like with the whole selling them, and I kind of just want to focus on school and so many other things and maybe just do more events like this or talk about it rather than selling them.

Tom: Well, you could do that, but I think, as you mentioned, you're very inspiring.

Tom: Maybe you have some younger employees. You could find some younger employees, some kids that can pick up some of the burden on this thing.?

Tom: And the reason I'm suggesting that is you're the chief everything officer. But when you become the chief executive officer, it's no longer what you do. It's what you don't do. You have other people do for you.?

Tom: So that would be a great learning experience for you, is actually transferring some of your skills to other people. And you'd learn a lot by doing that if you can do it. And it doesn't have to be a big thing. But just being able to teach somebody what you're doing would be a great learning experience for you and really help you later on because you will have employees in there. And starting out by learning how to handle it, what to say and what not to say would be a great skill set.?

Chuck: Over here, I'm going to give you this here. Up here. You did something for Denmark. The marketing campaign.?

Chuck: Could you explain to us what you learned from that experience and what were the ups and downs of it? You might want to explain first some of that stuff. Just give the situation as to what you did and how you were trying to market to them.

Sebastian: Well, I was selling Denmark machines that had the little logo on them, and it was part of like a fundraiser for the senior class.

Sebastian: So the parents would buy them. And the ones I was selling had a little graduation hat and everything So it was kind of cute. It was like a gift for the seniors. And part of the sale would go towards having a fun week for the seniors.

Sebastian: And it didn't actually work out that well because it was right after another fundraiser that the school was doing at the time. So I think a lot of parents did that one and then didn't want to do another one. So I think there were only a few sales.

Sebastian: But I kind of learned that if you're going to do something like that for big sales and events and fundraisers and things like that the most important thing is timing, because you have to make sure that people are willing to participate, both because you don't want them to feel like they have all these fundraisers and stuff being shoved down their throats, like one after the other. But then also because you want to make sure that they want to participate in it because it's at the right time. So timing is very important for things like that.

J Burnett: That's a great example of what we're talking about failing, but that's not a quote “failure,” like abject failure....that's an "it didn't work out the way I expected it to but here's what I learned."

Sebastian: Well...a little bit of a failure, because now we have like two thousand sheets of Navy blue cardstock <laughter>

J: But the key is you learned from it....

Chuck: You know, you might be able to use them at Notre Dame.?<laughter>

Chuck: Wally??

Wally Wilhoite: As you mentioned, you're going to stop OctoGifts. Is that what I heard??

Sebastian: Yeah.?

Wally: So that's one exit strategy - just to stop. But when you have a company with other people depending on you, you just can't do that. And so I really think the next lesson for you to figure out a different exit strategy...how maybe to transition it to someone else, maybe license it that way. You get mail money or mail money would come in the mail just through royalties...

Wally: But again, all of us at startups, you have people working for you. If you just come in and say, OK, I'm done, I'm stopping. You know, you got people's lives to do that. So I think you can learn a little bit more by looking at different exit strategies. That would be my suggestion…

John Stephens: I have no suggestions, but I think you said something that I wanted to teach my children, and I made it my number one priority, is to love yourself in order to love others. But the message I heard from you is you fired your mother. That's...that's kind of awkward. But what you did is you took that step to love yourself, to be assured of yourself, get up there and do that public speaking.

John: Kudos to you, because that's the greatest lesson that I can give my children. I can give them businesses or money. It's not important compared to that one lesson that you learned on yourself at such a young age. So congratulations on that. That's well done.

Sebastian: Thank you.?

John: Good job.?

Chuck: Mike?

Mike Holland: Yeah, I mean, I was sitting here thinking back to my daughter. She's now 22, last year of college, etc. And it's amazing to see what you've done. You truly should be an inspiration to every kid your age.

Mike: You're willing to go out and public speak. My daughter would go on her cell phone. She would rather text than call someone. And what you don't maybe realize because you're still in high school, but when you get out of college, you're going to be so much farther ahead because you're not afraid to go to someone and say, Hi, my name is Sebastian. And that's inspirational in itself.

Mike: And then the operations behind it of learning to streamline things, reduce your costs, et cetera, improve performance. You can take that into sports. You can take that into, you know, your personal life and take it into your business life, to your next job, et cetera. And you're going to go far no matter what you choose to do. So great.

Chuck: Go ahead.?

Gable Eaton: Hey, Sebastian, I follow you and your mom on LinkedIn and everywhere. So I'm very familiar with OctoGifts. But one of the main reasons that I did want to come see you live was because you fired your mother.

Sebastian, Gable Eaton, and me at The Entrepreneurial Hour

Gable: Interestingly enough I have a couple of friends who are moms or are mom managers here are the one that interests and piggybacking off of work...and negotiating when you have employees later on...I can understand living with your mom and being in the car with her and her bringing things up all the time.?

Gable: I noticed when you walked over there that you wanted to find somewhere to set your stuff and she made a move actually to get up and help you but then she sat back. You know, so the question is when you do have employees. Think back on not working with your mom. My question is, did you speak with her first about what you were feeling and then try and set some boundaries because she's probably one of your biggest advocates that you're going to have. And maybe second, you could learn something from a bad experience. Hey listen, these are the boundaries at this point in time. I'm your son and at this point in time, I don't want these questions in the car. I ask that because she is going to be your biggest advocate and she's never going to stop being your mom but her level of skill in business and in how to navigate it is something that a lot of people would like to take advantage of.

Gable: And to give you an example, the top 1%, they follow in their parents’ footsteps and they listen to what their parents are telling them. And at no point in time do they...and this is not a hit against you...I'm just curious to know if you thought of setting boundaries or did you just...Looks like it's time to move on?

Sebastian: You know, we did try the boundaries. It was kind of the first thing I did, but then they'd always fall apart after a couple of weeks. So that never stopped.?

Tom: What you may want to do is actually rehire her, but transition her to the honorary chairman position now. So the honorary chairman, they speak but nobody listens to them. <laughter>

Chuck: Craig??

Craig: OK, Sebastian, I'm going to flip my hat to my dad hat now. As a father. I'm going to talk to you about that for a moment. You've heard managing risk. The other thing that you're going to want to do is manage pressure, OK? Remember Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility.

Craig: There's something to be said about that because you at your age and starting so early, you're going to start putting pressure on yourself to do better and better and better. There's a lot of pressure with that.?When you have this pursuit of excellence as an entrepreneur, as an innovator. You're always wanting to go one step further and people all around you are going to say you can do this and you could try this and do that. And it creates a lot of pressure.?

Craig: So for my advice, it's OK to be 15. It's OK to go swim. It's OK to take a break. It's OK to breathe. It's OK to say no, OK. One thing you learn in business, it's better to say no than yes. Because when you're at a certain age, you say yes to everything.

Craig: And then if it creates a lot of pressure because you're trying to fill orders and you're trying to do your homework and you're trying to do this, sometimes you have to say, no, no, I don't want to do that. And I'm hearing that right now, which is going to reduce your pressure

Craig: Because of the pressure, it's going to create this experience that you're not going to enjoy. You don't want to have that kind of pressure, especially at 15 So not only managing risk, but managing your pressure is going to be very important to you, because now that you've started this, you're going to keep going and you're going to want to get better and you're going to want to do better and you're going to want to do bigger things and more people are going to tell you things.?

Craig: You have to be able to say, no, I want to go swim, I want to go on vacation. I want to sleep. OK, that is okay.?

Tom: I try not to be nervous. The great thing about being an entrepreneur: you never have to worry about not having things to worry about...it's all about anxiety and controlling the anxiety.?

Chuck: Dan Frye on Zoom, do you have something there?

Dan Frye: Yeah. So, you know, I think it's awesome the experience that you've had so far. You are light years ahead of where I was at your age. I mean, light years ahead. But there will come a time where you will encounter failure and it's going to throw you for a loop. I was a straight-A student through elementary school, middle school, high school.?I didn't even know what it was.

Dan: I got into college two semesters and I promptly failed out. So I went from straight A's to failing out of college, and I had no idea how I was going to explain that to my parents. And more importantly, personally, it threw me for a loop because I had no idea how to fail. I didn't even know what failure was.?

Dan: So there were several years after that where I'm trying to figure out what does this even mean, right? You absorb a lot of that personally. So my advice is this: when you get to the point where you have failed at something, embrace it and enjoy it as part of the ride.

Dan: It's not a reflection on you. It's not a reflection on something that you weren't able to do. It's simply the universe just pushing you in a different direction. And looking back on it now, you know, 20-odd years later, failing out of college was literally the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean, it put me into IT when I was 17. From there, I was able to launch a cyber security career, and now I'm launching a company in cyber security space. None of that would have happened had I not had that experience failing out of tech. So sometimes the road less traveled is the right road. And just, you know, when it happens, just be brave and take the path. I think it's awesome what you've done.

Sebastian: Thank you. Thank you very much.?

Louis: So technical question per se. You thought of this idea. You started doing it on small business and entrepreneurs do a little bit of research there. I would imagine there was nothing like this out there, per se, and that you looked around and nobody was really doing or at least in this area. So I'm assuming you did that.?

Louis: Have you looked at some sort of trademarking, making sure that no one else piggybacks and tries to take your idea away and scale it and make it big and it's their own business, and all of a sudden you're like, well, gee, there it goes, because a lot of entrepreneurs forget to do that and then someone else steals their idea and then it's too late.

Louis: So I'm just curious, are those some of the thoughts or things that you've been thinking about Because obviously, again, still young. So, you know, you're getting a lot of advice and hearing from a lot of people that already have done this. They made those mistakes.?

Sebastian: Well, yeah, I actually have -- currently I have one official patent on it, and there's a second one pending and the name and the logo and all that are trademarked already, too.

John: What did they patent? What are the claims?

Sebastian: One of them is a design patent and the other one is a utility patent for how it actually works.

John: Patent at 15...solid work. It took me 63 years.

Tom: One of the things Wally said...an exit strategy. First of all, you come across so well. If you did a video and sent it to Hallmark and card companies. And said, "I'm thinking about exiting this business...Would you be interested?" You may get some people's attention. And...because you have patents, if they just wrote you a small check, it's sure better than nothing. But doing a video of yourself very similar what you did today to talk about the product and where it came from, I wouldn't be surprised if you got some interest.?

Tom: So if nothing else, that they would use you and the logo on their website to talk about the product because as Craig and many of us have thought and said you're very inspirational. There may be an exit strategy here that could really work for you.

Mike: I totally disagree with Tom. Respectfully disagree. Don't sell. Approach it for a licensing deal. You get a residual monthly check, and if somebody like a Hallmark could pick it up, your college is paid for, your house is paid for potentially...the Lamborghini, you know, it can happen. Right?....

Chuck: Craig, last comment.

Craig: Sebastian, here's the deal. We're all old fogies, so we're looking at you and seeing what could be the end result, OK? And here's my suggestion to you: It's OK to be a kid. It's OK to put it in the compartment. Even if you don't want to do it it's OK, because here's the deal. You're 15, enjoy being 15, OK, then something new will come about. This might come up.?

Craig: But the thing is, I don't want you to feel pressure and anxiety when you hear all this feedback about trademarks and patents and all that, because at 15, you don't have to worry about that. OK? I want you to be able to go swim and enjoy your life, OK, because at some point you'll get there and you'll be able to focus and then you'll work on "OK, I want to really expand this business.” I really want to spend the time.

Craig: But right now, you're like juggling, OK, I want to sleep in and I want to go swim and I want to spend time with my family. And now you have all this feedback about growing this business, expanding it, trademarks, you know, all that, all that, all that legal garbage. Right?

Craig: That time will come, OK??But the thing is, I'm more concerned about your pressure. The pressure and anxiety that comes with all of this feedback because a lot of it's advanced. If I were your age, I'd want to walk out of here like "Oh, my God." All this legaleze and all this stuff is too much for a 15 year old...I just want you to know it's OK to be 15, OK? You are light years ahead of everyone in this room. Okay, in terms of entrepreneurship and starting a business, you are. But it's OK to take a step back and take a breather. That's my advice.?

Chuck: Closing comments...

Tom:I will put a caveat to what Craig said, that's great advice, as long as the ex CEO doesn't fire you.

Chuck: Sebastian, could you give us your contact information, how people are going to get in touch with you? You have an email address and give us your website. I will actually try to share them.

Sebastian: You can email at [email protected] and the website is octogifts.com .

Chuck: Sebastian, great job.

MORE RESOURCES

The story of how and why he fired me:

The "Trillionaire" label below is pure hyperbole!

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