17-year-old entrepreneurs find financial, moral support for My Social Gain
June 7, 2018 | Elyssa Bezner
Entrepreneurship brought Jaden Evans and Benicio Baeza together, they said.
The two juniors at Truman High School in Independence, Missouri, started the social media marketing company My Social Gain in early 2018 after realizing the power of social media for companies.
Though the company is only a few months old, My Social Gain already has already inked its first client and is building case studies for more customers. In their first few months of operation, the duo landed Salon Ji, a hair salon in Lenexa, Kansas, helping to deliver promotions for haircuts and massages, as well as managing the salon’s social media.
The co-founders’ early successes caught the eye of administrators and the athletics department at Truman, Baeza said. My Social Gain now helps manage the school’s social media, he added.
“It’s so cool,” Baeza said of communicating en masse to his school’s students and parents.
The teens were interested in entrepreneurship at young ages — Baeza selling used shoes in middle school. Evans couldn’t imagine any other future than being a founder, he said.
“I had no idea even what an entrepreneur was until I stumbled across a lot of people online and that’s when I decided that, since I already did it on accident, I might as well continue and scale,” Baeza added. The founders were inspired to launch a social media firm after research on its potential to help small businesses. After discussing a plan, the two sought help from their families to launch an LLC, which has been financially supported by their parents.
“We’re lucky to have parents who are willing to invest in us,” Baeza said “We’re very reliant on them.”
The company already has received offers from outside investors, they said, but Baeza and Evans saw no need since operational costs have been low so far.
The most challenging aspect of their work is balancing work and school, the co-founders agreed. Both students are active in extracurricular activities and found most clients are unwilling to schedule meetings later in the day to accommodate Evans’ baseball practices.
The pair credit My Social Gain’s early success to the many supporters at their school and around the Kansas City for their success and look forward to scaling throughout the year.
“There’s so many supportive people around here,” Evans said. “Whenever they hear a young person wants to become an entrepreneur, they immediately want to help them.”
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