From an early age, Successful teenage entrepreneurs, Lachlan Delchau-Jones, 18, and Taylor Reilly, 19, have been building they’re own online businesses. They shared their thoughts with us in a recent interview which shed light on the issue that High School does not provide support for
young entrepreneurs.
Mr Delchau-Jones graduated high school in 2019 while Mr Reilly graduated high school in 2017.
Despite the time difference their views on the modern day high school system where identical.
Mr Reilly and Mr Delchau-jones balanced heavy part time work with being a full time school student, while establishing there online businesses “Lachlan said he worked upwards of 30 hours a week on top of school and often got home close to midnight.”
Mr Reilly balanced a part time marketing role while in his last few years at high school.
Irrespective of the fact both their high schools have asked them to be testimonies of the school, they believe entrepreneurship is something that cant be taught.
“You just have to take action, you cant sit on the fence” said Mr Delchau-Jones Mr Reilly added “ We can both agree that its the hours before and after school that make the point of difference.”
Even though they believe school cant teach entrepreneurship, they do believe it can be nurtured.
Business and IT class, instead of teaching accounting should be teaching budding entrepreneurs real world marketing and branding techniques.
“I completed a certificate 3 in business while at school, It was informative in theory however was not practical which I believe would hinder the success rate of any student that completed that class.”
“Why I believe I got the most value out of my time at school is because I was implementing and tweaking lessons into the real world, where I could implement what was taught. Simply put, I had the upper hand,” said Mr Delchau-Jones.
“On another note, there is so many free resources available online that can teach you from coding, web design, graphic design, advertising and the list could go on for days. I am a big believer that any skill can be learnt via the internet,” added Mr Reilly.
“No one at school told me how to pay tax… no one taught me how to go and get a business number” stated Mr Delchau-Jones.
Mr Reilly and Mr Delchau-Jones both agree for any entrepreneur in high school they should be taking action towards there passions and goals outside of school hours.
“Sacrifice is a huge thing,” added Mr Reilly.