Starting a business can be daunting, especially if you’re young and short on money. Yet has proven that it doesn’t take much to get started and launching a business propels forward, even if you end up going down a different road later in life. As a teenager with just $50, Kissick started a fashion resale business, AK Boutique.
In less than three years, she grew it from a small home-based operation to a spot in the White Oaks Mall in Springfield, Illinois, ultimately scaling to over $300,000 in inventory. Yet rather than doubt whether $50 was enough, she jumped right in. “I was 17 when I woke up and decided to be a boutique owner.
I had always loved fashion and dreamed of setting up a shop, but I made up my mind to do it in an instant,” Kissick explained. “On that summer day between my junior and senior years, I set up shop in my mom’s garage with a few pieces of clothing, an old cash box, and a cardboard sign on the side of the road to get people to come in. My instinct was to be economical, mostly because I only had $50 to my name, but also because I grew up in the country where the people are incredibly resourceful and highly self-reliant.
” Although she didn’t have much of a roadmap for the business, she figured things out. “Truthfully, I had no idea what I was doing, so I had no idea if $50 would work or not,” she said. Her path reminds her of a famous quote by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, on what was then Twitter, “I believe starting a company i.