design on demand days

website template customization

custom branding & web design

work with us

Building A Successful Business While In School feat. Hope Taylor and Reed Gallagher

Building a business isn’t easy, but imagine what it’s like to do it while still in school! In today’s episode, Hope Taylor and Reed Gallagher of The Junior Collective join us to share their journey to starting a successful business while in high school! Listen in as they share how young entrepreneurs can build businesses while still maintaining the fun experiences of being a teenager!

Branded by Bernel Podcast is brought to you by Bernel Westbrook, lead designer and founder of Branded by Bernel, a design studio dedicated to building strong brands and Showit websites for creative entrepreneurs.

Make sure you’ve hit that follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast player to get notified each week as we air new episodes!

Subscribe on Your Favorite Podcast Player

Apple Podcast App | Spotify | Amazon | Google Podcast

Hardships in Entrepreneurship at a Young Age

Both Hope and Reed were both young entrepreneurs, beginning their businesses as teenagers. We know just how challenging being a business owner is, but imagine all of the complexities that come with building a business as a teenager.

By the age of 15, Hope was morphing her side hobby into a business and Reed was photographing his first wedding. What inspired entrepreneurship at such a young age? They each found inspiration from their parents, who were very supportive in their decision to take the path of small business owners at a young age.

Reed’s dad helped foster an entrepreneurial spirit in him from a young age by modeling side hustles in addition to his full-time job. Hope saw her mom build a cake business that she was able to help her with.

Hardships & Sacrifices in Entrepreneurship at a Young Age

When starting a business at a young age, there comes a lot of sacrifices and hardships. One of those is the social aspect of what others thought of you or said about you as a teenager trying to run a business. Hope dealt with a lot of bullies who mocked her and made social media posts about her—which ultimately led to her growing thick skin and putting blinders on to what anybody else thought about it. For Reed, he did feel that others saw him as an imposter, until one day they began to start taking him seriously.

This hardship can also lead to an identity crisis of sorts—are you a high school student or a business owner? In deciding how he would show up and prioritize, Reed skipped his junior prom to photograph a wedding. Not only that, but being so young in business, they felt like they had to pour everything into the business for others to take them seriously, which prompted the questions of who are they outside of their business?

Two things can be true—you don’t have to be a living, breathing representation of a brand. You can wear multiple hats and find balance.

Building Trust in Your Brand as a Teenager

Not everyone is willing to allow a 16-year-old photograph their wedding, but you can build the trust and portray the professionalism that will help you build your clientele.

  1. Believing in yourself & showing up professionally.
  2. Don’t make your age or school activities a main focus of your brand.
  3. Professional, consistent client communication and messaging.

If you do these things, some of your clients may not even realize how old you are.

The Junior Collective

In 2020, Reed was in Hope’s mastermind, focused on building up his photography business. A year later, he reached out to Hope about this community he wanted to create for young entrepreneurs. Hope immediately loved it—they decided to dive into it together.

Thus The Junior Collective was born. Together, at ages 20 (Reed) and 26 (Hope) they’ve built a place with the perfect combination of content, coaching, and community.

The Junior Collective was created for professionals who began their business before the age of 26; they currently have members between the ages of 13-29. If you’re ready to join The Junior Collective, check it out below!

Connect with The Junior Collective

thejuniorcollective.com

thejuniorcollective.com/about

Connect with Bernel

brandedbybernel.com

instagram.com/brandedbybernel

Review the Transcript:

Bernel
Hey, hi and welcome to the Branded by Bernel podcast. I’m your host Bernel. You may know me as the branding and web designer who obsesses over the details so you don’t have to. We all desire to be great at what we do. Although once we get there, no one seems to talk about the messy middle. This motivated me to set the table and invite industry peers over to share stories about living and working in the creative world. So grab the OJ and champagne, pull up a chair, join the creative community and be prepared to build a brand you fall in love with. This is the brand new by Bernel Podcast. Today on the podcast, I am thrilled to be joined by hope Taylor and Reed Gallagher. They are the two founders of the junior collective. The junior Collective is a members only online community with education and group coaching from industry leading experts so that you can refine what it means to be a young entrepreneur. Oh my goodness, I have been waiting for this episode, guys. Welcome. Yay, I’m so excited.

Reed
Yes, I’m so thrilled to be here. Thanks for having us on.

Bernel
Of course, of course, for you guys listening at home just a little backstory, I had been following hope and read on Instagram separately for years, but I was able to be at a retreat and spend some time with both of them in person last month. Um, so that was exciting and nice to finally put, you know, a face to the to the online world, right?

Hope
It was so fun. I literally loved every moment of that retreat. Like we had the greatest time. I felt like it was just like a giant slumber party.

Reed
100%. And I feel like the very first moment I met Bernel I was like, she’s amazing. She brings all the energy. She was so much fun.

Hope
She Yeah, she’s a great all time. Well, and I feel like we had just so many good heart to heart talks that are now going to be a part of this podcast episode. So we’re like letting all of the listeners into our like late night slumber party girl chat. And it’s going to be great girl chat plus read.

Bernel
Oh, I love that. Yes. So it’s hilarious. I arrived. And I’m not going to take too much of the episode to give this story. But I arrived at the retreat a night early. And so I didn’t know who was going to be at the house. And I walk in and it’s late, guys like it’s late. It’s like missing raining outside. And I’m like these people are probably asleep. But my energy is always on 10. And I busted or and Reid is literally standing there. He’s like, hey, and I was like, hey, and literally like 10 minutes later we have our laptops out and are like chopping it up on business stuff. Things about the industry. So that’s one of the things I love about the creative industry so much. And we’re gonna talk about this amazing industry that I feel like all three of us kind of grew up in, like we grew with our businesses. But the creative industry is awesome. And it’s very supportive. So with that being said, I just want to dive into like, how did the junior collective come about?

Hope
Oh, yeah. Ready? Do you want to tell it?

Reed
Yeah, so I was in hopes mastermind in 2020. And the mastermind was all focused about growing as an educator and like creating new educational offerings. I was really focused on like the photography side of things in the mastermind. But I always knew in the back of the mind that I started young and hope sorted young. And I feel like that was kind of like our relationship point or a connection point there. So that was always in the back of my mind during the mastermind. Fast forward. About a year later, I reached out to hope. And I was like, you know, hope I need your help. I want to do something for young entrepreneurs. But I don’t know how I want to bring it to life, like what input can you give me? What advice do you have on this. And then from there, we kind of kept talking like week after week after week. And we’re like, let’s just dive into this headfirst. Let’s do this together. And let’s create a whole community a whole membership, and just a whole new offering for young entrepreneurs that no one has ever seen before. And how can we just connect young entrepreneurs together to something that we wish we had when we were starting out as teenagers?

Hope
And it’s so funny, because I look back at that conversation. And I just vividly remember being like, How do I tell reed that I also want to do this without like, stepping on Reed’s toes and being like, Yeah, I’m gonna do that with you and whether I was invited or not. So I just remember saying, like, I’ve also thought about doing this, but I just don’t have the capacity to do it by myself. So like, let me know what level you want me to be involved. And if you just want me to be involved as your coach and like, guide you through what that could look like, that’s great. If you want me to be involved in like, do a partnership with you. That’s great to like, you just let me know. And I feel like he like simmered on it for a little bit. And then we just came back and we’re like, Yeah, I think it makes sense for us to both do and so we had a bunch of meetings about it. And it’s so funny because there was so many different conversations about what the junior collective was going to be before we landed on what it is now.

Reed
Yeah, I remember like hope messaging me voice memos on boxer and she was like, yeah, let me know how involved you want me to be. And I was like, Well, can I just can we just go like 100% and I feel like that’s kind of what we landed on. We have been in it together and it was like a whirlwind figuring out what the junior collective was going to be and how we’re going to bring it to life. But I feel like we couldn’t be happier with how it’s turned out so far.

Bernel
Oh, my goodness, I love this. Okay, so, so much to unpack there. Let’s take a step back. Because number one, I’m hearing about like the blossoming of a dynamic duo, like have a partnership here. But let’s take a step back. Because you both said since you started businesses young, so if you guys listening at home are not familiar with either of their brands. How young were you guys?

Hope
So Reed was younger than me. I was 15. So I was a junior in high school when I started photographing my friends as kind of just a side hobby, but it escalated into really being like my full time job as a senior in high school. So it like 16. Wow.

Reed
Yeah. So I photographed my first wedding when I was 15. And that’s the same year that I got my business license, I always joke I got my business license before I got my driver’s license. So I had to have like my mom drive me to every single photoshoot, my parents had to be like the legal owners of our LLC. But it was just so fun getting to kind of grow up in the industry and get a start at 50 as a sophomore in high school, and then kind of take it from there.

Hope
I remember I used to take all my payments on PayPal and my PayPal account got flagged and shut down because I was too young to have a PayPal account. So you know, just hashtag just young business owner things.

Bernel
I love that young business owner thinks it’s crazy. And I told you guys both this when I met you guys last month, but I thought I started a business young like that was kind of my like weird flex. Like, I was just like, hey, guys, like I started a business in my 20s. But you were teenagers like that is so, so impressive. So first of all, like kudos to your parents. Because I think when you when a teenager walks into the room and says like, hey, I need this equipment, or I need you to cosign an LLC for me you like, that has to be a very surprising moment to parents, I’m sure. So do you feel like your parents kind of fostered that entrepreneurship in you? Or were they just as surprised as the rest of the world when you guys wanted to start your businesses.

Reed
For me, I feel like my dad isn’t entrepreneurs. So he always had like his full time job. But then he had all his little side hustles on the side. And he kind of helped my sister and I both foster the entrepreneurship spirit from a young age. So I think it says this on the junior collective website is I used to sell golf balls on the side of my house because we lived on a golf course. So they would always like land in our backyard. And so I would like clean them up and sell them when I was like 10 years old. And that’s how I started selling golf balls in my neighborhood. And then I transitioned my sister and I like wrote a book when we were in middle school, got that published on Amazon. And then when I was a teenager in high school, that’s when like the official like business entrepreneur read came out. And I was like, I’m ready to go full force into growing a business right away. So I don’t think my parents were too surprised when I had a new like passion or talent that I wanted to talk about. But I don’t think they were ready for all the ideas that I had to like put behind it.

Bernel
That makes sense. Oh, my goodness, I have a very

Hope
similar story. So I, my mom owned a cake business. When I was in high school, she made cakes out of our house because my dad was in the military. And we literally like she had to do that in order to afford groceries like we and I just watched her hustle and build this incredible business with like her own two hands. But I would when my parents had yard sales, I would sell hot cocoa if it was cold outside. And I would do lemonade stands and I would take shampoo and mix it with water into little bottles from Michael’s craft store and sell them door to door. And I would like when all the school fundraiser competitions like it was a thing. And so then when I started a business, I think it was kind of the same that Reed said like they kind of saw that part coming. But I don’t think that they saw the trying to go out like I went full time out of high school instead of going to college. And that was the element that they didn’t see coming. But they definitely always like trusted me. They listened to my ideas. They always just kind of told me, you could literally do whatever you set your mind to doing and they never kind of like dim that light that I had for entrepreneurship. And I think that did play a huge part in me just believing that I could do whatever I want to do. Yeah, oh

Bernel
my goodness. That’s incredible. So what I’m hearing is like entrepreneurs are born and not necessarily made, because I do same thing over here. I’ve been selling everything I could get my hands on since I was a little kid lemonade stands. Cookies. My mother actually started a cookie baking business when I was in high school because High School is just an expensive thing. And I always had a stay at home mom and she literally was like, you know, college is right around the corner. Like you need all this different stuff. I’m gonna start baking cookies. And I kind of took over her cookie baking business, which is kind of a joke because like she was selling them in the neighborhood, but I started selling them like at school and like selling them at fundraisers. And I was like, yeah, like I’ll take your cookies I told her how she needed to markup her profit, her profit margin and it was hilarious cuz I made like a whole little like diagram. And I was like, well, if butter cost this much the cookies need to cost this much. And so yeah, I don’t think my parents were surprised when I started a business. But like similar to you hope I do think they were surprised that I didn’t take the next expected step because I started my business senior year of college and totally decided I was never going to work for another company. So I literally went from working part time at Starbucks to running a full time business. And so I think that’s the part that they were just like, oh, wait, like, you’re not going to do an internship like everybody else. So yeah, I definitely think there’s some unexpected things. But I wanted to ask you guys, because this is such a unique perspective that you both were in high school. What do you think the biggest challenge was socially with starting a business, so not even like the financial part, but just like the social part of starting a business?

Hope
Oh, my gosh, all of it. I like I so I did not I wasn’t somebody that had a lot of friends in high school. Like, I just, I just didn’t like I wasn’t a girl’s girl. Like, I didn’t like the drama. I didn’t party. Like I just didn’t have tons of friends in high school. And I went to kind of a rough public high school, there was lots of different types of people. And a lot of people that looked at me and were like, I don’t know who this girl thinks she is like walking through the school wearing a Lilly Pulitzer dress, trying to start a business but like she does not fit in here. And so I just got a lot of kind of like this, who is this girl think she is vibe. And there were lots of like tweets that went viral in our town making fun of me and like Instagram posts mocking me and I very quickly grew a very thick skin. And I think that that has actually served me very, very well in my business. But I think just generally, the biggest, like social hard part was having to put blinders on to what anybody else thought about it. Like I had to just pretend like I did not care. Because I really believed that in order to be taken seriously, as a professional, I had to show up as a professional, even when all my friends were like, Girl, what are you doing? And so or I should even say, friends, everyone around me is like, Girl, what are you doing? And I’m really glad that I did. But it was definitely there were definitely some some tough moments in there.

Reed
Yeah, I feel like it definitely took time to kind of transition from what hope was saying where everyone would look at this as just like a social thing. And like, Oh, what are the things they’re doing? And then there was a moment for me where there was the pivot, and it became like, wow, what is redoing to like, wow, what is redoing now? Like, look at him now. And it took it took time for me to kind of adapt socially to where people would look at this as like a joke to people who could after a year or two finally be like, Wow, he’s taking himself seriously. So now it’s time for me to take him seriously, too. So good.

Bernel
Oh, yeah, that’s really good. Um, yeah, same thing. I mean, I wasn’t in high school. So I feel like high school is just a whole different like animal in itself. People were trying to find themselves in high school, let alone support other people. So I do think though, is far as being a college student, it was this level of like, I have to be super serious and super professional, if I’m gonna start a business, which just means you don’t have a lot in common with your peers, because they’re like, No, we’re just having the time of our lives. So yeah, yeah, I

Reed
feel like there’s almost like an identity crisis that you go through. It’s like, am I a student? Am I a high schooler or a college student? Or am I gonna show up as like the working business professional, and it was definitely tough to navigate, which one I was going to focus on in which one I was going to portray socially. And I just didn’t know like, what route I wanted to go. And so there’s definitely a lot that went into deciding how I was going to show up was like, going to show up as the student or was like, going to show up as the tried and train business professional?

Hope
Well, because the other side of that, too, is like you don’t know what is going to negatively impact your business. But what’s going to negatively impact your friendships in which one’s more important, like if my friends are going out drinking tonight, which I mean, I never really even did but like if they were going out drinking tonight, do I skip that? Because that makes my brand look bad? And then all of a sudden, I lose those friends? Or do I not care that my friends are gonna have a weird opinion of me that I’m drinking and running a business? Like what does that look like? Like, can I go to the movies tonight? Or do I need to be editing? Can I bring my laptop to this like, lunch date that I’m having? Like, it’s just it’s so many weird dynamics of like, what sacrifices Am I willing to make and what is ultimately more important, but if I choose my business, am I going to regret that later that I didn’t have like the high school college experience? It’s just Yes. It’s a lot of moving pieces to juggle and I know Bernel You and I had this conversation at the retreat a couple weeks ago.

Reed
Yeah, I skipped my junior high school to junior senior prom. I skipped my junior prom to photograph a wedding. And I remember that was such a hard decision for me to make because it was like, am I going to miss out on this like once in a lifetime opportunity? Or I guess twice in a lifetime because we had Junior Senior but no Am I going to miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity to go to prom? Or am I going to miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity to shoot this dream wedding? And there was a lot of struggle is kind of navigating which route was the better or the smarter choice for me as a student, but also as a business owner?

Bernel
Yes. Oh my goodness, the figuring out what part to sacrifice and what hat to wear? I think that’s the hard part. Both of you guys touched on like, do we want to be a student today? Or do we want to be this professional buttoned up business owner and one of the things that also and hope I was like, it kind of led to my blazer error. Like I felt like I had to be in a blazer, I had to look like a business owner. So I was just really out here wearing Blazers everywhere, like to lunch just hanging out with my friends. And everybody’s like, why are you dressed like some middle aged lady in the suburbs? I literally got that. Like, why are you dressed like this? And I was like, because I run a business guys. Yes.

Hope
J Crew took all my money. I was like, Listen, I am going to be a J Crew model everywhere I go. Like, this has to be my aesthetic 24/7

Bernel
Yes, exactly. J Crew and Banana Republic like I literally going in Banana Republic, and telling the ladies like, Oh, I’m paying for this purchase from my business account. And they are literally looking at me like I’m a crazy person. Like, they were like, okay, good for you. And I’m like, it’s this. This is from my business account, because I’m starting a business. But I do think we had to go through that to find ourselves. And to prove to ourselves, I realized looking back that that was less about proving to other people that I was a business owner and more about proving to myself I was a business

Hope
owner. Yeah. Oh, that’s so true. And so good. Like, I remember, I always have this kind of vivid memory of being I think it was probably 19 or 20. And having this moment of like, who am I outside of HTP? Like my brand, okay, with photography? Who am I outside of that, like, do I have hobbies? Like, do I even have a sense of humor anymore, like, I don’t even know, like, everything has just kind of morphed into my brand. And I almost like, like, kind of slowly pushed down a side of myself, because I felt like it didn’t align with my brand, and that those two things couldn’t coexist. And like my, like, everybody in my family is like a hot mess. And the most hilarious way like, we have hilarious senses of humor. We all like cuss like sailors in our household. And I just like, lost this funny like sense of humor side of myself, because I felt like I couldn’t have that and make funny jokes and like, whatever and go out dancing with my friends and also run a successful business. And it took a long time, like, what would not have been four or five years of me running a business and having a brand before I was like, Wait a second, like two things can be true at one time, I can also be a person, I don’t have to literally just be this living, breathing representation of a brand.

Reed
I think that’s one of the biggest things that the junior clerk have helped me understand, even as we’ve gone through the creation process is that you can be two things at one time, and you can have, you can wear multiple hats and find a balance between all of them. And just understanding that you can be two things at once has been such a weight off my shoulders, between navigating all the different aspects of my life, being a student, being a business owner, being someone who might want to go out on the weekend, and just like finding a way to balance all of that together.

Bernel
Yes, that was literally my next question. My wills returning I was gonna say, is there a module or a portion of TJC that addresses just the the person behind the business, not just building the successful business, but coming into yourself? You know, like, is that something that you guys cover?

Hope
Yeah, one of the first topics we talked about was like the struggles of being a young entrepreneur and work life balance and setting boundaries. And I don’t think that we’ve specifically covered like the social side yet, but that’s definitely a topic we plan to do in the future. We do monthly topics and conversations. And so we specifically want to address those conversations, though, like the things that you don’t really think about unless you’re in it, and the struggles and the things that we face as young entrepreneurs that nobody else really realizes are things that we’re having to really actively and strategically think about. So we’ve talked a lot about similar topics. We haven’t dug into this like super deep yet, but it’s something that we totally have on our radar, because it’s such an important conversation to have.

Reed
Yeah, we’ve talked about work, school and life balance and navigating all three of those together. And we’ve talked a lot about gaining trust as a young entrepreneur and how we can show up as a young business owner. And so I think we’re definitely super excited to kind of explore what you’re saying the more social aspect of being a young entrepreneur and being just a young person at the same time and finding the balance between all of them.

Bernel
Yes, yeah. I would love to hear how that conversation goes. Because, I mean, before I met you guys, and this is recent guys. I’ve been in business like seven years. And before I met you, too, I thought it was just me who went through this whole identity crisis related to my business. But I realized that Yeah, I think that may be a hard rite of passage for anybody who is Bill Being a company while literally becoming an adult, like those two things are two major life like crossroads. And so to be doing them simultaneously, it’s pretty hard read you mentioned something though. That’s another struggle point that I feel like is not talked about enough gaining trust as a young entrepreneur, you mentioned doing a like your dream wedding during junior year, like, who lets a 16 year old photograph their wedding? No offense by that?

Reed
Exactly. That’s It’s such a fun topic for me to talk about, because who does let a 16 year old photograph their wedding, I could trust someone at a young age or one of the biggest and most special days of their life. So exploring this topic of how we can show up as a young business owner and how we can do things to gain trust as a young entrepreneur is always a topic that I just love to dive into.

Bernel
Yeah, that’s a go in anything to add there hope because I mean, you were taking people’s pictures pretty young, too. So how did you convince them?

Hope
When we talked about this image in your collective, we talked a lot about like, I think it was three specific elements of this one was believing in yourself and showing up as professional even before you are and I know, that kind of brings us full circle from what we were talking about earlier with, like your friends judging you, because you’re showing up on social media and like talking to your Instagram stories, and then having to show up to class the next day. And people are like, You embarrassed yourself. So that’s number one is like really believing in yourself and trusting in yourself and showing up as professional before anybody else believes in you, is kind of the number one thing that’s going to drive that success and drive people looking at you and being like, oh, like she knows what she’s doing. The second thing is that we talked about not making your age and your school activities, a focus of your brand. It’s okay to mention those things. Like I posted photos from prom, but I wasn’t like everyday taking selfies in class being like, I’m in advanced English ninth grade, like I was not doing that. It was kind of like a side detail. So I would show up to most of my engagement sessions and my client shoots. And they’d be like, Oh, do you want to go get a drink with us. And I’m like, oh, that’s illegal, I made tea. Like, that’s not a thing. They can have it. But they just didn’t know because I didn’t want it to be their first impression of me. So I was very intentional about kind of keeping that as like a very minor part of my brand, not the focus of my brand and my social media. And then lastly, we talked about just the value of professional consistent client communication, really, really powerful messaging, a very clear brand, very clear and consistent communication, normal work hours, normal boundaries, like setting yourself up as a business in the way that you communicate and present yourself is incredibly important first impressions, response times proper grammar and capitalization in your emails, like all of those things that feels so minor and silly, are really, really important. Like, take your sent from iPhone tag out of the bottom of your email responses to your clients. But things like that, like just showing up as a business owner. And really prioritizing a level of professionalism that almost out reaches and like goes above and beyond your age is going to be the biggest thing that allows people to trust you and maybe just not even realize how old you are. Because it’s not the first thing that they notice.

Reed
Yeah, we’ve talked a lot about how we can funnel all of these things together, all the three things have mentioned into creating a professional brand voice and creating a professional online presence. That way you can frame the narrative of your brand. And you can tell people, your potential customers, anyone who’s looking at your business, exactly how you want them to perceive you. And you’re able to just craft the perception of being a professional, no matter your experience. And no matter your age, you’re able to show up as that professional and show up in a way that’s going to gain trust and demonstrate your authority and your knees.

Bernel
Yeah, I mean you to and your brands and your social media and the way that you present yourselves and speak with such authority even I feel like that far exceeds age, like your level of professionalism is way beyond your age, which is so weird, because even saying that I feel like an auntie like I feel like but it’s true. I mean, I would not have known how young you guys were until, you know, I read the story because it’s interesting, you get to a certain point in your business were telling the story is now something you’re proud of, versus it being a sidebar when you’re in it. Like when you’re in it. You don’t really say like, Hey, I’m 17 and I’m at your wedding. But when you’re 20 you’re like wow, three years ago, like I shot your wedding, like that’s pretty, pretty cool. So when we talk about the junior collective, and because it sounds like you guys are doing some powerful work in there, what age ranges, like qualify for this, like if somebody is listening at home and they have a child that’s super, you know, showing an entrepreneurial spirit spirit or just super ambitious? Like what age range kind of who’s a good fit to apply for the junior collective?

Reed
Yeah, so we consider a young entrepreneur anyone who began their business under the age of 26. That is that might seem like a higher number, but we Have people as young as 13, or 14 inside the membership all the way up to 2627 28, even 29 year olds, but they all began their business at a young age. So our official like TJC definition is anyone who began their business under the age of 26 as a young entrepreneur,

Hope
but we also say, we won’t turn anybody away. So if anybody is like, I’ve 35, but I resonate with this, like, awesome, we would love to have you, but but we do tailor the content niche specifically towards people that are balancing school and owning a business or have faced those kinds of social struggles that we talked about. So even if you aren’t actively 25, or 26, or under, you began your business before then you still say right on it.

Bernel
That’s so good to know, where was this? When I literally was like Googling, like, how to get an EIN number, like, what does this mean? Like? Because those are just such daunting questions. I feel like we are also studying for midterms. So

Hope
Oh, my gosh, yes, like and talking about insurance and taxes, when like, I don’t even know how a car works like just so many things. But it’s, it’s just so empowering. I feel like to see, so many young business owners now becoming more and more brave and like showing up for themselves in really big ways. Because I didn’t see a lot of other young people doing it back when I was doing it. And when Reid was doing it, and when you were doing it to Bernel. And now it’s just so cool to see that there are so many middle like high school and even middle schoolers that are like, I want to work for myself like this is a path that’s an option. It’s almost like now, college and career isn’t the only path. Now there’s like four or five different paths that people are taking. And it’s not just this kind of like blinders on to only college being the option. And I just think that’s so cool to see. So I love seeing that kind of trending in that direction, it makes me happy.

Reed
Yeah, our heart behind the junior Collective is to redefine what it means to be a young entrepreneur. So creating this community and just creating this space where you can show up, no matter your age, no matter your experience level, and you can just show up and connect with the young entrepreneurs is something that I wish I would have had when I was starting out. And so I’m just so excited and so thrilled to be able to have it out there now.

Bernel
Yes. Oh, my goodness. And redefining entrepreneurship is also redefining what success looks like. I think it’s so cool that you can find your own version of success, whatever the word success means to you. And so that was a question because I I feel you both run successful photography businesses, successful education businesses, but at what point did you realize that like, wow, what I created is actually going to be successful. Like, when did you kind of have that lightbulb moment?

Hope
Oh, gosh, read, you have to go first? Because I have to.

Reed
Okay, no, this is such a great question. I think, for me, what kinda like trigger that lightbulb is when it was time for me to start applying to college and high school. And I was looking at I was deciding, like, what’s next for me? What is my career path going to look like? What does my higher education route going to look like? And then it wasn’t until the spring of my senior year, when I finally realized, you know, what, I’m able to choose my education route in a way that works best for me as a student, as a business owner, and I’m able to continue furthering my education not because I have to, and because that’s what society tells me I need to do. But because it’s actually something that I want to do, and I want to go down the collegiate academic route. So I am in college right now. And I am still navigating being a full time student and being a full time business owner. But it’s not because that’s what society is telling me I have to do is because I had to do the work and decide like, this is what I want to do. And I want to go to school, and I want to learn more about certain topics. And I want to continue doing this while running my business. And I feel like for me, that was my definition of success, I was able to decide I can be successful while doing both and while showing up in both ways.

Hope
So so good, so good. And it’s funny because we have such like opposite collegiate like journeys, because I think the thing that comes to my mind is when I decided so when I graduated my senior year of high school, I actually had applied to like seven universities, and I was still dedicated to the concept of going to college. And I committed to a university that was a few hours away, I plan to pursue a business degree. I had a roommate, I had bought everything from my dorm, like it was a whole thing. And it wasn’t until just a couple of weeks before I was supposed to move in that I like woke up one morning and was like, This is not right. Like this is not the journey that I’m supposed to be on. This isn’t the right decision for me and I don’t want to go and I revoked my admission. But my dad actually at the time, he had all of the valid reasons to be like very worried about this. And so he wanted me to go to community college instead he was like you can stay home you can keep running your business but like the higher education isn’t really an option. And so I went to a semester of community college and I just have this vivid memory of like giraffe honing in trying to manage both of those workloads. And I remember I had bought a ticket to a workshop that I was really excited to attend, because in my mind, that was like my higher education that was really going to contribute to my success at that point. And it was the same day as my English final. And my English professor told me that I was going to fail her class if I didn’t come, but the workshop I was attending cost more than the college class itself. Like it was like, it doesn’t make sense. Like, just let me pass the class, I have an A, and I just like sobbed to my English professor and went home and was like, Dad, can I please just have one semester to see what my business could do if I really just gave it my all, and he never made me go back. And so that, to me was like my moment of realizing like, Okay, this is actually going to be a career and like, it’s working, and it’s going to be something that can sustain me.

Bernel
Oh, my goodness, yes, I Oh, those are such good moments of success. My, this is gonna work moment. Um, I tell people all the time, it’s when I realized that I could travel because I love traveling, traveling was always a passion of mine. But I was I’m not gonna say conditioned to believe I feel like society leads us to believe that traveling is something that is a reward at the end. So when you make it to the job you want, or when you retire, or, you know, when you’re older in life is stable, then you get to retire, then you get to travel the world. And I decided that I want to traveling to be part of my education, like I was like, I want to learn how the world works. I want to, you know, learn from people who live very differently than me. And so I asked for the six months post graduation, I told my parents, I am not going to take a full time job. I was like, can you just give me six months of living at home to see if I can make this business work. I was like, I just need six, like, let me see if I can get some clients, I can do this. I’m going to work part time at Starbucks in the morning, I’m going to come home and I’m going to sit down and I am going to make the prettiest websites I can dream up like, and within three months, I had booked clients, I was getting steady income. And I was like, oh my goodness, this is gonna work. Well, I still didn’t feel like it was quite at the success level though. Like I was just like, okay, like it’s working. It’s growing? Well, at the end of that year, I had the opportunity to spend some time in the Dominican Republic, like, um, some older friends were going of mine. And they were just like, oh, I don’t know, like, can you get off work, and I’m like, get off work. Like, I just bring my laptop like, it’s like, I’m my own boss. And it was at that moment that I was like, Whoa, my job is not interfering with me wanting to travel the world, that’s when I realized like, this is gonna work. This is something

Hope
I love it, it really is those moments of like freedom when you realize like, Okay, this is what it means to work for yourself. And this is what the hard work of entrepreneurship is for, it’s for the ability to have that freedom and that balance, and to be able to just take your laptop, wherever you want and work it really, it’s so true. I feel like a lot of my success Defining Moments lately are more along the lines of things like that, where I’m like sitting at home with Hayden and my dog, or like, we just took a spur of the moment trip to go visit his family and like I can just close my laptop and know that like, everything’s gonna be fine. And you know, have just that work life balance, while knowing that I have the freedom of doing it for myself. It’s so so, so powerful.

Reed
Yeah, last year, I was able to take 11 weeks off of work. And so for me that freedom was like success, because I could look at my business and be like, I’ve been able to grow my business to this point to where it can continue running without me having to work for 11 weeks. And I’m still able to make an income and continue to grow my business without having to do that work. And I think it comes back to because I was able to hustle as a young entrepreneur, it helped me find freedom a little bit later in life and be able to just run that business on my own terms and kind of build my schedule around what I wanted to look like.

Bernel
Yes, oh, my goodness. And on that note, I feel like we’re all just getting started, like the fact that none of us are 30 yet is just my mind. Because I’m like, we have not even like tipped the scale of our careers. And that’s so cool. But it seems like we have all been able to find ourselves and make a life like outside of our businesses, which you know, sometimes people don’t get to do when they go a more traditional route. So this is awesome. How can people find you? So I mean, if they’re like me, and they are ready to be a part of this incredible collective, how can they find you? How do they sign up? What’s their next steps?

Hope
Yeah, so the JR collective.com is where you want to go to find all of the details. That is where you will learn everything that you need to know about what the membership includes how to join us how to apply to be a part of everything. And you can also follow us at the JR collective on Instagram. We share resources there as well. But we would love love love to have a bunch of young entrepreneurs join the membership every single month we go live and we share a topic about young entrepreneurship and what it looks like to balance school and work in life and show weapon book consistently and just topics that are really specific to those of us that have experienced these things. We also do a live coaching call where you can ask us questions live, we’re constantly engaging in the online forum. So you basically just have read and I both in your back pockets as your business coach, and also a community of young entrepreneurs that, understand it and get it and want to celebrate with you and come alongside you to support you.

Reed
Yeah, it’s the perfect combination of content coaching and community for young entrepreneurs. So it’s all of those things, the best of every world combined together, and it’s just the best time getting to connect with everyone inside of the junior collective.

Bernel
Yes, that is awesome, guys. All right. Well, you know what to do, go follow them on Instagram. On the junior collective about page you can find more about their individual stories, as well as links to their first hog their respective photography, Instagram pages, as well, because I mean, both of them have incredible work, like their work is incredible. So I definitely want you to check out their photography to you. But yeah, thank you guys so much for being on the show today.

Reed
Yes, thank you for having me.

Bernel
Wow, that went by really fast. As always, thank you so much for showing up in my little corner of the internet. I would love to hear your thoughts on the show. So please, please subscribe, leave a review and share what you learned with friends. Some of the best things in life are freebies, so don’t forget to head over to Brandon by bernel.com to check out our free branding goodies, the show notes and more educational resources.

© 2017- 2024 BRANDED BY BERNEL, LLC  

TERMS AND CONDITIONS