Teens, perhaps you’re tired of being under the thumb of your parents and your teachers. Now, as long as you’re 18, you’re likely going to have to deal with the circumstances you’re in.

However, what can bring you great freedom and what can bring you great satisfaction is having your own business. Of course, you’re probably not going to become the next Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, overnight but just by starting your own business, you’re way ahead of your peers.

Owning a small business is a venture that many people can do, including you, even if you’re under 18 years old. For instance, you might want to be able to charge money for the skills you have. You may simply want to build a level of income to live comfortably after you graduate, along with the freedom of working for yourself.

However, what exactly does that take?  What are the skills of an entrepreneur, aside from the ones you already have as a student and an adolescent living at home who likely has a list of household chores to get done? What does it mean to be in business for yourself and do all people have what it takes?

According to many business experts, you don’t need to have the self-employment gene to succeed at owning a small business. The way that author Michael Port, author of Book Yourself Solid, puts it, “What matters,” he wrote, “is that you define the ideal scope of your venture. And that you enjoy the kind of business or practice you run. Even if you don’t have the entrepreneurial gene”, he continued, “you can still enjoy and profit from your own full service professional practice.

With Port’s words in mind, what makes an entrepreneur anyway? Certainly there are some business skills to possess and a mindset of success in order to overcome the obstacles that are typical for new business owners in the first two years.

For instance, Webster’s Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as “a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money.” This definition provides a basic understanding the burden that a small business owner carries –the balance between loss and profit, expenses and income. It’s not just the balance of those two financial forces, but rather creating a venture so that profits outweigh losses and income outweighs expenses.

That’s really all it takes. To be an entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to scale your business to high heights or that you employ a large community of individuals or that you open locations throughout the country. It simply means that you’re able to earn a profit more than the total of your expenses, more than what it takes to run your business in the first place.

With that in mind, some successful business owners would also suggest that there are some basic ingredients that you need to be successful. They are:

1. Developing a mission statement.
2. A strong sense of self-motivation.
3. Persistence to achieve the business goals.
4. A hunger for success.
5. Supportive friends and family.
6. Create sources of funding.
7. Acquiring or developing leadership skills.
8. Coaches and mentors.
9. Basic math skills to make decisions efficiently and effectively.

Although you may not invent the next greatest trend, you can still run a successful business. Although you may or may not have the skills to become the next Bill Gates, you can still own a small business that is profitable. The basics are simple: know how to keep your profits greater than your expenses. If you can do that, then you’re an entrepreneur.