A Business You Already Know
Where should you start if you want to practice looking at a company, but you've never done it before?
Start with something you already use — a shoe brand, a game, an app, a drink you buy. You already know things about it most adults don't: whether people your age still like it, whether it's actually good or was just trendy for a month, whether anyone's still using it a year later. That's real information. Looking closely at a business you understand beats starting with one you've only heard mentioned on the news.
Look around your room. Count the real companies in it.
You know if people your age still actually use it.
You know if it's good, or if it was hype once.
That's real information most adults don't have. Use it.
Start there — not with a name you've only heard on the news.
Going deeper — what to work out for yourself first
Make the list, out loud
Walk around your room, or just picture it, and name every company behind something you own or use: the shoes, the game, the streaming service, the phone, the snack in your bag. Don't skip the invisible ones — whoever makes the app you're never off. Write down eight or ten. You're not judging any of them yet. You're just proving to yourself how many real businesses already run through your daily life.
Ask what makes it "sticky"
For each one, ask a blunt question: if this disappeared tomorrow, would you actually care, or would you just switch to something else without thinking twice? A business people would genuinely miss is doing something different from one that's just currently convenient. That difference — call it stickiness — is one of the most useful things a teenager can spot before most adults even think to look for it.
Separate liking it from it being a good business
You can love a product and the company behind it can still be poorly run, or the other way around. A game can be genuinely fun and still be made by a company losing money every year. Liking something is real information, but it's not the whole picture — it's the first clue, not the conclusion. Keep both ideas open at once instead of collapsing them into one.
Notice who else is in the room
For most things you use, more than one company makes something similar — other shoes, other games, other drinks. Name at least one competitor for each item on your list. Comparing a company to its actual rivals, not to nothing, is most of what serious analysis of a business ever is. This is the exact habit the rest of the course builds on.
Ask the adult for their own list
Ask the adult opening your account to make the same list from their own life — their phone, their car, their morning coffee. Compare the two lists. You'll likely know things about your companies that they don't, and they'll likely know things about theirs that you don't. That's the whole point: everyone has a real edge on the businesses closest to their own life.
Success is a list of eight or ten real companies, pulled from your actual life, with one honest note on each about whether it's more than a trend. Nothing on the list needs to be impressive. It just needs to be true.
Not financial advice · Educational only