Starting my first business in my life at 19. I'm so excited, but also so afraid right now. So many thoughts in my head.

What kind of business? :)

@Linux we are creating a payment app with chat, message in the bottle and loyalty card storing. Basically a digital wallet that allows you to pay online, at local stores, etc. Because everything happens in-app, transaction fees are much lower than normal (normal 3%, our 1%). Loyalty card apply on payment, you don't have to do anything extra. And of course, you can send money to friends. It's similar to WeChat and WeChat Pay.

@DawidCyron
Interesting!
What countries do you support?

@Linux we will be starting with US, but as soon as we get traction, we want to expand to EU. Any suggestions where we should start in Europe?

I hate cashless payments, but I wish you luck anyway!
Also maybe look for countries that haven't implemented a standard for cashless payment yet maybe?

Hmm

Aren't those transaction fees usually paid by the merchant? At least in normal stores I never had to pay any fee for using my card.

You might have a hard time getting into EU, since here banking is more advanced than what US has, so a lot of established products already.

@DawidCyron add Canada support

@ewpratten we will try to add it there as soon as possible. We have to look into the whole financial system, figure out what licenses we need and work with stores to implement it.

I started my first business when I was 19 exactly 20 years ago. I created an advertisement tracking software. It was simple and easy it only took 3 weeks and I earned enough to make a living. I then went on to create bigger and better things.

I have made many mistakes my biggest mistake was spending a year-and-a-half on a project that I only thought might sell without *knowing for sure* it would sell.

My advice to you is to find a way to figure out whether by using a prototype or whatever that it will sell first before spending a s*** ton of time developing it.

As long as you will have the goal of creating a business and you written at it every day, even if you fail for 5 years, at some point eventually you will be far better off than anyone who just takes a job and only does that.

Good luck.