Editor’s Note: For the rest of the summer, The Dispatch is profiling some of the area’s youngest entrepreneurs. Do you know a child earning money in a unique way? Let us know by emailing [email protected].
When Sam Mullins, 13, started pet sitting for a few of his neighbors last summer, he just wanted to make enough money to buy new soccer cleats and a dirt bike.
While he never did get the bike, he has turned the side hustle into a business, Sam’s Pet Sitting, and made more than $2,000 since he started last year.
“I was going into seventh grade, and I was on the soccer team, so I needed to buy new cleats and I wanted to do something to make extra money to shop,” Mullins said. “I did really want the bike, but then I realized that was a little out of reach.”
Mullins said he runs the business year-round in his hometown of Caledonia, but he does most of his business during the summer from June through early August and during the winter break in December and parts of January.
When Mullins started the business, he saw about four to five customers a month to walk, feed and spend time with his neighbors’ pets.
Since then, he has expanded to see an average between seven and 12.
“He has a pretty entrepreneurial spirit, as far as he will always ask, ‘Mom, do you have any for me to do?’” his mother, Leah, said. “Even before he started (Sam’s Pet Sitting), and even now, he will ask if he can do things around the yard or the house because he constantly wants to make a dollar.”
With all the legwork Mullins puts into the business, he makes between $60 and $150 per month. He charges $10 per day for the pets, though he does plan to increase that figure within the next year.
“I really need to go up on my prices,” he said.
Mullins is also determined to keep the business a customer favorite, and he has even sacrificed some of his social life to maintain the workload.
“I have to give some things up like going out with friends sometimes during the nights because there’ll be out from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. or probably later than that,” he said. “To hang out sometimes, I’d have to either be late or just not go to work.”
Just over the last year, Mullins said he has learned essential business skills like time and money management. So far, he has saved about $700 of his earnings in a box at home so he can have spending money.
“Some things you think are cool one day, and you spend your money on them, and then you don’t ever do anything with them ever again, So you have to be wise with your money,” he said.
“The business has taught me how to manage my time better because I’ve had soccer practice in the mornings so I have to get up earlier and let the pets out and feed them.”
Mullins also plans to continue his trade, and hopes to expand his clientele to other neighborhoods in Caledonia once he can drive. He is considering keeping it going into his college years at a university he wants to play soccer at.
“Hopefully, I can grow it to stay in the double digits, like 10 to 20 customers at some point,” he said. “I want to play soccer in college and if I got to school in a bigger city, and I don’t know about that, this would keep me from having to work a nine to five or at some place like McDonald’s.”
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