The Kiwi Teenager With Four Businesses Bringing In Six Figures

2026-07-19

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There’s nothing quite like starting young. But most of us don’t build a business before we can vote. Never mind several of them.Hamish Sutherland is 17 and already on his fourth business.He felt the spark to get ahead early on but turns out it’s hard to get a job when you’re eight. Rather than let a tricky thing like employment law hold him back, he just started his own business instead.By 13, that was a lawn mowing and water blasting business. At 15, he wrote a Kindle book that made $60,000. Then he moved into a propert...

There’s nothing quite like starting young. But most of us don’t build a business before we can vote. Never mind several of them.

Hamish Sutherland is 17 and already on his fourth business.

He felt the spark to get ahead early on but turns out it’s hard to get a job when you’re eight. Rather than let a tricky thing like employment law hold him back, he just started his own business instead.

By 13, that was a lawn mowing and water blasting business. At 15, he wrote a Kindle book that made $60,000. Then he moved into a property investment project. Now he’s building AI-focused businesses, fresh off an entrepreneurship intensive in Malaysia.

The world of work is changing fast, and it’s easy to freeze when you’re not sure where you fit into that change. Hamish isn’t freezing. He’s looking for the opportunity in it.

In this podcast we talk about:

• How to start a business as a teenager with no money or experience

• Making money on Kindle direct publishing, and how his book made $60,000

• Investing in property young

• AI business ideas for 2026, and where he’s focusing next

• Using social media to grow a business as a young entrepreneur

• Gen Z entrepreneurship, and why young people are more willing to take the risk

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re too young, too late, or too unqualified to start something of your own, this episode is the reminder that none of that has to be true.

This episode of Making Cents is proudly supported by Odoo. Go to https://www.odoo.com/r/hpl now and try it for free, for 15 days.

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Production and video editing by Lana Byrne

Audio engineering by Tash Chittock

Filmed by Fanaticals

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