Ben Towers started his website design operation at the tender age of 11, taking on work for family and friends. Despite numerous age-related obstacles, six years later he's head of a thriving business with plans to expand into other areas. Nick Martindale spoke to the teenage entrepreneur

‘After a while I took on a full-time freelancer, and that was when I really started to take it seriously because I was paying somebody full-time wages'

‘I started to say ‘I'm a young entrepreneur', and some clients then pulled out because they didn't like it. But then others loved it'

‘It's a passion of mine to teach my generation about running your own business, how to do a tax return and what to do when you start trading'

‘Don't waste time until you're 18 because then you've got to fend for yourself. It takes a little while to get enough money out of a business to be able to live off it'

‘It makes me proud that I've managed to grow my own company and take on people. I must be doing something right'

Ben Towers is not your typical 17-year-old. Like many others of his age, he's looking forward to passing his driving test and enjoys playing football, but that's pretty much where the similarities end.

Since the age of 11, Towers has been building up his own business, website design firm Towers Design, initially building websites for friends and family before picking up freelance work through online marketplaces. "They would pay £50 a website, which was quite a good amount of money when you're 11," he recalls. "Soon I was bidding for jobs all around the world."

He continued to take on work, which he would do in the evenings after a day at school, until he was 14, at which point he realised he had hit on a business which had the potential to grow. "I wanted to go out and enjoy myself and be young, while also enjoying the business, so I took on a freelancer to do the work for me, and took a bit of a cut," he says. "After a while I took on a full-time freelancer, and that was when I really started to take it seriously, because I was paying somebody full-time wages."

It's a model that still operates today, despite the growth of the business. Towers Design currently has 19 full-time people, and more than 1,300 clients, turning over £600,000 a year. It would, of course, be more cost-effective for his team to be full-time employees but this is one of many areas where Towers' age counts against him. "Until I'm 18 I can't operate PAYE, so that's been a big issue," he says. "But I have a regular base, and then a selection of other freelancers which we use for certain jobs."

It's not been the only issue he's encountered as a result of his age. The education system is so ill-equipped to handle under-18s running their own businesses that Towers had to take himself on as an apprentice to enable him to leave school at 16 and focus on his growing operation. "The school knew all about what I was doing but during my GCSEs I wasn't making any money for the business because I couldn't put any time into it," he says. "It made me think what it would be like at A-levels when there'd be even more work, and yet I had people's lives being paid for by my business."

The solution he came up with was to take on a one-day-a-week accounting course, while working in the business as an apprentice. "It meant I could be full-time in the business, while also being in full-time education, and getting a qualification," he says. One of his freelancers now acts as a mentor to him, he says, and has to assess his performance in certain areas; something Towers is able to laugh about but is surely unnecessary additional pressure for the young entrepreneur.

Dealing with the minefield of hiring people - he had to let his first freelancer go after discovering she had been taking on other work while supposedly working full-time for him - and the intricacies of the education system was just the start, however. Having built up his business largely online, Towers took the brave decision to start shouting about his age.

"I decided to tell people that I'm young, because in the design industry it's quite important to be young sometimes, because it makes you different. "So I started to say ‘I'm a young entrepreneur', and some clients then pulled out because they didn't like it. But then other clients really loved it, and we started to get new clients in." It can also be a problem when looking to hire freelancers, he adds, although it also means that only those who are comfortable with the concept of working for someone so young end up doing so.

Bank battle

The biggest battle, though, has perhaps been with the bank. Towers recalls visiting a branch to pay in some cheques and being asked about the large number of transactions being made into his child account. "I was quite proud to say I was running my own business to the bank manager," he recalls.

"But he took me into a side room and said I only had a child's bank account, not a business account. But I couldn't get a business bank account until I was 18." The account was frozen due to improper use, resulting in two months of being unable to trade and having to ask customers for cash in hand, before it eventually agreed to allow him to use the child account until he turned 18.

"Even today if you want to pay with a cheque you have to pay Ben Towers, not Towers Design, and we have lost sales because people think it's some dodgy under-the-table deal," he says. It's a similar story with methods such as PayPal, he adds; which he currently gets around by linking the account to someone over the age of 18.

Towers, however, has not let any of this hold him back. Most of his time is still spent in the web design business, although he tends to oversee projects rather than design himself, but he's also developing a number of other ventures. One of these is Social Marley; a social media dashboard which blends people's various social media accounts into a central hub.

"There are other tools out there like Hootsuite and Buffer but all of them are targeting bigger companies, and they're not really enjoyable to use," he says. "We want small businesses to be able to update their social media but also to have fun doing it, so it's not a boring task." The plan here, though, is to seek early investment from an outside backer which will enable Towers to offer a proven package to the market, rather than having to tweak it gradually along the way.

"I decided that would be the best way to do it, because it would make it a lot more saleable," he explains. "In an industry where you've already got various market leaders like Hootsuite advertising to over 10 million users, you need to come in strong." Once this is up and running, Towers believes his own role will be split between the two ventures, with the idea of bringing in an "intrepreneur" to take over the day-to-day running of Towers Design.

Speaking out

Alongside this, the young entrepreneur is also forging a reputation as a public speaker, which started off when he was invited to speak about his story at a business show; something which has both raised his profile and contributed to the rise in turnover for his main business. "I'd like to do more speaking but at more selective events," he says. "Recently I was at a business rock show in Manchester, interviewing the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, on Sky News. So there was a big benefit in that anyway, but there was also a few thousand people at the event who I could talk to about Towers Design, and we got a number of sales from it. I see my public speaking as complementing my businesses."

It's also given him the confidence to launch Next Gen Business Team (NGBT); a thus-far philanthropic enterprise born out of his desire to improve knowledge among schoolchildren about running a business, which sees him visit schools and colleges. "When I did my GCSE in business studies there was a lot in there which doesn't apply to business," he says. "So, for example, it would say that the best way to get investment is to go to bank.

"But these days we have crowdfunding and angel investment, and I told my teacher this. But he said I needed to just put down banks as the answer, because that's what the exam syllabus requires. Since then it's become a passion of mine to teach my generation about what it is like to run your own business, how to do a self-assessment tax return and what you need to do when you start trading." He only learned this latter point the hard way, having failed to tell HMRC he was effectively self-employed at the age of 11.

He's also keen to raise awareness among his peers of day-to-day financial management; something that he realised was lacking when he took someone on a three-month paid internship who would then ask him for money for a bus home at the end of each day. "For the first few times I let it happen but I found out he was spending about £10 on his lunch every day," he says. "It's just teaching people that being able to manage your finances is actually a skill." At the moment he has someone who handles the administration around such events and undertakes them free of charge, but would like to push for local businesses to sponsor them in future.

With his years of experience allied with his own tender age, Towers is certainly well placed to help his own generation of entrepreneurs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he's enthusiastic, fervently urging others to follow his lead rather than finding excuses. "If you've got a business idea, don't spend years thinking about whether it's going to work; just go out and do it. You do have to tell HMRC you're self-employed, and you've got to make sure that you're safe legally, but once you've done that you can trade. Don't waste time until you're 18 because then you've got to start to fend for yourself, and it takes a little while to get enough money out of a business to actually be able to live off it."

Inevitably, he's learned a few lessons along the way himself, recalling how he would take on work for ridiculously low rates in the early days. "When you're first starting out you think you'd better take it just in case," he says. "But actually saying no can often be better than saying yes, because you may then get other opportunities. It also shows that you are busy and in demand; it's OK to say no to things."

Neither of Towers' parents are entrepreneurs - his mother works in the NHS and his father at a local engineering firm - but he has been able to draw on his grandfather for inspiration in his own journey. "He's got his own campsite and he's a piano teacher and I'd love to live my life like him," he says.  "He can wake up whenever he wants, as long as it works to his schedule." More broadly, Sir Richard Branson has also been an inspiration, he says, which made it even more special when his business idol mentioned him in a recent blog about young entrepreneurs. "It was a real eye-opener, and it did boost my morale," he admits.

New horizons

As for the future, Towers has recently started working with a friend of his who is also a singer, selling a range of T-shirts the two have designed, which has given him some experience of working alongside someone rather than overseeing everything himself. He's also started providing consultancy services to a few businesses, sitting in on board meetings and offering a fresh perspective. "For example, I went to a retail shop in London which was struggling as a department store," he says. "They were selling modern products but the shop was like it belonged to the 1960s, so I helped them update that. I'd like to do more consultancy work; I like to have lots of little challenges and a few bigger ones."

Outside of work, Towers is a qualified table tennis coach and plays twice a week; something he finds a useful way of getting away from work. He's also developed a network of friends around the country on the back of playing in celebrity football Soccer Six events, who he'll catch up with when travelling to meet clients or speak at events.

For now, though, his main focus remains the business he set up from his bedroom while still in primary school, and which has grown significantly as a result of his own higher profile. "Probably 90% of my time is in Towers Design at the moment, but when Social Marley begins to go into development, I'll look at more of a 50-50 split," he says. "But I don't think I could ever let somebody else run it 100%, because it's my baby."

He's also understandably proud of everything he's achieved, despite still being a few months off adulthood. "Lots of little things make me proud," he says. "A lot of our clients are larger or medium-sized businesses, but we also have a lot of start-ups where they're just starting out," he says. "I'm really proud when I speak to them and see how they have grown, and think that we've helped do their branding and their website. But it also makes me really proud that I've managed to grow my own company and take on people myself. I must be doing something right." It's certainly not bad going for someone who is still unable to drink or vote, and who still has yet to pass that driving test.