Thirteen-year-old Nathaniel Weaver entered the world of entrepreneurship and became “stuck” to it. His duct tape business, “Mr. Tapeworks,” gives him a creative outlet and earns him some income. He credits his mother Brenda for his creative side, and Nathaniel is thankful his hobby has reached a whole new level: that of a successful business!
After watching a video emailed to him by his grandmother, Nathaniel put his own artistic spin on crafting duct tape wallets. He uses various templates and some of his own original artwork to create these fully-functioning wallets, complete with credit card holders. He is also working on a new prototype with change purses. Nathaniel’s first wallet took him two hours to make, but now he’s down to a quick 30 minutes, depending on the complexity of his design. You can see some of Nathaniel’s duct tape wallets on his YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/MrTapeworks, which has been running for nearly a year.
Although his father Eric has become his driver and his business manager, Eric reveals that “Nathaniel buys all of the tape and supplies and keeps track of all of his expenses.” It is a fine lesson in business management for Nathaniel, who has been reading several books on the subject recently, including Rich dad, Poor dad and watches shows called, Biz Kids and Shark Tank.
Brenda introduced him to Etsy.com, which offers an outlet for individuals to sell their handcrafted products online. You can purchase Nathaniel’s duct tape wallet creations at etsy.com/shop/TapeWorks. Nathaniel has also sold his wallets at school and shared the wealth by teaching other students, including his brother, how to make the pieces. Just recently, he was commissioned to complete a 100-wallet order for a Bar Mitzvah. Brenda says, “He would work two hours each night to complete the order, after finishing his homework and his acoustic guitar practice.”
Nathaniel still has plenty of time to be a kid. One of his other favorite hobbies is fishing with his dad and playing basketball with his younger brother. Nathaniel has a younger brother, Isaiah, and a sister, Chloe, who also support him in his efforts. Most of the family recently attended a duct tape festival in Ohio with Nathaniel, where he met some of his competitors and duct tape champions.
Nathaniel’s advice to young entrepreneurs who wish to start their own business is: “Don’t get frustrated if you don’t know how to do it. Keep on doing it if you like it. It’s fun!”
