I'm a 16 year old who wishes to start up a business selling sporting goods specifically for football referees, players and coaches.

I want to know the best way I could start off.

It seems like you're already off to a good start with identifying your target market. Might I suggest you start off by doing some more research to ensure that this will be a viable opportunity for you. To begin with, what you will want to do is come up with a value proposition to find out what will make your sporting goods business different from the next guy/chain store. Once you've clearly defined you're value prop solid, you should spend some time surveying football referees, players and coaches. Specifically, you want to find out how they buy, when they buy and will they buy from you, why/why not and how much they would be willing to pay. You want to continue your research by finding out about your competitors to have a good understanding of what's available in the market at various price points. Then of course you want to research and speak with suppliers to find out what your cost will be. Once you've completed all of this research you'll use it for forecasting to compare the your costs against your forecast for sales. This will help you to understand if you should expect a profit or loss at the end of your forecast period (typically) a year. At this point you will decide whether to go forward with the business or not.

The steps above may seem a little overwhelming given your age, but remember that things are only as hard as you make them. Your research can consist of you speaking with your coaches, class mates, and referees for starts. You can pick up the telephone to call suppliers... everything in life can be broken down in simple easy to do steps.

Finally, I one other important thing you must do is talk with people who have a business to get their advice/input on how your business can be a success. Keep your ears open and get involved in the sporting community and network! It's never too early to network.

I hope this helps, good luck!

By getting a job in a sports store and gaining first hand experience of how such a business operates.

First you save up a few Million quid so you can buy in bulk to become a competitive with the big firms who dominate the business. That will take a while .............................

I'm a 16 year old who wishes to start up a business selling sporting goods specifically for football referees, players and coaches.

I want to know the best way I could start off.