Daniel Uribe sold his first piece of candy at the age of 8. A natural entrepreneur, he’d buy the stuff cheap at a local store then peddle it door to door at a much higher price.

Later the young man graduated to the more labor-intensive business of buying skateboards on eBay, painting them with elaborate graphic designs and selling them to friends.

Today, Uribe, 19, is the founder and creative director of Lazer Bearings, a Lakewood-based company that sells skateboard ball bearings imported from China.

“We’ve established a presence in the world’s skating mecca,” he asserted proudly. “We’re in 15 skate shops in Southern California.”

The teenage businessman probably would like to claim total ownership of his success, but he admits much credit is due the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, a non-profit that he hooked up with in high school.

The New York-based foundation is the best known of a handful of organizations nationwide teaching entrepreneurship to teens, and experts said interest is growing. In the face of a shrinking economy with spiraling unemployment rates, increasing numbers of young people with low incomes and few job prospects are envisioning their futures in business.

In the last four years, the foundation has trained 36 Los Angeles-area high school and middle school teachers. They, in turn, have taught the foundation’s course in entrepreneurship to about 1,800 students from low-income areas, said Phyllis Rawley, the foundation’s L.A. executive director.

This year, enrollment has jumped to 1,300 from an annual average of about 500, well more than double.

“It’s the economy. They’re looking for ways to survive,” said Rawley, who owned an executive placement service for eight years before assuming her position in 2007. “When you’re dealing with a low-income group, they’ve always had it hard; what’s different now is that they can’t afford to go to college.”

Street smarts

Founded more than two decades ago by a math teacher who had an import-export business, the foundation has certified 800 educators, mostly employed by school districts, to teach entrepreneurial skills. Programs are offered in 22 states, and 12 foreign countries including Israel, China, India and England.

The entrepreneurship course is extensive at 50 to 80 hours in length, and is usually held at a community facility or on campus after school hours. The idea is to help students develop and implement actual business plans. Among topics covered are how to come up with a viable model, manage a business, obtain and market products, and deal with money.

“The idea,” Rawley said, “is to turn street smarts into business smarts.”

For 17-year-old Audrey Edwards, that meant improving on a chicken recipe that had been in her family for years, an idea she came up with after hearing about the foundation at school. The result is Scrump-Didley-Umptious, a food service company she started with two Crenshaw High School friends.

“The students at our school don’t like cafeteria food,” Edwards said. “We did a survey asking what they wanted to eat and they chose chicken wings, so we’re trying to fulfill that need.”

Using their mothers’ kitchens and materials purchased with the help of parents, the trio has already catered a number of school functions with chicken legs and wings offered in a variety of flavors including hot, mild, barbecue and plain. The largest order so far has been 32 pounds for a campus environmental club event that netted $156.

“We are confident that we can get very big,” said Avington Arnold, the company’s 17-year-old chief executive. “First we can open up a business in the community, and then expand. If we can actually make this happen, I’d like to do it full time.”

David Pantoja, 18, of Oxnard, turned his natural skill on a lathe into a budding business selling pens. Inspired by a speaker who came to his school two years ago, Pantoja who grew up in a family of construction workers fashioned his first writing implement in his high school’s wood shop. Today, he creates a line of designer pens called simply Dave’s Pens in his garage using materials imported from around the world, including wood, onyx, plastic, buffalo horns and deer antlers.

“I see the business growing,” said Pantoja, who sells the pens to friends and online for $30 to $85. With the cost of materials and production ranging from $5 to $35 a unit, he said, he’s netting about $20,000 a year.

“I planned (the enterprise) as a steppingstone,” said Pantoja, who now attends business classes at Oxnard Community College. “The money gets recycled back into the business and helps pay for college.”

Moving on

Indeed, using the money to pursue higher education is a common theme among the teenage entrepreneurs.

Evelyn Espinoza, 18, a Boyle Heights resident and founder of the Hippie’s Candles, said she also plans to funnel earnings from her venture back into the business and into school.

“I’ve loved candles ever since I was a little girl,” said Espinoza, a senior at Girls Academy, a charter high school near downtown Los Angeles. “I’m a spiritual person and candles have a special meaning.”

So with wax, scent and molds paid for by her parents she started turning out candles in her kitchen. Sold mostly by word of mouth or on her Web site, Espinoza has provided candles to individuals, restaurants and clubs. She makes special themed candles for holidays such as Mother’s Day, Easter and the Fourth of July. Priced at $4 to $20, and costing around $3 to produce, the student said she has earned about $1,600.

“I certainly plan on making more money this year,” said Espinoza, who’s trying to funnel more traffic to her Web site. “I want to make it into an empire. I see myself doing this for a very long time.”

Analysts said they are not surprised that teenagers see entrepreneurship as a more common path to success.

In 1982, just 315 U.S. colleges and universities offered at least one course in entrepreneurship. That had blossomed to 2,337 by 2006, according to the Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo., non-profit that tracks such programs.

More recently, the phenomenon has been spreading to high schools. A survey conducted by Harris Interactive last year indicated that 40 percent of young people in the United States ages 8 to 21 indicated that they would like to start their own businesses.

Bill Crookson, a professor of entrepreneurship at USC’s Marshall School of Business, which offers an entrepreneurship program, said he believe he knows why young people are so interested: “The traditional corporate security is not available much anymore.”

Crookson’s introductory class on entrepreneurship attracted 140 students last year, about twice the usual number.

“We attribute it to parents saying, ‘OK, kid, we can’t support you anymore so go out and find your own ideas,’ ” Crookson said. “That may be an indication that the old ways may not be the best.”

Uribe, the young mogul of skateboard ball bearings, experienced his own such moment.

Unlike most of his cohorts, Uribe got his initial funding about $2,000 from an interested teacher instead of his parents.

He sank that money into a large inventory of high-performance hybrid ceramic ball bearings from China that he discovered on the Internet and sold to local skateboard shops for a hefty profit of $10,000.

Now, Uribe is negotiating with another supplier for a special heavy-duty coating that he believes will extend the life of his ball bearings and significantly improve their performance.

“We’re very excited about the new design,” said Uribe, who maintains an office and two as-yet unpaid employees in Lakewood. “We’re looking to partner with the company producing the coating and expand our distribution nationally.”

And after that?

“Eventually,” Uribe promised, “we’ll be going worldwide.”