Did you have a business when you were a kid?

  Lemonade Stand..... 
  Originally uploaded by fleamarketstudio

Have you ever noticed that kids are natural entrepreneurs?

I remember when I was a kid I had a number of businesses.

My solopreneur biz was selling wildflowers door-to-door in my neighborhood, which was a HUGE success.

Although most folks aren't really in the market for buying wildflowers, I've found that they can be easily persuaded by a 5-year-old girl wearing overalls and a friendly smile .

My summer-time business was a lemonade stand which I ran with a couple friends. Now this was big business!

There was also a lot of competition seeing as though when one group of friends gets the idea to set up a lemonade stand, then word quickly spreads and it seems like every kid in the neighborhood decides they want to do it too.

It is cut-throat!

I remember that with both of these ventures, the work days were filled with adrenaline, hopeful expectation, creativity, and a lot of play and excitement.

Above all, there was a feeling of freedom and pride at being able to create something from scratch and to make the creative decisions (what the sign will look like, how much to charge, what kind of lemonade to use, etc).

As an adult when I was re-examining my life path after leaving the corporate world, I found myself looking back on the joy I got from having my own businesses as a child and wondering, "How could I recreate this feeling of "work as play" in adulthood?"

For me, the answer was to create my own unique business doing what I love for people who I enjoy being around.

Thank God I had the initiative as a kid to set up that lemonade stand, or else I might not have known that this kind of life was even possible!

Kid's have a natural entrepreneurial spirit that combines work with creativity and play, and I think a lot of us entrepreneurs have souls that are fueled by the combination hard work, play, creativity, freedom, excitement, collaboration, ingenuity, and personal vision. 

*I was wondering, were any of you budding entrepreneurs as children, and if so, what kind of business did you have?

*Also, do you think your experiences with your childhood businesses influenced your decision to create your business as an adult?

Comments

[David Krug]

I couldnt sell lemons or lemonade. Hmm. Wildflowers thats one I never thought of. I bet mothers bought that hook, line and sinker.

[Sharon Sarmiento]

Oh yeah, moms and teenage girls are suckers for a kid selling wildflowers, which my mom later told me were simply weeds, which happened to have flowers on them. I don't know, I found them in a vacant lot, so they probably were weeds :-), but people bought them, none the less.

I am shocked that your lemonade stand flopped--with your salesman abilities, I thought you could sell anything to anyone!

[KG]

When I was in 3rd grade, one of my brothers and I started a newspaper. We drew and wrote one issue by hand.

Even now, we both recall how much fun we had, and also the real-world concerns we had about it even though we were so young (I, 8, the writer; he, 6, the designer). How would we make multiple copies to sell? After painstakingly making one issue, we knew we couldn't make another easily. We also had the business savvy to make an advertisement on the back page --- I'm not sure we were completely aware of the importance of ad revenue, but still, we included one.

What's funny is that now, I write and he designs, as large parts of our work.

[Sharon Sarmiento]

Oh, KG--that is too cool!

I love that story, and it's amazing how as a kid you guys had the ambition and follow-through to create a newspaper! Even with one issue, that is amazing!

I think that one thing that kids and entrepreneurs have in common is that we both focus on the big vision, and don't let the technical details of all the hard work that goes into the project damper our passion.

Kids and entrepreneurs also are big dreamers, and actually believe that their far-fetched dreams can become reality. (And as a result, they often end up pulling off things that no one thought was possible.)

Love your childhood entrepreneurial story. :-)

[David Krug]

Strangely enough I too helped put together a newspaper as a kid. But I did the comics and distracted the publisher.

I'm still up to the same nonsense.

[Sharon Sarmiento]

David--haha Yes, I can imagine you doing just that! The fortunate thing on the internet is that it seems like the most popular bloggers are the ones that create the most distraction. :-)