Entrepreneurship Training for Children

October 6, 2008

I come from a family of entrepreneurs and so does my wife.  It’s only natural that my kids would have the gene for that too.  Recently it’s really started to show with my 7 year old.  He’s always doing the usual stuff like wanting to have a lemonade stand.  A couple weeks ago, he used the video camera to “make a movie” with some of the other kids in the neighborhood.  Then they went and sold tickets to the movie.

Now he wants to start a “pressure washing business.”  Which I happen to think is a really great idea, and would be an excellent introduction into building and running a business.  It’s pretty simple in terms of the business concept.  People have dirty houses and driveways and decks.  We have a pressure washer.  They pay us to clean their stuff.  Simple.

But there are a lot of great concepts at work here.  We’ll have capital expenses (more on this later please), marketing costs.  Plus we have partners (me, my 7 year old son, and I can’t leave out my 5 year old), so we have to talk about ownership and how we split the money we earn.  Plus we have simple operating costs like the gas it costs to run the pressure washer, soap, and any repairs we’ll need.  Overall, I think it’s a really great little business for teaching entrepreneur concepts to kids.

So it got me to thinking.  How cool would it be to have a non-profit organization or school or something that would teach kids how to start and operate businesses?  It could teach kids at a young age how to do things like market research, find a need, fill a need.  Learn about expenses and profits operatinng modesl, etc.  WE could have courses on lawn cutting business, pressure washing business.  Maybe even things like tutoring businesses.  Kids are smart, motivated, and eager to learn.  This would be a great opportunity to teach them stuff they can’t (or don’t) learn in school.

Now.  Here’s where I ask for something.  I really want to get this business off the ground, so I’m asking for donations.  We need to buy our first pressure washer to get started.  My son and I did a lot of research at epinions.com, homedepot.com, walmart.com, lowes.com and other places on the internet, trying to find the most economical pressure washer that got high marks in reviews from others, and this is the pressure washer we came up with:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200347873_200347873

So.  If you’re an entrepreneur or a kind hearted person would would like to help us get this business started, let me know and I’ll tell you how you can donate!

Chris

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