Raising Entrepreneurs

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Rich Schefren took a step into my world last week, when he went to talk to a group of five-year-olds about business - and according to Rich, he was “Shaking In My Boots”!

It can be daunting, trying to break down complicated business ideas into terms kids can understand. Especially if you have learned business through years of experience, or at university-level academic institutions, or both. The gap between your understanding and the world of a child seems almost infinite.

The truth of the matter is that it can be done. Parents are doing it every week, using the Cash-Smart Kids program.

I left a comment on Rich’s blog post, letting him know about the program - I wonder if he will come and check it out?

At his blog post, “Shaking In My Boots” you can download the gorgeous ads he had these 5-year-olds make to convince their parents to buy them things. Imagine how much more powerful it would be if they also included a business plan as to how they would earn the money to pay their parents back for the purchase?

We had another one of those “feel good” moments this week - you know, the ones where you sit back and marvel to yourself “they actually WERE listening, after all …”

In this part of the world, interest rates have been going up steadily. The twins came home from school the other day a bit confused because one of their friends had “gone off” at another of their friends for buying something from the canteen.

“You’re not supposed to buy anything,” this 13-year-old yelled at her friend, “Don’t you know interest rates are going up?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” asked the confused ‘villain’.

“You can’t spend money at the canteen or our mortgage will cost more,” railed her accuser, “and then I won’t get new jeans for my birthday!”

This girl has been getting some messages about money from her parents, clearly, but she seems to have things a little muddled.

“Do you think her parents told her she couldn’t spend money at the canteen because their mortgage payments were going up?” one of my twins asked me.

“Probably,” I grinned.

At this point the older one, aged fourteen, who had been playing The Sims and apparently ignoring the whole interchange, suddenly piped up with “That’s silly. They should just get a fixed interest rate and then it wouldn’t matter.”

The twins nodded in agreement, and that’s when I realised that the whole thing has been worthwhile …

Some of you may have seen the comment left last week about the site bkfk.com.

Well, I have checked it out, and wow! How fantastic!

Here’s the backstory:

Founder and CEO Norm Goldstein based the company on the premise that young people have never been given the opportunity to be innovative and commercial.

Norm saw this first hand when daughter Cassidy over a period of days turned a plastic holder for roses into a simple device to hold the small or broken end of crayons. This useful product resulted in a United States patent being issued for Cassidy’s invention - The Crayon Holder - at 14 years of age.

From this experience Norm set about researching the topic of young inventors and came up with a large list – people like 14 year old inventor of the television Philo Farnsworth or Abbey Fleck, aged 8 when she thought up the Makin’ Bacon holder. In fact, Norm links the relationship to young people and inventing to the way women were treated half a century ago. For example the story of Patsy Sherman whose invention of water repellent (Scotchguard) was almost ignored because of her gender – “let the men take it from here,” she was told in the 1950s at company 3M.

Norm realized this treatment of women in the past was now happening to kids. He then resolved to set up a company for young innovators to take their great ideas to the commercial marketplace in a way that had never been done before. He likes to call it the “Entrepreneurial Finishing Line.”

“There are plenty of competitions and events for kids inventions, but not an organized and commercial approach to researching, developing and marketing a kid’s raw invention idea.” says Norm.

If your child’s business involves an innovation, head over to Norm’s site. It’s free to join, and there are lots of great resources. Your child may be the next Fraser Doherty or Ben Casnocha!

Well, we’re definitely off and rolling with the Cash-Smart Kids YouTube Video Competition!

The competition rules are now up on the Cash-Smart Kids website - check out the Cash-Smart Kids Competition Page.

There is a Hub about the competition on HubPages - see the Cash-Smart Kids YouTube Competition Hub.

There is also an entry on HubPages - visit the competition Hub to find out who it is! (Hint - it’s not Rachael. She has been good enough to do some example entries to help you guys out, but of course she is related to a judge and can’t actually enter.)

The competition blog post has been social bookmarked a time or two (no, not by me …)

If you belong to any of these sites, please hit the link and give the competition a vote up!

Cash-Smart Kids at Mixx

Educational YouTube Competition at Digg

Cash-Smart Kids YouTube Competition on Reddit

Careers Cash-Smart Kids Competition at Propeller

Cash-Smart Kids Competition News at Newsvine

CashSmart Kids Video Competition Story on Plugim

Cash-Smart Kids YouTube Video Competition on Marktd

We’ve also been written up by Janet Beckers of Wonderful Web Women in the WWW newsletter:

Jenny Ford is the winner of our first Wonderful Web Award last year “Web site most likely to change the world” and mother of quite an entrepreneurial family.

Tomorrow Jenny launches a special competition that I thought you’d really like to know about, especially if you have entrepreneurial children.

Tomorrow she begins the global search for two entrepreneurs under sixteen to be featured in the 2008 Charity Book Project.

The two winners will be profiled alongside big names like Ben Casnocha, who started a software business at 13, and was CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up by seventeen.

Runners up will also get exposure, with their names and the URLs of their websites listed in the book, and their stories being told in more detail in various marketing activities around the launch of the book.

If you know anyone under sixteen who has a business - or is about to start one - this is a golden opportunity to kick that business to a new level!

Entries are by submitting a 2 minute video to You Tube and Jenny will help anyone who joins her site to meet the entry deadline. This is such a great idea and I love how, as well as encouraging our children to be the best they can be, this project also benefits the community.

Go to Cash Smart Kids, sign up for entry to the site (it’s free), and check out her blog for details.

I have found the Wonderful Web Women site to be incredibly useful, and what’s amazing is that it’s free to join. Janet does interviews just about every week with successful female internet entrepreneurs, and all the info is there to share. What I really like is that there are transcripts of the interviews - “cheat sheets” - which are a real time-saver if you don’t have time to listen to a full interview.

I know there are a lot of membership sites out there where they give you “a new interview every week/month”, but most of them charge for the privilege. Janet is sincere about giving first, and trusting that the rewards will come.

We have had some very encouraging comments in all the places where the competition has been discussed, bookmarked, or otherwise brought to peoples’ attention. Keep it coming, and most importantly, get your kids going on their videos!

I have just come across a great site for any aspiring video-makers. It’s called Will Video For Food, and it’s written by a guy who makes hilarious videos himself, and knows more about YouTube than most of us will ever grok. Check it out!

Seriously, though, you do NOT have to get fancy with this video unless you want to. Shoot it with your phone or webcam if you have to. We will be judging based on the business idea, the person running the business, the results that are showing up, and the future potential, not how great you are at editing and making titles.

The full competition details are on the previous post - Kids In Business.

There’s a bit of excitement out there about the competition already - last time I looked it had more than a dozen Diggs and similar numbers of votes on other social bookmarking sites!

The field is still wide open, though - even the fast movers haven’t got their finished videos loaded yet.  So what are you waiting for? Get going on yours!