Raising Entrepreneurs

Welcome back!

It sometimes seems hard to escape people selling Girl Scout cookies. Your co-workers hit you up. Your neighbor knocks on your door. Girl Scouts set up shop outside supermarkets.

But one eight-year-old from Asheville, N.C., found that there are limits to where you can sell the cookies. Her dream of selling 12,000 boxes of those cookies to send her entire troop to summer camp has been dashed by a technicality that’s left a lot of people scratching their heads.

Earlier this year, Wild Freeborn (yes, that’s her real name) posted a YouTube video, with the help of her dad, with an enthusiastic pitch: “Buy cookies! And they’re yummy!” They set up an online order system where customers in their area could purchase Tagalongs, Thin Mints and Samoas. Within two weeks, 700 orders came in.

But Wild Freeborn’s e-commerce plan hit a major snag. The Girl Scout Cookie Program, which according to Newsweek “bills itself as the largest program to teach entrepreneurship to young girls,” says it prohibits all online sales of its cookies — primarily because of safety reasons. Its guidelines state that Internet use should only be for advertising. “When we sell door to door we always have adults accompanying girls,” Denise Pesich, spokeswoman for Girl Scouts of the USA told the “Today Show.” “In this case, we have a very concerned father overseeing the process, and we know she’s relatively safe. But not in all cases is that true.”

As a result, the Freeborns had to take down their advance-order site and the YouTube video as ordered by the Girl Scouts’ national organization. Bryan Freeborn, chief operating officer of Web-design company Top Floor Studio, says that Girl Scout’s policy sends mixed signals and is confusing. He told Matt Lauer of the “Today Show” last week, “We knew there was a policy that it wasn’t OK, but we thought we were taking orders and promoting the cookies and we seemed to think that was within the spirit of the rules. The whole intent was to help my daughter meet her goals, utilizing up-to-date marketing principles.”

Those principles are something that the Girl Scouts have known and encouraged in recent years – but only to a point. A New York Times article two years ago told the trend of some Girl Scout troops all over the country setting up so-called cookie academies and cookie colleges to teach marketing, selling and business skills to girls 11 and over. One 14-year-old in Chicago used email messages to snag cookie orders, selling 1,510 in 2006.

Seems like Wild Freeborn’s just ahead of her time. She even has a Facebook group with 280 members: “Help one girl sell 12,000 Girl Scout cookies in Asheville!”

Does the current rule go against its mission to encourage Girl Scouts’ entrepreneurial spirit? Or do you think the safety concerns are legitimate and trump marketing online efforts?

Source: Wall St Journal

12-YEAR-OLD Robert Moon was chosen on Thursday night to receive the biggest award of cash and services at the Young Entrepreneurs Academy’s annual investors event at the University of Rochester. He asked for $1,280 to give his company, The Alert Mind, a boost, and the judges awarded him cash and in-kind services valued at $3,800.

Robert is in seventh grade at Calkins Road Middle School. When he was a sixth-grader and Ann Shelp was his math teacher, he created a project for her class, a board game designed to teach and reinforce basic math skills. Grid Greed — “an exciting game to sharpen your mathematical skills” — was born.

The teacher was impressed and encouraged Robert to think about marketing the game. Thanks to the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, the young man is on his way to doing precisely that.

One of the neat things about Grid Greed is that it’s more than a teaching tool for children. It could prove useful for geezers (the term will suit me sooner than I’d like) who need mental exercises to retain an alert mind. In fact, Robert has tried it on a much older friend, a retired business executive with whom he regularly plays chess.

Next up, Robert will use the money he won at UR to have 100 copies of the board game produced, and then he’ll begin marketing it to schools and retirement communities in the Rochester area.

Young Mr. Moon wasn’t the only winner at Thursday’s program. Eighteen other presenters — some individuals, some teams — received at least $500 each in cash and services.

The Young Entrepreneurs Academy is a nine-month program at UR (there also are Rochester-area YEA programs at SUNY Geneseo and in the Greece and Victor school districts) that helps students in grades 6 through 12 create their own business. At the weekly three-hour sessions, students learn from guest speakers and business mentors and visit local workplaces. Participants in this year’s class at UR come from both city and suburban schools.

It’s impressive how many businesses, government agencies and nonprofits recognize that nurturing a future generation of business leaders is a smart thing to do.

Young entrepreneur Ben Behrouzi

The moment Behnam Behrouzi saw his first computer as a teenager, he was hooked.

Then he heard descriptions of the “Information Superhighway,” and he became a dreamer.

“The ideas just began to click the moment I was introduced to the Internet,” said Behrouzi, who lives in Danville. “I dug into all the possibilities that surrounded it right away, and I loved it.”

Now 28, Behrouzi has started over 20 businesses. His latest venture, Pleasanton-based DotNext, helps create Internet companies.

“There are still a tremendous number of ideas out there that need to be developed,” he said. “My job is to help turn the best ones into something people will use.”

The search engine LeapFish is a recent creation to come out of DotNext.

Some people think Leapfish is an attempt to sink Google, the leading search engine, but Behrouzi insists that’s not the case. The note, “It’s OK, you’re not cheating on Google,” tries to underline Behrouzi’s point.

“I’m not naive in that I think people are going to drop Google,” he said. “It’s just some people are going to like what LeapFish has to offer better.”

The purpose of LeapFish is to serve as a one-stop site where people can be exposed to not only the sites a Google, Yahoo or MSN might find, but also images, videos, news and blogs they might not know are out there.

“If a person searches for a celebrity on LeapFish, they might find a video on them that they normally wouldn’t have seen,” he said.Behrouzi has helped build more than 20 Internet companies. Besides LeapFish, others include Reply.com and iMotors.

For Behrouzi, being the head of a successful company in the Bay Area is a remarkable story. Especially when he considers the path taken to get there.

Born in Iran, Behrouzi and his family were forced out of the country because of “vicious” religious persecution when he was about 4.

“If I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have had much of an opportunity to get higher in my life,” he said. “Life would have been made very difficult for me.”

Smuggled at night, he traveled for several days through the desert to Pakistan.

“We could hear gunshots everywhere,” he said. “It was an ugly period in my life, but we got through it.”

After about a year in Pakistan, they found people they knew from Alaska, and when he was 6, the family came to the United States. Eventually, they came to California and settled in Modesto.

Then, his life changed at about 15, when he was exposed to the Internet.

Instead of paper routes or working for a small business, Behrouzi immediately looked for an opportunity to make money through the Web.

“I just knew that I wanted to start a business that people would want,” he said.

His first Web-based endeavor was an online coupon business he ran from a modem in his bedroom. It was a simple concept where businesses signed up and could put menus, graphics and coupons online.

Often Behrouzi would go to school in a coat and tie so he could set up meetings with businesses during lunch.

“I tried to look as spiffy as I could so I could pull off 17 or 18, even though I was 15 or 16,” he said.

Behrouzi moved to San Ramon his senior year in high school and went to UC Davis, where he started to create companies such as Reply.

“I would start up one company, and then another idea would come up, and I’d start another,” he said. “I enjoyed the sense that I was building things.”

Behrouzi won’t disclose his net worth, but he says he put $2 million of his own money into the launch of DotNext.

Behrouzi realizes his life’s path hasn’t been conventional. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ve had my successes and I’ve had my failures, but you need both of those to keep your life in forward motion,” he said. “I guess that’s what makes me a serial entrepreneur.”

Read the full story in Inside Bay Area

Young entrepreneur Ryan Smith

An area artist is making a name for himself as he shares his craft with people around the community.

From an idea to a sketch on a piece of paper, his work has gone from coast to coast.  This young entrepreneur is working well beyond his years.

Ryan Smith is still in high school.  Despite the economy, more young artists are taking a chance with their work and finding success along the way.

Smith is making a living from right inside his own apartment.

“I kind of wanted to shake things up and break the mold,” he said.

Smith, 18, is a senior at Hillcrest and trying to finish high school — all while running a business he started two years ago.

“I didn’t want to be the average kid anymore.  Because, I really didn’t find anything impressive about being the average kid that does everything by the book,” said Smith.

Smith’s clothing line uses his own trade mark design and is now being sold in a handful of states.

“But I didn’t get into the clothing line for the money.  I’ve actually released a hat before, I actually didn’t really make money off of it, but when I get people saying ‘oh, I saw this kid wearing your trucker hat,’ it was, that was worth it,” he said.

Leaders with the Springfield Regional Arts Council says local artist, like Smith are getting younger and younger.

“Young people aren’t as inhibited, especially if they haven’t been at home.  They are more adventurous.  I would say, they’re more daring and they don’t have the inhibition an older person has, the fear of failure, and the fear of success.  They don’t have that yet so, they’re willing to just go out there and do it,” said Sandra CH Smith, executive director of the Springfield Regional Arts Council.

In recent years, the council has beefed up its programs just to help young artist express themselves while helping them with their studies.

“The arts help kids with Math, English, Science because it opens that side of the brain and so the kids do better on their math tests — if they have an art class of some sort,” he said.

Through his company’s website, Smith says he gets a lot of requests for not only his clothes, but his other work.

He draws, paints, shoots video and is a photographer.  So he stays pretty busy.  If you would like to check out his work just head over to www.rottix.com

When Smith graduates from high school, he eventually wants to move his business out of his apartment and into a real studio where he can have more space to create his clothes and other art work.

Source: Ozarks First

Young entrepreneurs Annaka Roscoe, Justin Lenehan, Maggie Abbott and Molly Bowes.

Annaka Roscoe stands with her homemade picture frames, Justin Lenehan poses with his treasure boxes, Maggie Abbott holds her creation of flip flop hooks and Molly Bowes presents her original idea of a Swail.

PHOTO BY LAUREN KENNEDY

Nine year-old Madie Parker shows off her dog treats that she made on her own.

PHOTO BY LAUREN KENNEDY

Lukas Calhoun flies his homemade wooden airplane

PHOTO BY LAUREN KENNEDY

He’s getting his money’s worth. David McLean supports young entrepreneurs and buys a dragster from Lukas Calhoun.

These are a few of the creative products that the youngsters in Grades 3 to 5 came up with during a March Break camp for young entrepreneurs run by Enterprise Carleton.

Molly Bowes was one of the many budding future business owners at the Woodstock Farm Market on Friday morning. She was attempting to sell her original idea, called a Swail to potential customers.

“A Swail is a stuffed animal that I made up. I just thought of the idea one day and thought it was a good one,” said Bowes.

From stuffed animals to dog treats that even humans can eat, these kids thought of it all.

Young entrepreneur Madie Parker

Nine-year-old Madie Parker came up with the idea of dog treats for dogs of all sizes, and if a customer wanted, they could take the hand-painted box the treats came in with them … for a price of course.

“I got a dog treat cookbook and thought that maybe not very many people would know how to make dog treats, so I decided to try it out, ” said Parker. “And even people can eat them because I made them with all natural ingredients.”

Katie Goodine is the youth officer for Enterprise Carleton and couldn’t help but have a smile on her face as she watched the youngsters sell their products to customers.

This is the second time that Goodine has been involved in this type of camp such as this and says she would love to continue with programs such as this.

“It’s been a great week with lots of hard work and fun and it makes it all worth while when the kids come here today and put what they learned into practice,” she said.

Goodine partnered with Joanne Boone, the community co-ordinator for Southern Carleton Elementary School and together they made the camp a great learning experience for the kids.

“The kids learn a lot about business skills like how to run their own business, know how to write a business plan. They met with a loan officer, and took out loans in order to start up their businesses and also learned about profit and loss and how to deal with customers,” said Boone. “Something like this gives them good people skills and gives them a spot to have a creativity outlet, which is huge.”

Young entrepreneur Lukas Calhoun

Lukas Calhoun is the proud creator of what he deems a “one of a kind dragster.”

“I got the model from a kit and the dragsters can even move on their own, it’s a special feature,” said Calhoun.

Not only did Calhoun says he was having fun he really enjoyed selling his product to customers.

“It’s a great time,” he said.

Goodine hopes that when the camp is all said and done, that the kids will be able to take some of the skills that they learned and hang onto them for life.

“I’m hoping that the entrepreneurial experience sticks with them and they can take that away with them,” she said.

She explained that a lot of the kids had the experience of making their own products before and gave the example of one girl who made jewelry before and decided to stick with that and sell her jewelry as a product.

“I hope that now that they realize how easy it is to make their own products, they’ll be able to take that away with them,” said Goodine.

Both Goodine and Boone agree that while the week with the kids has been exhausting, it was all worth it to see them come out on top of the business world and showcase their talents.

Source: Bugle Observer