Kids: The Birth of Entrepreneurs

Last night, I attended a BBQ to celebrate one of my childhood friends birthdays.  It was really awesome – we rented a shelter, grilled up some burgers, had some “adult beverages”, played some games, had some awesome tunes – and everyone was able to connect with friends from the distant and short past.  For this event, since the park we had it in had an AWESOME playground, all the kids came too.  In all, there were about 30 adults and 20 kids or so.  I’m so honored to know most everyone there since we were in elementary or middle school.  What a fun opportunity to celebrate longevity in relationship!

As we finished packing up the cars and we said our goodbyes, I was walking to my car when I saw this and snapped a photo:

Now, I honestly didn’t see the “Rent Toys Here” operation, but I know it was from one of the kids at the BBQ.  We had chalk and stuff for them to play with, and I did see them in the distance.  It appears as though on particular entrepreneur figured out that he/she could “RENT” the toys that we had brought.  Pretty impressive.

Not nearly as impressive as a few text messages I got from a buddy of mine a few weekends ago.  He had messaged to see if I knew anywhere his son could buy a used cart for his lawn mower, and sent me a photo via text to see if I had a source.  Unfortunately, I didn’t, but that didn’t stop my buddy Jonathan from telling the story of his son – who is 11 years old – and how he is “expanding his mowing business” ~  Check this out:

He figured out that he could walk to his lawns, and so he wanted to get a cart so he could load up all of this “equipment” to pick up more clients.  I believe Jonathan said he’s doubled his client list this year.  (Don’t get too excited, I think it went from 2 to 4, haha).  But this 11 year old is doing what most business owners don’t do.  He’s determining his clients “pains” and then providing a solution.  Jonathan, via text says to me:

“He’s also leveraging just weed eating houses for $10.  People are biting because some people don’t mind mowing for the exercise but they hate trimming.  :)”

What an awesome, entrepreneurial idea!

His son got his cart, hopes to continue the expansion of his ever-growing business, and is thinking outside the box about how to deliver goods and services to his clients.  Awesome!

Here are some photos of him and his new cart:

All this to say, if you can dream it, you can do it.  What do you dream about?  Do you execute on those dreams?  What’s stopping you?  What is the fear level?  These kids have done it, and so can you!