Lemonade Stands
Lemonade Stands
The only childhood option to create future entrepreneurs
Providing a place for children to sell their business idea, such as a children’s business fair, will not create future entrepreneurs.
I know it’s not what I’ve been selling you here. Don’t get me wrong a fair provides some outstanding benefits. Very similar to a science fair or music recital or a tournament in an organized sport. The act of having to develop a skill to the point of large scale presentation drives personal growth without question. They will learn incredible things about people, business and themselves. But it won’t turn them into an entrepreneur.
I once heard a stat that only 2% of the population become entrepreneurs. That’s a ridiculous number. Maybe in a very extreme communist country that would be true. Maybe, but I doubt it. However, many do fail. In fact depending on which country’s stats you look at, it’s usually around the 60% mark in the long run. For the US:
“Within their first two years, 20% of businesses fail, within five years, 45%, and within 10 years, 65% fail.” (source: https://www.thinkimpact.com/entrepreneur-statistics/)
And yet the same report notes that small businesses make up 99.9% of all businesses in the US and make up 16% of the adult work force. Canada, the UK and Australia are similar in numbers.
Forbes published a survey in 2020 of Gen Z future plans and 54% noted that entrepreneurship was an aspiration. The desire is there but I’m not confident they are aware of the failure rate. Perhaps that’s a good thing!
Just like a science fair or band concert gives a child a taste for the point or outcome of being a scientist or a musician, the experience doesn’t give them the truth of it. It’s too safe and out of their control. They have zero input and risk nothing in the venture. Because it is impossible for a child to create that.
We are doing the same thing at a children’s business fair because we have removed many of the essentials of why businesses fail from the experience. The main one? Maybe no one will come or no one will buy. That’s the truth of it.
But a lemonade stand (or whatever they are selling on ‘the stand’) creates the exact experience of a new entrepreneur. The idea, timing, positioning, costs, marketing, customer feedback, money management, supply, demand, price, market competition… and potential failure, of a small business. All created by the simple act of selling something for money with the risk of failure.
Encouraging your child when they say “I want to put up a lemonade stand” and leaving them to work out how to do that is the best way to open them up to the possibility of entrepreneurship in their future. Especially if they are motivated to see it succeed.
I know of a few stories that lend to this by example. Not personal stories, but successful entrepreneurs that started with their version of a lemonade stand in their childhood. I’ll share some good reads over the coming weeks.