I continue to see stories of really young entrepreneurs, like this article on Business Fastlane, with kids as young as 9 years old who have successful businesses. This makes me wonder what sets that entrepreneurial drive in kids, and how early parents and schools should start teaching the basics.
There are already a couple of good books out there for youth entrepreneurs, such as a new one from my friends Adam and Matthew Toren, Kidpreneurs: Young Entrepreneurs with Big Ideas. They assert, "It's never too early! Even children can be introduced to basic business principles and the rewards of entrepreneurship". Another one is The Little Entrepreneur by Michael H. and Jay Arrington.
Even if you are not sure that your child is a budding entrepreneur, there are several practical reasons to introduce him or her to the basics of business. Here are a few facts from the National Council on Economic Education emphasizing the need for more business training, starting much earlier:
As early as grade school, with parental guidance and resources like these books, kids can gain some valuable experience in starting, managing, and growing a successful business venture. The positives include:
If your child is old enough to get on the Internet, he or she is old enough to start learning business skills. Sites like MySpace already allow teens to customize their home base with graphics, blogs, and music to make it more attractive to their peers -- that's marketing. It's not a big jump to e-commerce and the costs and decisions of running a business.
We all know that technology comes naturally and early to this generation. Gen-Y is already showing us new ways to use it to grow and profit in business. I can't even imagine what the next generation will bring. You better start your business now, and have fun while you can, before we all are branded as ancient relics.
Follow Marty Zwilling on Twitter: www.twitter.com/StartupPro
I like the mobility of a hit and run' approach where you get maximal effort, deploy the immediate strategies and move to the next project. I believe we call it 'multi-tasking'. I was taught at a very young age not to get locked into anything I could deliver a special project as needed.
Working in the medical field and taking on call assignments at will, did not lend to the availability of this concept. Times have changed though where autonomy, availability and mobility are extricably linked right now. That is a great thing.
Nice article, thank you for allowing me to share.
As a HS Principal, I want to help spread the need for this. There is a great simulation out there that is relatively new which you might want to recommend. It's called simCEO and it's located at www.simceo.org Students playing simCEO 1) create businesses online, 2) research each others' businesses, and then 3) manage a portfolio of $10,000 as they buy/sell shares in EACH OTHERS' businesses to immediately change the share price.
It's pretty innovative - in terms of entrepreneurial / personal finance education... and also education in general (open-ended, authentic, flexible, etc.).
I became self-employed about 20 years ago. At first, I was nervous about how I was going to provide for my family without a paycheck. However, I soon realized I have so much more security than I ever did before.
If you are already unemployed, my suggestion would be to find a need not being fulfilled and become an expert at fulfulling that need. If you are good at what you do and provide good customer service, success will follow.
Then the only problem you will have to deal with is all the moonbats telling you your sizable annual government tax contribution is not sufficient as you are not doing your fair share?