Encouraging My Young Entrepreneurs

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My kids have ideas. Lots of ideas. And shoot, most of the time I have no idea what to DO with them. My husband is often encouraging our children to think for themselves, come up with some creative way to make money to save for cars or college. But honestly, I shy away from the idea because I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Help Your Kids Get Started With Entrepreneur Kids Academy

I don’t have to know where to start! Entrepreneur Kids Academy is going to help us. In full disclosure, I received a free registration to try it out and review it for you. But you know me, I only accept reviews I really want to do. And why this one? Because I don’t know how to help my kids with stuff like this. And my girls were pretty excited, too, ready to start thinking about some of those endless ideas. But wait-what is Entrepreneur Kids Academy exactly? Entrepreneur Kids Academy is an online course for kids who have an interest in starting their own business. It will walk your kids through a smart strategy for researching, marketing, advertising and building their business. Kids will learn wise business practices, the value of money, and so much more throughout the course.

Bring Your Kids’ Ideas to Life

I bet my kids aren’t the only kids who have lots of ideas. (I bet yours do, too!) When we set off on this journey we started throwing lots of their previous ideas out, bouncing them around, making new suggestions — which idea would we pursue? The Business Idea Kickstarter Guide helped us focus a little more and start moving in the right direction. (You can get the Kickstarter Guide for free, by the way, when you sign up for the newsletter.)

Start With Interests

One thing both of my girls enjoy is sewing. (They don’t get it from me.) Shortly we settled on our first idea – matching Bible covers and tote bags for church, made by upcycling thrift store t-shirts, embellished with tshirt rosettes and other inexpensive embellishments. Our target audience would be youth and children. Using what we’d learned through from Entrepreneur Kids Academy about getting started with low investments and market research, we outlined a straightforward and simple plan.

• Make Bible covers and totes for ourselves
• Take them to church (and share them on Facebook.)
• Find three people to buy a set to product test at halfprice and give feedback.
• Start taking orders.

Our plan was starting to take shape!

The Ins and Outs of Entrepreneurship

Starting a business is hard! It’s not nearly as easy as it might seem. Sometimes your business idea is bad. Sometimes it’s a good idea but the timing or location is off. Sometimes, as in our case, you learn you have kinks in your design. Rather quickly, the girls and I discovered a tricky little design flaw with our plan. Sewing with tshirts is a bit tricky. They might make great no-sew infinity scarves, but sewing a Bible cover is a bit more complicated. We had to confess that we needed a bit of help from my seamstress mother-in-law with our product design. However, as is sometimes the case, in the middle of a setback, we had a new idea! While we were staring at our t-shirts and pondering our plan, I found myself with an actual problem to solve, a need for which our t-shirts were the answer! I whipped up a quick and easy little “skirt” out of the bottom half of a tee to wear over my too thin and form showing exercise pants for my first day at the gym. The girls wanted some, too! Booya! A new idea strikes.

Solve a Problem.

Another thing we learned from the course is too look for ways to solve problems or meet needs. Plenty of girls and moms are concerned about keeping those rear ends covered appropriately while wearing leggings. T-shirt skirts? Now we’re problem solving! So what about those other ideas? One thing I learned from this course myself:

When you really begin to study entrepreneurs, especially the ones who started their first business at a young age, you will find they have one BIG thing in common. They started and tried LOTS of business ideas. -Entrepreneur Kids Academy Handbook, page 9

So we have learned that it might take LOTS of ideas before we find our right one. (In fact, my 13yo has also started working on a secondary idea – being a Mommy’s Helper.) But there’s more to entrepreneurship than just trying a bunch of ideas. Entrepreneur Kids Academy teaches the kids how to test their ideas, turn their ideas into products or services, market their products, adjust pricing, process failures, and turn profits into investments, too.

What You Can Expect From Entrepreneur Kids Academy

Maybe Entrepreneur Kids Academy can’t guarantee that your kids will come up with the next best thing since sliced bread, but there are some things you CAN know that you WILL get when you sign up. Let’s take a minute to dig into that, shall we? When you sign up, you (and the whole family) get immediate access to all areas of the program: 

• Entrepreneur Kids Academy Handbook with worksheets
• A monthly Study Group call
• Tools & Resources (files, websites, etc.)
• Bonuses (printable downloads like a business goal planner for kids, free worksheets, and interviews with successful entrepreneurs)
• Video tutorials (coming soon!)
• A private Facebook community for your kid (and you)

Through the monthly study calls and the Facebook group, your kids have the opportunity to ask questions, discuss their ideas and business steps with others and learn from each other, as well as supporting and encouraging each other along the way. Working through the handbook and utilizing the other resources and bonuses, your kids can work through each idea step by step until they find a good fit.

Something else you can guarantee you’ll find at Entrepreneur Kids Academy – an emphasis on safety! I like that! Many of the sites in the Resources section are devoted to things like internet safety or staying alert and being careful. Scattered throughout the handbook are tips and reminders about being safe while pursuing the business idea, such as using parents’ phone numbers on flyers and that sort of thing. Good stuff!

I’ve shared several things we learned from this course, and I’ve told you what you get for signing up, but if you really want to know more about teaching your kids how to become little entrepreneurs, you really need to read the rest of the material. There’s much more than I’ve shared here. Learn more and sign up on their website. 

Win Your Own Membership to Entrepreneur Kids Academy

Interested? Would you like to try it out? Would you like to try it out for free? I’ll be giving away a membership for Entrepeneur Kids Academy to one winner through my blog one week from now (a $97 value.)

In addition to this, one winner will be chosen by EKA to receive a special VIP Student Scholarship, which includes four private tutoring sessions. They will feature this kid’s business on their blog (with parents approval), and will record a video interview with them for the Academy (with their parents permission).

Giveaway ends Thursday, March 27 at 11:59 p.m.  Winner will be notified via email on the 28th, and will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen. Prize may take 4-6 weeks to receive. Please Note: If you purchase this program, then win my giveaway, EKA will refund 100% of your purchase. <Click here for purchase information.>

**NOTE** By entering your email in the widget below, you will not be signed up for any newsletters or any unsolicited mail. The only purpose for the email address below is to contact the winner. Neither Entrepreneur Kids Academy or I will contact you in any way except to notify the winner.

You can get to know Entrepreneur Kids Academy by connecting with them on these social media platforms:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• Google+
• Instagram

Don’t forget to sign up for the EKA newsletter so that you can get Business Idea Kickstarter for Kids for free!

So What’s Next for My Young Entrepreneurs?

We are going to continue working on our current ideas. My oldest has a job this Saturday, helping a young mom in our church. We’re going to pursue our little t-shirt skirt further, and we’re toying with the idea of making a variety of things with the t-shirts later (Bible covers may be too complicated but we haven’t given up on our tote bags!) But we know now that even if we have to keep coming up with new ideas to try until we find a really good one – that’s okay! In fact, that might be one of the best things we’ve gotten from this course so far — the push to try and strive and continue and WORK. If the only thing my girls get from this experience is becoming self-motivators and initiative takers, that alone would be worth it. But of course we’ve already gained more than that, with the wisdom and good business practices the kids have learned. Don’t be surprised if you start seeing some of their business endeavors on my blog in the near future.

Now before you run off, did you go enter that giveaway? Remember, your kids have plenty of ideas, too. 😉 

**The FULL Disclosure: Entrepreneur Kids Academy provided a membership for me to try out and review in a blog post. The product is theirs, but the post and all the opinions in it are mine. I was also compensated for my time. As always, I selectively accept reviews and compensation will not sway my conviction to provide honest and genuine reviews. In fact, I require compensation because of the time investment, time that I could be spending with my family, and family time is valuable. If you have any questions about this product, or this review, please comment below or email me directly. Thank you!