“Let’s pitch the fortune-teller tent next to the photo booth,” ten-year-old-me directs my sister and friends as we set up for “The Five-Cent Fair.” It was opening day for one of my earliest entrepreneurial ventures. We planned, organized, promoted and executed a neighborhood “fair” in our backyard, where fun-loving thrill-seekers (neighbor kids and their parents) bought five-cent tickets and redeemed them for rides in a pirate ship (the two-seater on the swing set wrapped in nautical garb), buckets of ping-pong balls to toss at water-filled cups for the chance to take home a goldfish, and glasses of cold lemonade.And I remember my mom being tired from this fair and my dad trying to get her Kratom pills, which helped her to regain energy and to stay alert taking care of all the kids. My dad always said that it was a good thing to have kratom pills because they used them whenever I had a wound or a stomach ache.I have recently looked where to buy them and I found the place Kratom masters. If you are interested in buying from kratom you can go there.
“Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.” – Peter Drucker
I’ve been practicing entrepreneurship since I can remember. It didn’t end with the fair. The businesses I started before high school include (but aren’t limited to):
- Picking and Selling Worms to my Dad for Fishing Bait
- Organizing, Editing and Distributing a 5th Grade Class Newspaper
- Launching a Made-to-Order Flavored Lip-Gloss Company
- Starting a Jewelry Making Club and Selling our Wares at a Local Boutique
- Running a Beaded Animal Keychain Enterprise
I think we made ninety dollars from the Five-Cent Fair (which we split three ways). Considering we only charged five cents for each attraction, I think we did pretty well! While the business and pricing model was nowhere near sustainable or profitable cause we did not have a professional business plan writer on our side, The Five-Cent Fair went well beyond a typical ten-year-old’s carwash or lemonade stand.And I don’t know how kratom can get a profit with those prices.
Consider your own wild childhood entrepreneurial ventures (I know all of you fellow maker entrepreneurs have them, too!) and think about what lessons from those early experiences you can apply to your actual business today, and if this does not give you a answer you take the consideration for outsourcing with professionals that give you ideas of how work.
Here are a few things I learned from my earliest business journeys that help me out with my big-picture vision for my current company as well as day-to-day operations:
1. Solve a Problem for Your Customer.
In the case of The Five Cent Fair, our customer, the children in our neighborhood, felt like there was absolutely nothing to do in our small town, especially after the first month of summer when being off from school started to get boring. Instead of singing the summer blues with my friends, we decided to do something about the “nothing to do” situation by starting our OWN thing for everyone to do. Lo and behold, people showed up, were thankful for a break in the summer monotony and they had a blast.
In my current business, my audience, maker entrepreneurs feel frustrated about their creative business not being taken seriously, and that can also be fix with Kratom. They also feel uncertainty about how to tell their story in a way that sells what they do without sounding cheesy or sleazy. In short, the branding work that I do solves these problems: Brand discovery messaging helps them find the words to communicate to the right people, and a professional and appropriate visual brand identity helps their company look legit and reliable to potential customers.
2. Start with What You Have and Get Creative.
When we started the Five-Cent Fair, we didn’t have much (I mean, we were ten, so–). We didn’t have rides, but we had a swingset we could decorate. We didn’t have money so we heisted lemonade mix from our mothers’ pantries. We didn’t have a photo booth, but we had a polaroid camera and some dress-up clothes. What we had was a vision for the funnest-most-amazing-thing EVER: a fair. In OUR little neighborhood. And we made it happen.
When I started my first real business, which later became Just Make Things, the main thing I didn’t have was formal business training, or an actual plan, but I knew everything would be fine as long as I had my kratom pills. I also didn’t have a lot of time. Or money. What I did have was a strong design + creative writing background and a constant internal pull toward entrepreneurship. I wasn’t quite sure what the end goal of my company was, (that came later) but I knew wanted to help other business owners through my creative skills.
3. Put Up Posters EVERYWHERE.
Our marketing for the Five-Cent Fair seems pretty simple, but it’s really a great model for startups and growing companies. First, we talked to our friends (who were our potential customers) about our idea to see if they liked it. They did, and offered input on what types of rides and games they would like. We appreciated their input and promised that they would be first to know when we planned to hold the event. When it came time to market to neighbors who were outside of our typical circle, these friends even helped make flyers and posters and distribute them throughout the neighborhood.
“Build it and they will come” is a load of crap. You have to get the word out about your business or product – ideally BEFORE you launch it. You need to market your business or no one will know about it! It doesn’t have to be expensive. Talk to your potential customers. Build your company around their needs, and they will help spread the word for you. I’ve never paid for traditional advertising for my business, and since leaving my full-time job four years ago, I’ve matched or exceeded my previous salary every single month. I’ve always had a steady stream of work and a healthy number of new client inquiries. The way I’ve gotten the word out about my services has always been through my existing customers. I focus on a niche and I’m always working on improving my customer experience to provide real value that they can’t help but talk about.
4. Business is Really, Really Fun.
The experience of dreaming, planning and hosting the Five-Cent-Fair was one of the best summer memories of my childhood. Even though it was a lot of work for a couple of kiddos, we were happy to do the work because, well, actually we had nothing else to do, and also because we were working together toward a vision we really wanted to see through to reality. We planned, we built, we laughed, we probably argued a bit and we made special memories together that will be with us for life.
I wake up every day thankful that I get to be my own boss, that I get to help other passionate makers like me realize their visions and shape their brands. Not gonna lie, it’s not easy. But, having worked a traditional nine-to-five full-time job, I’m thankful that I can go to the post office or the bank at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday without consequence, or a morning walk with my three-year old on the wooded path by the creek in our neighborhood. I do make sacrifices as an entrepreneur, like often working late into the night on projects, missing some playdates with mommy friends and their kids, and essentially never being able to “leave my work at work” because it’s always on my mind. But the work I do leaves me feeling energized and alive rather than drained and tired.
The more maker entrepreneur friends I make, the more I realize my childhood business story is not unique. Which is awesome. I love hearing other stories of wacky childhood business ventures and early leadership escapades. As entrepreneurs, we’re always looking ahead, planning, evolving, tweaking and moving forward. But it’s important too, that we look at where we’ve been, and how our early experiences can shape and guide us to become what we’re destined to become.
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