Saturday, November 9, 2013

Day 7 - Lemonade Stand

Every summer we try to come up with a list of things for the girls to do to keep them busy, out of trouble, and maybe even learn something.  Usually this includes household chores to earn their keep, reading goals, our summer bucket list of fun things we want to do, and a random goal for each of them.  Amber was going into 4th grade, so she had to learn all of her states and capitals.  Ted decided it was time for Samantha to start learning the basic concepts of entrepreneurialism and required her to create her own business.

After tossing around a wide variety of ideas, she decided to go with the simple out and set up a lemonade stand in our front yard.  She and Ted have taken a liking to the tv show Shark Tank, so before anything else, she was required to visit our shark tank and seek out investors for her start-up company.  She unenthusiastically presented her business plan to us sharks, her mom and dad, and was able to strike a business deal with her dad to help pay for supplies, solicit mom's Facebook fan club, and not give up 50% of her profits (mom's offer).

The next day Samantha formed quite a workforce of her sister, 2 city cousins, and 2 country cousins and set out to make the best lemonade stand ever, or at least satisfy her dad's requirements.  For a house in the country, I didn't expect them to bring in much of a profit.  Lucky for her, the city cousins had a long history of success with garage sale lemonade stands, and the country cousins had a very cool lemonade stand sign stashed in their barn.  They decided to make cookies to go with the lemonade, beautiful posters to attract attention, and had quite a display set up in the yard by 1pm.  I was in my office attempting to work from home that day, and sat chuckling as I listened to their loud obnoxious cheering every time someone would slow down and pull into our driveway.  They were so proud of themselves when they even got a car to turn around and come back to their stand.  $65 later, I was pretty impressed by their afternoon take.

Samantha learned a few valuable lessons from the experience.  You have to spend money to make money.  Hiring good help can be crucial to your success.  Hiring too many employees eats away at your profits, literally.  Grandma's friends tip well. And, in whatever you do, have fun doing it. 


No comments:

Post a Comment