Lemonade Stand Lessons

Like all children, every summer my kids try to come up with ways of making money.  Of course, when they were younger, they always wanted to do the lemonade stand.  Last year, I thought an important lesson needed to be learned when the lemonade stand scheme came up again.  It was Jordan's idea.  I said, "Yes, you may have a lemonade stand, but this year instead of using my lemonade and cups, you need to buy your own lemonade and cups.  When you run a bussiness you must make money.  You invest in a product and people pay you for the product.  The investment is called overhead and once your overhead is paid the remaining money is called profit."  So Jordan bought his lemonade for $2 and his cups for $2.  I think Ben pitched in $1 so I reminded Jordan that Ben would get 1/4th of the profit.  In addition he needed to pay his employees if he was going to have Kenzie and Riley involved in the selling, maybe .10 an hour or something like that.  In the process of setting up the stand the kids drank half the lemonade and sold 8 cups for .25.  One older gentleman walked by and didn't want the lemonade but donated $1.  After an hour they gave up and they were $1 in the hole.  Needless to say they have decided that selling lemonade was a waste of time and not a very good investment. 

Since then they have been trying to come up with other ways to make money.  Jordan wants to walk dogs.  Jordan, I point out, we have no neighbors.  Whose dogs will you walk?  How will you get there?  He wants to take care of dogs while people are on vacation since we have 7 acres.  Jordan, most dogs are inside dogs and I don't let dogs inside.  What happens when a coyote eats someones prized shitzu because we left it out all night?  Mow lawns?  Okay, but you have to pay for my gas and time to drive you.  He's still working on something.  His wheels are turning.

Kenzie posted these signs on a table last year.  I thought it brilliant, but she didn't have any takers.  Come to think of it, maybe Ben took her  up on it. 

Kind of reminds me of the garage sale Arthur has in this story:

Ben's latest attempt at entrepreneurship:  homemade guitars $2.

(He and Riley are strumming them to show you how well they work, and no that's not a huge mole on Ben's face, it's chocolate:))

Maybe it's time to have a talk about what crowd they market to now.