Photo
Two
summers ago, Jack Bonneau started a lemonade stand to earn some cash.
Instead of setting it up on a street corner in his Broomfield, Colo.,
neighborhood, he and his father, Steve, came up with a more ambitious
plan. Jack, then 8, would peddle cups of lemonade at the local farmers’
market throughout the summer.
The strategy was a success.
“I
had sales of around $2,000, and my total profit was $900,” Jack said,
adding that the experience increased his confidence in school. He also
enjoyed learning “financial literacy,” by which he meant “adding and
subtracting, and profit and loss, and subtracting expenses from revenue,
and just learning about margins, and all of that stuff.”
By the next spring, the Bonneaus had named the operation Jack’s Stands and
devised an expansion plan. They built a website and additional stands
and began selling lemonade at three more farmers’ markets.
They
used funds from a $5,000 loan that Jack’s Stands secured from Young
Americans Bank, a Denver bank that specializes in loans to children. The
loan was guaranteed by the bank’s companion organization, the nonprofit
Young Americans Center for Financial Education.
Credit Nick Cote for The New York Times
The
Bonneaus also recruited a sales team. Other children eager to earn a
buck, and whose parents saw this as a good learning opportunity,
volunteered for shifts at Jack’s Stands.
Jack
was excited to teach other children what he had learned. He taught them
how to operate the stand, and at the end of each shift, he showed them
how to count money and calculate profits and losses. The children,
ranging in age from 7 to 11, walked away with tips and a cut of the
profits, usually $30 to $50.
Jack,
now 10, is among thousands of children in the Denver area who have
enrolled in courses at the Young Americans Center for Financial
Education or have taken out loans from Young Americans Bank. The center
teaches financial literacy and personal finance to people ages 6 to 21.
It also runs entrepreneurship programs at 420 schools in Colorado and
runs a summer camp for children in second through sixth grade.
When
he was 6, Jack got his first account at the bank, which offers checking
and savings accounts, certificates of deposit, lines of credit, credit
cards and business loans to people 21 and under. It charges low service
fees.
Earning
money was Jack’s initial motivation for the stand because he longed for
a $400 Lego Star Wars Death Star set that his father insisted he pay
for himself. But there was an important nonfinancial perk to the
project, too: “It was really fun,” Jack said.
From
the start, Steve Bonneau wanted the lemonade stand to be a learning
experience for Jack. Mr. Bonneau is a former nuclear engineer who has
been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years. His current company,
Buybak, buys and resells used consumer goods.
“We
wanted to make sure that Jack wasn’t getting out the Country Time
Lemonade, using cups we already had in our kitchen and ice from the
refrigerator,” Mr. Bonneau said. “And then at the end of the day,
whatever was sold was his profits, without taking out any expenses or
learning the other side of it.”
Early
on, Mr. Bonneau taught his son business basics. Now that Jack is in
fifth grade and studies seventh-grade math, the lessons are more
advanced. Mr. Bonneau said he guided Jack through wholesale pricing,
applying for a sales tax license and establishing business
relationships.
“It’s
a collaborative effort,” Mr. Bonneau said of Jack’s Stands,
acknowledging that his son’s age and the complexity of the business
means there are things Jack is not yet capable of doing. These range
from carrying and assembling the 40-pound wooden lemonade stands to
solving business challenges like finding organic, locally made lemonade
or meeting the requirements of new farmers’ markets they work with.
In
2015, sales for the business were $25,000. This year, it plans to add
several new stands in the Denver metro area, and one in Detroit; this
expansion will be financed by a crowdfunding campaign.
Another successful business affiliated with the Young Americans Center for Financial Education and Young Americans Bank is Sweet Bee Sisters,
a lip balm and lotion company founded in 2009 by Lily, Chloe and Sophie
Warren, now ages 15, 13 and 11. Their products are sold online and in
15 stores in Denver, as well as at farmers’ markets and through
representatives who make sales calls at large companies during the
holidays.
A
priority for the Warrens is to encourage and mentor other children.
“Whether it’s business or sports, or whatever kids want to pursue, they
can totally do it,” Lily Warren said.
So
when Jack approached them a year ago to ask if he could carry their
products at his lemonade stands, they agreed. They felt that his
business ethos was similar to theirs, Ms. Warren said. When he showed or
sold their products to other children, his message was: “‘Hey, I’m not
the only kid out here doing this. You definitely can join this
bandwagon,’ ” she said.
The
bandwagon gained more momentum last winter when Jack set up two new
stands in a crafts marketplace at a Littleton, Colo., shopping mall. One
is a stand that sells apple cider and hot chocolate instead of
lemonade, and the other, called Jack’s Marketplace, features products
made by other children.
Sweet
Bee Sisters and about eight other child-run businesses sold their wares
at the marketplace stand during the holiday season. Two girls who
started out selling apple cider and hot chocolate quickly caught the
entrepreneurial bug and began making their own products — scarves,
headbands and decorated picture frames and magnets — and selling them at
Jack’s Marketplace.
Very
young business owners have the advantage of abundant curiosity and
resilience, traits coveted by older entrepreneurs. They’re also “young,
ambitious, adorable,” said Maura McInerney, program coordinator for the
Young Americans Center for Financial Education. But their youth can be a
liability. “They’re not always taken seriously at first,” she said.
That
hasn’t been a problem for the entrepreneurs at the Jack’s Marketplace
stand in the shopping mall. According to Lisa Roina, who owns the
company that runs the mall’s crafts marketplace, the children not only
appear to have fun selling their products, they are good at it.
On
weekdays and other times when the children aren’t able to work at the
stand, she sends in a rotating cast of adults. But when the children
return to operate the stand themselves, sales quadruple, Ms. Roina said.
“They can sell the heck out of their stuff,” she said.
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