We’re passionate about young kids starting their own businesses and the imagination that it encourages. We’d also love to help kids to have an entrepreneurial mindset- expecting obstacles and challenges and finding ways to solve their own problems.
Here are some inspirational stories that you can share with your kid boss!
Mikaila Ulmer was just four years old when she started her own lemonade company, Me & the Bees Lemonade. Mikaila was inspired to create the company after she was stung by two bees in a single week. She then created a lemonade recipe that combined her grandmother’s flaxseed recipe with local honey. Mikaila sold her lemonade at a stand in front of her Texas home. After a while she started participating in a couple of children's business competitions. The business donates a percentage of the profits to local and international organizations fighting hard to save the honeybees. Now her lemonade is sold in Whole Foods and other stores across the country.
Casey first developed an interest in games when he was nine because he "thought it would be a fun hobby to blog about". After a short time writing about the games he was playing, he decided to make his own apps.
Jordan Casey was 12 when he launched his first game on the Apple App Store and it trended! "Alien Ball was a version of Space Invaders. Originally it was just an experimental game to test out the iPhone technology. I didn't expect it to do so well," he says. School was the inspiration for another big hit. In 2013 Casey created TeachWare, an app that helps teachers manage student information.
"I came up with the idea when my teacher lost her big black book with all of the students details of attendance and test results. I wanted to make something reliable. It's encrypted and saved in the cloud so you can't lose your information."
12-year-old Ehan Kamat wanted help his mother with her foot pain when he and his father Vinay invented the Solemender. Ehan noticed that doctors were recommending that his mother freeze a water bottle and then roll her foot on it. He then began to wonder why there wasn't a product that provided the same therapy with less mess.
Solemender is a cold therapy foot roller for treating foot pain. At 17, Ehan appeared on Shark Tank (Season 9, Episode 4) but left without a deal. But rejection didn't stop him and the Solemender went on to sell out on QVC. Ehan is currently finishing up his bachelors at the University of California at Berkeley.
Remind your kids that they can do great things and be trailblazers too. There's always room for passionate problem-solvers no matter what age. These are just a few examples of kids who are successful entrepreneurs. It’s inspiring to see these young entrepreneurs making a difference in the world. Your kid could be next.