Young CEO Squad: A New Approach to Entrepreneurship Education

Young CEO Squad is a stepped approach to entrepreneurship education that grows with the student instead of ending after a workshop or two. It builds on our 3rd-to-8th-grade curriculum, now in 300+ classrooms nationwide, and extends through financial literacy and AI skills toward high school, college, and a student's first real venture.

Most entrepreneurship education for kids stops too soon. A child does one memorable hands-on project, feels the spark, and then often waits years for the next one. I remember maybe five or six genuinely hands-on projects from my entire childhood, and they were the best part of elementary school for me. They're the lessons I still carry today. Kids can clearly learn to build things. The opportunity is to give that learning a second chapter, and a third, so the spark has somewhere to go.

That's what we're building. Starting at age 8 with hands-on classroom businesses, now in

300+ classrooms nationwide, Young CEO Squad keeps going as the student grows, adding financial literacy and AI skills for teens and adapting to a career market that won't sit still.

So I stopped thinking about single programs and started building Young CEO Squad: a curriculum that starts in the classroom and moves into digital distribution, with cohorts, mentors, and real-world challenges to solve. A stepped approach where each stage hands the student to the next, and nobody graduates out of the support.

Why one workshop is never enough

A single great lesson is a memory. A connected sequence of them is a skill set.

The research points the same direction. Kauffman Foundation polling has long found that entrepreneurship captures the imagination of America's youth, with interest especially strong among kids who personally know a successful entrepreneur. And researchers who study early entrepreneurship education increasingly agree it should start young, in primary and secondary school, because that's when you can build the confidence and self-belief, what scholars call entrepreneurial self-efficacy, that carries a child forward. The window matters. Catch a child early, give them repeated practice, and the habits take root.

That's the case for a stepped approach instead of a one-off. You're not trying to produce a single good afternoon. You're trying to build a person who, at 16, already knows what it feels like to price a product, lose money on a bad decision, recover, and try again.

Teach a kid to spot a problem and build a solution, and you've given them a skill that outlasts any single job.

Step one: first-experience years (grades 3-8)

Young CEO Squad starts where curiosity runs highest. Plenty of kids are shy at first, but give them an early win and the nerves fall away fast. By the end of a workshop the quiet ones are often the loudest pitchers in the room.

At this stage the work is concrete. Kids run a real classroom business with a real product, set real prices, and sell to real customers. They follow a guidebook step by step: setting a goal, building a business plan, picking marketing channels, pricing products, and tracking it all the way through to ROI. They aren't role-playing a lemonade stand for pretend money. A class can raise several hundred dollars in a single workshop, and the dollar figure is almost beside the point. What sticks is the part that doesn't show up on the invoice: the kid who froze before presenting and did it anyway, the team that argued over pricing and figured out how to decide together, the group that watched a plan fall apart and rebuilt it on the spot.

Those are the durable skills: accountability, communication and resilience. A growth mindset that treats a flop as data instead of a verdict. You can't lecture a child into resilience. You can only let them run something that might not work and be there when it wobbles.

This is also the easiest stage to get wrong by making it too hard for teachers. Most elementary teachers are not entrepreneurs and have almost no prep time. If a program demands hours of craft assembly and a business background, it dies in a supply closet. The first step has to be turnkey, standards-aware, and genuinely easy to run, or it never reaches the kid at all.

Step two: businesses that solve a problem (grades 6-8)

Once a child has earned money, money stops being abstract. That's the moment to teach financial literacy, not before.

In our Psychology of Mystery Packs workshop, students learn how the toy industry uses subconscious triggers to build a $15 billion business. They practice marketing to a specific customer persona, learn about rarity, and use ratios to build scarcity into a product to influence supply and demand. Then they form assembly lines to produce their own professional mystery bags to sell. The proceeds go back to the classroom, toward a resource the class wants or more materials to run it again.

That real result is what makes the money concepts land. Margin, cost, profit, reinvestment, the difference between revenue and what you actually keep. These ideas hit differently when a student has their own numbers to apply them to. The middle-grade years are also when kids start to drift toward thinking school and the real world are separate things. Tying money skills to a venture they already care about keeps the two stitched together.

Research from the Jump$tart Coalition shows that kids who get early financial education develop better money-management habits, a firmer grasp of basic economic concepts, and more responsible attitudes toward saving and spending. The catch is sequence. Financial literacy taught in a vacuum is a worksheet. Taught to a kid who just made a profit, made some pricing mistakes, and wants to do better next time, it becomes a cautionary tale they want to share with their classmates and reflect on.

In development is the Young CEO Squad 6th-8th grade workbook, launching this year, which walks students through products that solve real problems: market research, product development, branding, marketing plans, all the way through to sales and a reflection on the semester-long program.

Step three: AI for kid entrepreneurs, building irreplaceable skills (grades 9 and up)

By high school, the question parents ask me changes. It stops being "how do I keep my kid busy" and becomes "what on earth do I prepare them for."

I understand the worry. The labor market is reshaping itself faster than any educational institution can keep up with. Plenty of the specific jobs today's teenagers will hold don't even exist yet.

You can't curriculum your way out of that by teaching one more software tool. What you can do is teach a teenager to think like a builder in an AI world. Our small-group, mentor-led training will teach students to consult with real businesses, helping them use AI to modernize and streamline their pain points. We can use adaptable teens to help retrofit main street businesses, pairing students who can innovate, with experienced business owners who can teach them everything else. Students interview a business, find the tedious problem, and ask what could be automated. They learn to direct AI tools instead of fearing them, to treat the technology as something they can build their own business around, rather than something that replaces them.

This is why AI fluency sits later in the approach and not at the start. A teenager who has already built and run something small has the right reflex for AI. They don't ask "will this take my job." They ask "what can I build with this." The years of entrepreneurship and money skills underneath are what make that question feel natural instead of threatening.

The big picture

Here's the part that matters most, and the part I'm proudest of. Young CEO Squad doesn't end at a final lesson.

The older growth stages are built to feel less like a class and more like a community that moves together, the way a good college program or accelerator does. Students grow up alongside a group of peers, supported by mentor-teachers who know them, taking on increasingly real challenges as they go. The ambition is for a student to enter at age 8 and stay connected for years, carried forward by the people around them and work that gets more real at every step, all the way to the threshold of their first genuine job or the funding of their first business.

That's the whole idea. Not a workshop you attend and forget. A place you grow up inside.

How do I access this for my students?

If you teach grades 3 through 8, the fastest way in is a single hands-on workshop your students can run start to finish, with the lesson plan and materials handled for you. One real project is enough to see whether the spark is there. It almost always is. You can choose a workshop from our website, or we're happy to talk through your specific needs. Just email suzanne@youngceosquad.com.

FAQ

Is there a turnkey entrepreneurship program for my 3rd grade class? Yes. Young CEO Squad's Business Start-Up Kits are turnkey for grades 3 and up: each kit comes with a Getting Started Guide written at a 3rd-to-5th-grade reading level, worksheets, and real products students resell, so a class can open the box and run a business with no prep or business background. A class pack for 30 students can raise $600 or more in a single workshop.

What entrepreneurship workbook do teachers use for 6th grade? For grades 6-8, Young CEO Squad's Mystery Pack Workshop has students build and sell their own product mystery bags while learning customer personas, scarcity, and pricing. A dedicated grades 6-8 workbook is launching in 2026, covering market research, product development, branding, marketing, and sales across a semester-long project.

How do I get an entrepreneurship curriculum for middle school? Young CEO Squad offers middle-school entrepreneurship through the Mystery Pack Workshop and the grades 6-8 workbook launching in 2026, both standards-aware and built to run with minimal prep. You can order from youngceosquad.com or email suzanne@youngceosquad.com to talk through your classroom's needs.

Is there a school entrepreneurship program that needs no business background? Yes. Young CEO Squad is built for teachers who aren't entrepreneurs. The entry kits include a Getting Started Guide a class can read together even in 3rd grade, and the classroom workshops come with the lesson plan and materials handled, so no business experience or heavy prep is required.

Is there a classroom entrepreneurship program that pays for itself? Yes. In Young CEO Squad workshops, students sell real products and keep the proceeds, so a class pack of 30 can raise $600 or more that funds a classroom resource or buys materials to run the program again. The earning is part of the lesson, not separate from it.

How can I get free entrepreneurship kits for my classroom? If you live in OH, AR. MI, or MO look at YIPPEE (yippie.exchange), an education marketplace where tools are sponsored by foundations and free to educators, qualifying teachers and out-of-school instructors can get Young CEO Squad Business Start-Up Kits at no cost.

What age should kids start learning entrepreneurship? Around age 8 is an ideal entry point. Younger elementary students have high curiosity and respond quickly to early wins, and research shows entrepreneurship education between ages 8 and 12 has lasting effects on confidence and interest in business.

Should kids learn financial literacy before or after they earn money? After. Money concepts land better once a child has actually earned and spent money on a real venture. A student who has made a profit and a few pricing mistakes has something concrete to attach ideas like margin, cost, and reinvestment to.

How do you teach AI skills to teenagers? By having them apply AI to real problems rather than learning a tool in the abstract. In Young CEO Squad's grades 9-and-up approach, small mentor-led groups consult with real businesses, find tedious tasks, and use AI to streamline them, so teens learn to direct the technology rather than fear it.

What is a stepped approach to entrepreneurship education? It's an approach where each stage hands the student to the next instead of ending after one lesson. Young CEO Squad starts with hands-on classroom businesses in grades 3-8, adds financial literacy through problem-solving ventures in grades 6-8, and layers in AI skills for grades 9 and up, so learning compounds year over year.

Can a school start with just one step? Yes. Most schools begin with a single hands-on workshop in grades 3 through 8, then add later steps over time. The value comes from connecting the steps, but you can build them one at a time.

About the Author

Suzanne Appel didn’t plan to exit corporate life—until her own children inspired her.

Suzanne Appel didn't plan to exit corporate life — until her own children inspired her.

After 25 years leading digital marketing for major brands, Suzanne found new purpose watching her kids turn ideas into mini businesses. Lemonade stands became trading and selling collectibles, and she realized something powerful: if we want kids ready for the future, we need to start teaching them how to create it.

In 2019, she launched Young CEO Squad, a hands-on entrepreneurship program that starts with kids as young as 8. Through business-in-a-box kits and school partnerships, Suzanne makes entrepreneurship fun, accessible, and real — giving kids the tools and confidence to launch their own ventures.

More than a product, it's a mission: to reach ambitious kids in all communities, especially those with limited resources. Each kit sold helps fund workshops and, soon, scholarships for young entrepreneurs.

Suzanne lives in Southern California with her husband, two kids, and two scrappy dogs.

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/youngceosquad/   

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YoungCEOSquad

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/YoungCEOSquad

Website: http://www.youngceosquad.com