

Startups -- So Easy a 12-year-old Can Do It - terrisv
http://steveblank.com/2011/01/31/startups-so-easy-a-12-year-old-can-do-it/

======
qq66
Even better - 4th graders in my school ran the cookie business as part of the
curriculum. Each week, one student was the "manager" who would supervise the
baking of cookies in one corner of the classroom.

Initially, shares were offered to the class for $5 each, 2 per student
maximum. I thought it was a dumb idea so I didn't ask my parents for the $10.
That capital was used to purchase the ingredients (by that manager's mom,
reimbursed), and the manager and his/her deputy would supervise the baking of
the cookies each morning and would sell them at lunchtime for 15 cents each.

The assets of the company were liquidated at the end of the year and each $5
share was worth $70. I've been overoptimistic about entrepreneurship ever
since, probably to compensate for missing out on having $140 of fuck-you-money
in 4th grade.

------
ja27
Great story. We've been trying hard to get our daughter's Girl Scout troop to
do anything like this without success. That's exactly what Girl Scouts should
be doing.

We might try again with the kids from our First Lego League team after the
season.

Or what we should really do is start an incubator (or a "virtual" incubator
online) aimed at teens.

~~~
Sukotto
Well, there's already "Business-Wise" and "Cookie-Biz". You might do better
trying to help girls attain one of those badges using startup thinking than to
try and get the entire troupe doing a startup.

(There might be some overlap possibilities in the "Global Action" and "Get
with the Land" programs too)

Make it so much fun that the first group tells all their friends to try.

~~~
orangewarp
This is a good idea being that the concepts of startup thinking can probably
transfer over. That said, it might be even better to use the badge acquisition
as a stepping stone toward the real experience and have them do it like the
article after, so they can understand how the different contexts affects their
assumptions.

When I was in middle school all we had in terms of understanding "business"
was an annual pushcart fair where most of the kids just chose to sell
gobstoppers and we call it a day. This program seems to go more in depth in
terms of giving these kids a genuine problem, having them think, communicate,
and plan their actions, and most of all, putting their theories of business to
the test with real world results they can use to assess their predictions of
the world. These types of applicable real world activities WITH resulting data
to challenge ones understanding is crucial. Probably why for us older kids
with startup dreams, it's so important to just do something rather than just
think/talk only about tech projects and ideas. The earlier one gets real
projects out (first foray need not be perfect) and starts getting real user
results the earlier we can test our assumptions and adapt, grow.

------
bowmande
It would be great to see programs like this across the country.

