Seminar: Teach Your Kids to Start a Business!
One of the most empowering things you can do for your kids is teach them how to run a business. Entrepreneurship used to be high-risk and expensive, but in today’s business environment, starting a company costs no money. And having the skills to do that creates a permanent safety net in an uncertain economy.
Teach your kids entrepreneurship
I’ve launched three successful companies. Not only did I start each company with no money, but also I have no business education, I learned math only up to eighth grade, and I have Asperger’s, which means, among other things, that my social skills are not any higher than a middle schooler’s.
I tell you this because I’m sure that kids can learn to run companies at a young age, and the more practice they get, the more confidence they’ll have when they are adults. They’ll be able use entrepreneurship to gain flexibility in their work and control over their life.
My kids have already launched small businesses, and it’s changed the way they think. For example: we built a rope swing last weekend and my son said, “Do you think we could sell these to other families?”
How the seminar will work
The seminar will be one week long: October 15 – October 19. I’ll do a live video each day about how to launch a business. At the end of each session I’ll take questions, and the last day will be all questions—you can ask me anything, live, and I’ll answer. If you miss any of the sessions, you can listen to the recording on your own schedule.
The cost of this seminar is $195. You can pay the fee via PayPal to penelope@penelopetrunk.com. I’ll send you a confirmation and an introduction to the seminar which will include some fun initial reading and instructions for accessing the videos.
Most of the seminar participants will be adults who want to start their own business: people who want to be home with their kids and earn some money on the side doing something that interests them. But the seminar will also be appropriate for teenagers, and I’d be really happy to have them on the live video call as well as parents who are there to learn to help their younger kids.
Entrepreneurship teaches the skills you care about most
We talk so much in the homeschooling community about learning practical life skills, teaching math through experience, and teaching self-reliance. Entrepreneurship meets all these goals, and even the smallest, child-created companies achieve these goals.
I have a dream that this blog will become a launching pad for child-run companies, that the community of parents will help their kids come together to launch companies. In order to do this, we all need to get on the same page about the process of launching a company and how to best put a child’s skills to use. I hope you guys will join me in this adventure. It’s starting now!
Topics we’ll cover:
How to Get an Idea
October 15 9pm est
How to Get Money
October 16 1pm est
How to Get a Team
October 17 1pm est
How to Get Guts
Oct 18 9pm est
Ask Me Anything
October 19 1pm est
Reminder:
The cost of this seminar is $195. You can pay the fee via PayPal to penelope@penelopetrunk.com. I’ll send you a confirmation and an introduction to the seminar which will include some fun initial reading and instructions for accessing the videos.
Teach your kids entrepreneurship. Teach your kids to fly.
This is awesome! I love it!
I’m sure this will be very successful! Great idea.
This really doesn’t have to do with your seminar (which I’m sure is going to be eye-opening and helpful). I just finished reading a post on your career blog called “What Gen Y doesn’t know about themselves” and it seemed to mention imply that Gen Y was embracing entrepreneurship as a safety-net from a potential failing of a corporate employer. The idea there being that the once-radical and risky is now heading more mainstream and traditional. Do you think the trend of entrepreneurship will continue through to Gen Z, and if so, how do they compete when the market becomes saturated with entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurship is not so narrow as starting a business with a name and a storefront. It can be, for example, a temporary consulting business while you travel with your family. Or it can be a business that has only four clients that you take with you from your staff job so that you can take care of an ailing spouse.
The Harvard Business review, a few months ago, wrote about how the highest performers will become free agents — they will go into companies, do a project that makes a huge difference, and then leave. In sports, the free agents are the most entrepreneurial, and that will be the same in corporate life as well.
In our kids’ generation, most people who feel successful will also feel entrepreneurial because they will feel they can make their own projects, their own teams, their own schedules, and, in some cases, their own products.
It’s not a competition, or a limited availability thing: everyone can feel control over their lives. The problem is that school does not teach this — in fact, it teaches the opposite. So kids that have experience learning this outside of school will have a much easier transition to adulthood.
Penelope
Love this.
My 8 year old sold her jewelry at our farmer’s market last week, and today asked if she could go every week next summer. I told her she’d need to make a lot more and she said “Yeah, I’m facing my fears about that.”
I would like to view this with my children. I am traveling out of the country during those dates. Will video be available afterwards or just audio? Thanks!
Yes! You can watch it whenever you want. And the idea of you watching it with your kids make me so happy.
Penelope
Can we purchase the seminar after this week even if we are unable to participate? Maybe at a discounted price for not having been able to actually listen in and ask questions? I would LOVE to be a part of this, but am also traveling. I have been searching high and low for something just like this for my 11 year old and when I saw your post, I almost cried! I know 11 is young, but I want to be able to guide her in her creative pursuits early on.
I discover your post too late… Do you think it could be possible to see the videos (paying of course), I’m really interested on this subject. Even if in Spain situation is not the same than in USA, I think our kids must be ready to “the real life” and the really life means business… (also).