I was the top seller of Girl Scout cookies in Illinois for two years in a row. But it was my mom who was the sales star: the first woman in senior management to force her underlings to buy Girl Scout cookies. She sold hundreds of boxes in a day. Read more
You know the startup world is dead when stay-at-home parents are closer to the bleeding edge than founders. While we have conversations on this blog about how to transform people’s perceptions of what school is, I constantly receive pitches from tech companies reinforcing old ideas of school. Read more
Most of the people I know who can earn enough to support a family and homeschool at the same time were already earning a lot of money before they started homeschooling. So they took a pay cut to work from home and but they’re still making pretty good money. Read more
My son is selling 3D graphics online. He is teaching himself via YouTube and marketing his services via multiplayer game chat sessions. When I used to think everyone should be an entrepreneur, I would have encouraged my son to grow his business. Read more
Jennifer Senior has a great article in New York magazine about our cultural delusions about entrepreneurship. For example, most people say they want to work for themselves, but most people will never do it. They like a regular paycheck, and they like going to work in an office that is not in arrears. They like co-workers who are mentally stable and not willing to risk their family’s finances on pie-in-the sky ideas like vertical knowledge networks. Read more
I remember the first time I read in the Wall St. Journal that it’s becoming common for parents to buy their kid a franchise so they don’t have to go through the trauma of looking for a job. And, for that matter, the kids don’t have to go through the trauma of entrepreneurship either. Read more