As a kid I loved keeping pets. In fact many people referred to our suburban home as being the local zoo. Kids from all over the neighborhood would come by to see the goings-on in our back yard.
I had a huge fish pond which, during the summer, would be teaming with little colourful fish. The fish first started out in my aquarium and as they multiplied they ended up in the pond. By the end of the summer there would be so many
Breeding poultry to sell is easy. Remember to only use quality birds.
that if I didn’t find homes for them they would over populate the pond and wipe themselves out. So I would catch them by the hundred, put them into big buckets and take them off to the local aquarium shops. The shop owners were happy to get my fish and paid me 50 cents each. Thirty five years ago this amounted to a lot of money.
One time though, I remember delivering a bucket full of sword tails, which are renowned for jumping. The
Swordtails love to jump! They are a low maintenance fish that can be bred in ponds.
aquarium shop owner left the bucket on the ground without a lid whilst he went about his shop business. He returned later in the day to find nearly all the fish on the ground!
I’d also divide up the water lilies and pull out huge amounts of water plants that were thriving in the summer heat in the pond and sell them at the same aquarium shops. All up my hobby pet breeding enterprise well and truly paid for itself!
Our aquarium.
Today I still keep aquarium fish and breed them in ponds during the summer. Some of my children have taken an interest in them and keep fish as well.
A close friend of the family, Brayden, stopped by our place and showed an interest in my fish. I told him what I was doing and the story of how I would sell them to the aquarium shops.
Fifteen year old Brayden also kept
Guppies are also easy to breed and sell.
fish. He had an aquarium full of guppies. As a result of our conversation he took all his guppies down to the local pet shop and sold them for $2.50 each. He was so pleased with his fish sale that he began playing with figures as to whether or not it would be worth trying to farm aquarium fish as an enterprise. His figures stacked up and he told me that he had acquired several large fish tanks. He had done his research on fish and worked out which were easy to breed and which were sort after by the aquarium shops.
His aquaculture enterprise is just beginning and has the potential to do very well. I’ll keep you posted with how he goes.
Baby rats sell for $5 each and a mother rat will have babies every five weeks.
Here are some helpful tips if you are considering breeding animals or plants to sell. Choose quality stock to breed from, from the start. Look for animals or plants that have a higher price tag. It is just as easy to breed a $2 guppy as it is to breed an exotic $30 guppy. So why not choose the latter.
Also don’t be afraid to cull inferior fish based on colour, shape and size. Keep your very best stock for breeding as these will produce the best offspring. Feed them well and only sell young quality animals. It is important to develop a good reputation with the pet shops. Maintain pure strains. These will always look the best and demand the best price.
Breed white peacocks. They are much more valuable than standard peacocks!
Make sure you do your research before breeding pets. Some animals can prove to be very difficult to keep and breed and may require expensive equipment and services to keep them in top breeding condition. Ask the pet shops what animals they are regularly looking for. Become the expert on the pet you’re planning to breed.
Lastly, consider selling your pets on Facebook, ebay, or one of the internet buy and sell sites. These are free to advertise on and have huge followings of prospective customers.
Brayden has an interest in a "Fishy Enterprise"
Maybe you too can develop a pet enterprise, or at least have your pets pay for themselves! Here are a few ebooks that could help you to develop your expertise with a pet breeding enterprise… Aquarium Fish, Guinea Pigs,Pet Rats,and Chickens.
Our next blog will take us back to the Enterprises our children have been running. Find out how they are going and the lessons they are learning along the way…
In the last blog we spoke about “who it is that teaches our kids about money”. We’d like to delve a little deeper with this topic in this blog. Our intention is to build an understanding of why most of us have settled into the role of being a “worker” rather than following the “entrepreneurial” path. You will also learn a little more about what we are endeavoring to achieve as a family.
Our kids, like all kids, want to have their own money so that they can have a little independence and buy the things that they want. In our family our children sometimes receive money when it is their birthday and they also get a little pocket money.
Kaitlin, our eldest, has a part time job working at a local Brewery serving lunches and doing the kitchen work. She works hard and it pays pretty well. However, to take on a job, she loses some of her weekends and time to do her school work and have a social life. She also commits time to regular baby sitting work for some of the families in the area.
At present the money mindset of my children is much the same as ours, which is likely to be the same as most other people, and that is to earn money, spend and borrow money!
Generally most of us either have a job where we give time for a salary or we have a business where we give our time for a monetary return. Whatever the case, we are tied down and limited with what money we earn and we sacrifice our time for it. Sound familiar?
The funny thing is, that right from an early age we are conditioned to accept this to be the norm and often our minds are generally closed off to entrepreneurial ideas and opportunities. Our schools train us and prepare us for the workforce. Our parents will do the same by pointing us towards a vocation.
Adding to this, media advertising, TV, politicians, universities and our peers all guide us towards getting a job. It is all around us, well intentioned people and institutions all keeping us on the “straight and narrow” pathway of getting a job (earn!), then spending our money on things (spend!) and then borrowing money to spend on more things (borrow!).
Finance companies advertising loans
Look at the people around you and you will see this pattern repeated everywhere. People with expensive things like houses, TVs, holidays, cars, boats and caravans. Most are servicing mortgages to pay for it all. The more things they acquire during their lives the harder and longer they have to work to pay for the things. Most people can see no way out of their situation and accept that this is what is supposed to happen. The average Australian spends about $1.15 out of every dollar they earn!
The Rat Race!
In fact most of us have been conditioned to accept this money mindset which locks us into the“Rat Race!”
Now you may challenge us by saying, what’s wrong with our kids entering the workforce, what’s wrong with spending what they earn and borrowing some more! Honestly, there is nothing wrong or right about it at all. It is just what it is.
For us though, we’re looking for a new direction where we have the time to follow our passions and to be able to give freely to our family, community and world without worrying how to pay for it. Our goal is to break out of the “worker” mindset.
We seek to know how the relatively few, “financially and time free” people managed to rise above the Rat Race. We want to know what they do that is different. How do they think and what is their conditioning around money mindset!
What’s more, we wish for our kids to grow up with the mindset of an entrepreneur! It is important to us that they get a “financial education”.
A Financial Education won't come from the teacher.
From what we’ve discovered so far, is that kids need to start very early to develop their entrepreneur mindset and the skills needed to manage money and build enterprise. They need role models who can foster a different thinking and parents who encourage and look for opportunities that foster enterprise. Open discussions about money and business will help to develop a financial education for kids.
We desire for our seven children to grow up having choices. We want their pathways to be wide with opportunity! We encourage them to follow their passion and not be conditioned into the “earn, spend and borrow” mindset. We hope that they will think differently, have belief in themselves and develop the habits of people who have achieved personal and financial freedom.
We know we have a challenge ahead of us, as our kids have already been conditioned from an early age. Using Kaitlin as an example; she earns money, spends freely and already has a debt. She is studying hard to go to university with all her friends and then ultimately to get a good paying job. Once again I’ll point out that there is no right or wrong about this, only that we would like her to see that there are other ways.
It is always going to be a challenge whilst we have that same conditioning and mindset. Although striving to change our thinking, we recognise that it will take time and persistence to learn new habits and shift old belief systems. However, we are very confident that this year, is the year that we will have a break through. We have enlisted the help of a Money Mindset personal mentor, who is helping us develop a new thinking. He is there to help us transform in our thinking through our actions…. and as we do so, so will our children.
With our up coming blogs we will share his education with you.
If you don’t teach your kids about money, then there are plenty of people out there who will! And not all of them will teach your children what they really need to know.
Kids are conditioned by media and celebrities.
Our kids are educated financially from many sources whether we like it or not. Everywhere they go and everything they look at is conditioning our kids around money.
Teenage kids, for example, are very influenced by their peers, TV and social media. They are pressured to want to have all the latest and greatest of everything! AND…they have to have it now! If you have a teenager in your house (or even a preteen!), you will understand this very well. They will tell you that they are the “only” ones in the “whole world” who doesn’t have one! And if you try to compromise with a cheaper version from Target,… well, forget it! Brand name or nothing!
Many parents fall into the trap of giving into their kids’ persistent demands. We have…..more times than we should have!… and the older a kid gets, the better they are at arguing their point. Some parents may lend their child the money with the view of having them pay it back when they can afford it, or some simply pay for the item fully and don’t expect their child to pay anything back.
But what is this teaching children?
Our son Flynn was preparing to go on a camp with his school. He claimed that ALL the kids would have iPods and that he wanted to buy one to take on camp.
He counted up his money and found that he was short about $100. He was very persistent in his request and we decided to sit down and have a conversation with him around the value of money.
Our dilemma was this – If we were to say an outright “NO, we can’t afford it” then we would be conditioning him with a mindset around “lack of money.”
If we said “YES”, then we would be conditioning him with the mindset to “borrow, then spend!”….and probably not appreciate it too much.
So……………we came up with a solution we had been taught in our mentoring course.
We said “YES”. He could buy an Ipod……however, we weren’t able to pay for it. We brainstormed ideas with Flynn on how he could raise $100. Time was of the essence as he was going on camp in three days.
We came up with ideas such as increasing the marketing of his honey that he was selling through his Honey Enterprise; sell some of his unwanted things such as his surf board; or do a deal with his sister and buy the items she had lined up to sell as part of her “New from Old” enterprise and then resell them with mark up.
The discussion gave him motivation, and we took the punt that if he was really keen for the iPod, then he would make it happen.
The point of all this is that we didn’t automatically say “No, we can’t afford it”…… and we didn’t say “Yes, and we will pay for it”. Rather, we put the onus on Flynn to work out a way to achieve his goal without getting himself into debt. We used this opportunity to teach Flynn about money.
Our Money Mindset Mentor, Paul Counsel, says that in our society, kids are conditioned to “earn, spend and borrow” from a very early age. This conditioning carries through to adulthood and ties people to a job. They need this job to pay for the interest payments on their “things”.
Sporting heros are used to condition people.
It is hard for our kids to avoid this type of conditioning. Their sporting idols appear on TV advertisements telling them what a great investment they are making if they buy x,y or z……and finish with a trusting wink!
Celebrities promote all sorts of things from insurance and jewellery to holidays. Retailers offer low cost, easy monthly payments for expensive items that people really can’t afford. There goes the “earn, spend and borrow” cycle again. Even airlines offer credit these days!
The education faculties don’t teach your kids about money either. In fact they will also put young people into tremendous debt by financing their higher education courses. Young people who spent five years working hard for a qualification, come out at the end with a massive debt!
Locked into debt before you can even begin!
Here is a hard fact… this year the total amount of student loan debt in the US hit the $1 trillion mark. Back in 2010, the amount of U.S. student loan debt surpassed the total amount of credit card debt, and it continues to grow. The trend in Australia is following that of the US.
We can look at life as being a game full of experiences! We are here on earth to play the game. Yet from an early age the odds are stacked against us to achieve personal and financial freedom when we are “conditioned” to earn, spend and borrow for unproductive things.
Can this change? Absolutely.
And who is the best person to teach this change to your children?
Well, if you have already achieved financial and personal freedom, then the best teacher is YOU!
And if you haven’t, then find someone who has achieved the type of financial or personal success you would like for your kids. You may even learn something in the process. 🙂
How to avoid distractions for students is one of the biggest lessons that came out of Kaitlin’s portrait drawing enterprise.
Kaitlin had a strong creative idea, real customers and the talent to make it work. But like many students, she also had school, friends, sport, camps, work, family and plenty of other distractions pulling her focus away.
Kait with that winning smile!
How to Avoid Distractions for Students: Kaitlin’s Enterprise Lesson
How to avoid distractions for students is the practical lesson behind this follow-up to Kaitlin’s portrait artist enterprise. Before we revisit her progress, it is worth looking at the idea of focusing on what you truly want to bring into reality.
At the time, we had been learning a lot about goals, values, mindset and the importance of making what you want a genuine priority. Whatever language people use — goals, vision, manifestation, values or focus — there is a practical lesson underneath it.
If something matters to you, it needs time, attention and action.
That sounds pretty easy, but I will be frank: it is easier said than done.
If you are anything like us, you will have very busy, complicated lives and are overrun with distractions. Work, family, social life, worries, school, sport, friends and commitments can all pull your focus away from what you say you want.
This is exactly what happened with Kaitlin’s portrait drawing enterprise.
Kaitlin procrastinating!
Of course, not all distractions are bad. Some are part of life, family, travel, friendships and growing up. The problem is when those distractions quietly take over and push important goals further and further into the background.
For Kaitlin, learning how to avoid distractions for students was not about removing every fun or social activity. It was about recognising when her enterprise idea needed protected time, focus and follow-through.
How to Avoid Distractions for Students with a Real Goal
Kaitlin’s enterprise plan that she shared in her home video was a very good one, but it required time management, focus and diligence.
Once the article about her enterprise was posted on Enterprise for Kids, Kaitlin received two customers requesting her to do portrait drawings of their families.
Kaitlin was delighted that people had actually appreciated her talents and were willing to pay for her service. This was a real opportunity for Kaitlin to follow a passion of hers and she was motivated to get started.
Sliding into Action
Kaitlin sliding into action.
She had bought half a dozen quality timber and glass frames from a garage sale, which would beautifully show the portraits if her customers wanted them framed.
She also had the $100 loan from me to buy the art materials required for her to run her enterprise.
So what has happened so far?
Distractions, distractions and more distractions!
Why Distractions Can Stop a Good Student Business Idea
Kaitlin, being a popular teenager, had many demands put upon her and she certainly didn’t have her focus set on attending to portrait drawings yet.
It had not become her highest value to develop an enterprise, despite the fact that she really did want to have her own enterprise doing something that she had passion for.
The list of distractions could almost fill a blog on their own!
Kaitlin on the Bali Green SuperCamp.
Kaitlin had been on the Country Week camp, had sleepovers, caught up with friends, and was currently on the Bali Supercamp.
She had work commitments, babysitting, sporting commitments, school, boyfriends, homework, modelling classes and family commitments that had all stolen her focus away.
How to Avoid Distractions for Students with Big Goals
To do portrait drawings, Kaitlin needed a lot of concentration, patience and most importantly, a distraction-free amount of time where she could get her head around it.
Kaitlin understood that she needed to establish a time management plan where she could devote her focus to what she wanted to achieve.
Admittedly, Kaitlin didn’t need to complete the drawings straight away. She had a few months. But you could see how easily those few months could whittle away to nothing without a plan of attack, followed by action to bring that plan to fruition.
This is a useful lesson in how to avoid distractions for students. It is not enough to simply want something. Students need a simple structure that helps protect time and attention.
A few practical steps could include:
choosing one clear goal to focus on;
setting aside a specific time each week to work on it;
breaking the goal into smaller tasks;
creating a quiet, distraction-free space;
removing easy distractions during work time;
using short blocks of focused time rather than waiting for a perfect long stretch;
asking someone to help keep them accountable.
For families, how to avoid distractions for students becomes a practical conversation about priorities, routines and gentle accountability. The goal is not to remove every distraction, but to help children notice when distractions are stopping them from doing something they genuinely want to achieve.
ReachOut has some useful advice for parents helping teenagers manage distractions, including encouraging teens to work in short chunks of focused time and then take regular short breaks. You can read more here: How to help your teenager avoid distractions while studying.
How to Avoid Distractions for Students with a Simple Plan
That being said, we all must do the same with our dreams and desires in life.
Without making what we want a high value, writing down a plan, and then focusing our energy on it, those dreams are unlikely to come about very easily.
This is why children’s enterprise projects are so valuable. They teach more than business. They teach responsibility, time management, problem-solving and follow-through.
Kaitlin’s portrait drawing idea was still a good one. The challenge was not the idea. The challenge was protecting enough time and focus to bring the idea to life.
Kaitlin’s story reminds us that students can have talent, opportunity and encouragement, and still struggle to follow through if distractions take over.
For parents, the lesson is not to criticise the child for being distracted. The better lesson is to help them notice what is happening and gently guide them back to structure.
Questions like these can help:
What do you really want to achieve?
Why does it matter to you?
What is distracting you most?
When could you set aside time for this?
What is the next small step?
Who could help keep you on track?
This is how raising entrepreneurial kids can become part of everyday family life. It is not always about big wins. Sometimes it is about helping children learn what stops them from moving forward.
Key Takeaway: How to Avoid Distractions for Students
Key takeaway: Learning how to avoid distractions for students is an important part of helping children and teens follow through on their goals. Kaitlin had talent, customers and a strong enterprise idea, but she also needed time, focus and a plan to protect her attention.
Where to Next?
If you enjoyed this follow-up on Kaitlin’s enterprise journey, you may also like:
We will keep you in the loop with Kaitlin in coming Enterprise for Kids blog articles.
For my next post or two, we will have a break from following our kids’ journeys and discuss understandings about developing a mindset for success. We’ll be looking at how we, and many other people, are conditioned to think in a certain way about money and how this conditioning may prevent us and our children from achieving success — and we are not just talking about the financial kind either.
Until then, we would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment.
Business ideas for teens often grow from the things they are already interested in. For Jai, that interest was technology, gaming and the idea of designing, making and selling an app.
At 13 years old, Jai was full of energy for his new enterprise idea. But as he quickly discovered, turning a tech idea into a real business can come with plenty of roadblocks.
What will Jai’s next move be?
Business Ideas for Teens: Jai’s App Developer Enterprise
Jai was super motivated and was like a bull at a gate with his new enterprising idea, which was to design, make and sell an app.
For those of you who are not geeks and are unfamiliar with the terminology, an app basically means application software for a device such as an iPhone, iPad or computer.
Jai’s idea was exciting because it connected directly with something he already loved — technology and gaming. At 13 years old, he could see that apps were becoming a huge part of the world, and he wanted to learn how to create one himself.
Turning a Tech Interest into a Teen Business Idea
Jai bought an Apple App developer licence under his Mum’s name and downloaded all the software onto his school’s Apple computer. This was a computer he was able to loan on a permanent basis until he left school. Lucky boy!
He then poured through the various emails and instructions and did whatever was required to get himself underway.
This is one of the exciting things about business ideas for teens. As children get older, their ideas often become more complex. Instead of selling a simple product or offering a basic service, they may begin exploring technology, design, online tools, digital products and more advanced enterprise ideas.
Apple’s own Developer Program gives developers access to tools and resources for creating and distributing apps and games, so Jai was stepping into a very real-world learning space.
There Are Ups and Downs
There are ups… and downs!
The process proved to be very challenging and it wasn’t long before Jai was faced with a huge roadblock.
He was stumped!
The information and requirements were very complicated and technical, and Jai really needed professional help to get him through it.
I could see his spirits dropping fast, so we sat down for a chat about roadblocks.
Business Ideas for Teens Need Roadblock Thinking
To know about apps, you have to play the games!!
When you are building up an enterprise idea, it is important not to get bogged down by all the “what ifs”. If we all did that, we wouldn’t get past first base.
Whatever enterprise you choose to do will have roadblocks, and you will need to troubleshoot a way to get around them.
Firstly, it is important to come up with an idea and build it up. Then the next step is to work out a general plan for developing the idea into an enterprise. This means identifying each of the development stages.
From there, you can think about the detail and consider the roadblocks for Stage One.
Jai’s Stage One App Developer Plan
So Jai and I considered his Stage One plan.
The plan was to become registered as an app developer, download the software, then become familiar with the software.
Jai’s roadblocks were:
the software was not loading correctly onto his computer;
the software was difficult to understand;
he didn’t know how to get started with using it.
So we planned a simple strategy to deal with these roadblocks.
We were going to be in Geraldton for a holiday in a few days. Jai’s strategy was to pay a visit to our successful app developer friend and ask him to help him get started.
Finding a Mentor
It’s exciting to climb to new heights…
That he did, and when I saw Jai next I could see the spring back in his step.
He now had new understanding and some direction. He had also opened a line of communication with an expert, who could possibly become a mentor down the track.
Having a mentor is one of the proven best ways to a successful business.
This is an important lesson for raising entrepreneurial kids. Children and teens do not need to know everything before they begin. But they do need to learn how to ask for help, find people who know more than they do, and keep going when the first roadblock appears.
When One Problem Creates Another Problem
What Jai learnt was that, for the software to work properly, he needed to download another program onto his Apple computer.
So when he arrived back to Burekup, he downloaded the program, which seemed to sort the software issues. It looked like he was now finally ready to get going with it all.
He headed off to school that Monday, only to arrive home later that day without his computer and looking very frustrated.
Apparently, when he went about his online school work, he found that all the school programs he used were no longer compatible with his computer.
He paid a visit to the school’s computer tech, who identified what had caused the problem: Jai downloading this new program!
He wasn’t very happy with Jai.
He said that the computer would need to be wiped clean and completely reconfigured, then reloaded with all the school’s programs again. To top it off, Jai was told that it might take a few days to get it sorted.
Not good news at all!
More roadblocks!
What Jai’s App Idea Teaches About Teen Enterprise
Jai’s app developer idea is a great example of how business ideas for teens can stretch them into real-world problem-solving.
He had to deal with:
technical language;
software requirements;
computer compatibility problems;
needing expert help;
frustration and disappointment;
the reality that a good idea is only the beginning.
That is the real value of these experiences. Teen enterprise is not just about the end product. It is about the thinking, troubleshooting, persistence and maturity that develop along the way.
Key Takeaway: Business Ideas for Teens Need Persistence
Key takeaway: Business ideas for teens can be more complex than simple childhood enterprises, but they also teach deeper lessons. Jai’s app developer journey shows that roadblocks, mentors, technical problems and persistence are all part of turning an idea into something real.
Where to Next?
If you enjoyed Jai’s app developer enterprise story, you may also like:
What will Jai do next with his enterprising idea? We will revisit his journey as an app developer in a later blog. It will make interesting reading with some hard lessons learnt!
Next up, we will touch base with Kaitlin and see how she is progressing with her enterprising idea.
We would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment.
In this post we revisit Kit and his enterprising Dog Walking business. He was now ready implement his carefully thought out plan.
It was the school holidays and we were all staying with Kit’s Gran and Grandad in Geraldton.
His first client was a family friend, Pam, who owned a small scruffy dog called Elly. Pam had been prepped with a phone call that Kit would be arriving with his Grandad to ask if she would be interested in hiring his services. She was delighted to support Kit with his new enterprise and awaited their arrival.
Kit with Pam's dog, Elly.Kit preparing for his walk with Elly.
Kit explained to Pam what his business entailed and the benefits that she and her dog would get if she hired his services. Pam agreed that his service looked to be very good and then she asked what his rate was. Kit said five dollars. Pam negotiated with him and they agreed on four dollars for the half hour walk.
A beautiful afternoon for a walk.All dogs need a pit stop
Kit was pleased, but not sure how he was going to handle Pam’s little energetic dog. Grandad was an excellent coach and helped him with attaching the lead, offering the dog a treat and instructed on giving commands to the dog.
The walk went very well with no dramas and Kit arrived back at his Gran and Grandad’s house after returning Pam’s dog very keen to tell his family all about his business.
Ending the walk.Kit being paid for a job well done.
Kit continued his dog walking enterprise for the next two days whilst we were on holidays in Geraldton. He managed to make twelve dollars! Kit is now on his way to attaining his goal.
We, as parents, felt that more important than attaining his goal was the fact that Kit got “started” on his idea. What holds many people back from achieving their dreams is the inability to actually start! And of course, there will always be a myriad of reasons why not to – the time isn’t right, there isn’t enough money, there isn’t enough time, my family won’t approve, not ALL conditions are right yet…..the list goes on. These are the BUTS that stop people attaining their goals all the time, so it was refreshing to see one so young as Kit just “do it!”
Our enterprising children are now all busy with their individual kid’s enterprises. It will be time to check in with Jai and see whether his enterprise plan eventuated.
