Raising Entrepreneurial Kids Through Real Life Learning
Flynn’s Stories
Follow Flynn’s Enterprise for Kids journey through his honey business, practical problem solving, money lessons and real-world experiences as a young entrepreneur learning by doing.
Entrepreneurship games for students can help young people develop confidence, leadership, resilience and teamwork through real-world experiences. Twelve-year-old Flynn confidently walked through the international airport departure gate, heading off to Bali for an experience of a lifetime at Green SuperCamp Bali.
Although Flynn was excited, saying goodbye at five in the morning and watching him leave Australia without us for more than a week filled us with both pride and nerves.
Flynn enjoying the activities at Green SuperCamp Bali.
Entrepreneurship Games for Students at Green SuperCamp
Learning Quantum learning strategies.Balinese martial arts in the mud pit!
When Cathy and I first learnt about Green SuperCamp, we immediately recognised the tremendous character-building benefits it could provide for our children.
The activities challenged students physically, emotionally and mentally. They also helped the children build confidence, courage and self-belief.
Many activities at camp acted as entrepreneurship games for students. They encouraged teamwork, leadership, perseverance and problem-solving — all important qualities for future entrepreneurs.
Focus…… self confidence…… determination!
We wanted to share Flynn’s experience on our Enterprise for Kids blog because we strongly believe the values taught at Green SuperCamp help build future leaders and entrepreneurial kids.
Flynn’s Reflection on Green SuperCamp Bali
Below is Flynn’s reflection written in his own words after returning home from camp.
The Balinese mud dance!Green SuperCamp was an awesome experience!
“SuperCamp was an absolutely awesome experience!
The biggest challenge that I faced was going to Bali on my own without my parents. I just knew that I wanted to go on the Green SuperCamp, and to do that I had to go on my own.
I loved trying all the fun activities like mud wrestling, the high ropes course, Balinese dancing and seeing all the zoo animals.
I became friends with kids from all over the world. There were kids from America, Australia, Bali, Indonesia, London, India, New Zealand and Japan.
Everyone there was really nice, happy and determined to persevere through challenges. I liked everyone at Green SuperCamp!
One of my favourite activities was the mud fighting because I learnt self-defence and how to throw people over my back. This activity taught me perseverance and the importance of never giving up.
Leadership and Entrepreneurship Games for Students
Learning…… the key to success!
We were taught Quantum strategies to think and learn. As a result, my reading became seven times faster.
The Bali Green SuperCamp was a fantastic experience. I think everyone should have a chance to go!”
Since returning home, we have noticed a number of positive changes in Flynn. His teachers commented that he had been making a real effort at school and staying away from mischief.
He even started reading books willingly — something he usually avoided. In fact, Flynn reached his school reading goal within only three weeks.
In addition, he showed greater responsibility with chores, stronger focus in soccer and more confidence in everyday life.
Experiences like these demonstrate how entrepreneurship games for students and leadership activities can positively influence young people long after camp finishes.
Key Takeaway: Entrepreneurship Games for Students Build Confidence
Key takeaway: Entrepreneurship games for students help children build confidence, resilience, leadership and teamwork through real-world learning experiences.
Where to Next?
If you enjoyed this Green SuperCamp story, you may also enjoy:
Young entrepreneurs often learn best through real projects, real products and real customers. Flynn’s honey business became one of those practical childhood ventures that taught far more than we expected.
This is Part 3 of Flynn’s honey business story, where the raw honey was poured, labelled, priced, sold and finally turned into real profit.
Flynn’s honey business became a real lesson in enterprise.
For young entrepreneurs, these are the lessons that often matter most. They are not just reading about business or talking about ideas. They are doing the work, making decisions, dealing with problems and seeing what happens when an idea becomes real.
A Real Business Project for Young Entrepreneurs
Flynn’s honey enterprise became one of those practical childhood projects that taught far more than we expected. It gave him the chance to handle a real product, work with others, think about presentation, understand pricing, serve customers and solve problems along the way.
If you have been following the honey story, you will know this was not the beginning. Flynn’s honey venture started with Honey Pot of Gold, where he first shared his family business idea, and continued in Flynn’s Honey Investment Continued, where he harvested honey with his Grandad and made his first serious investment.
The Opportunity: 90kg of Raw Honey
When we last visited Flynn and his honey enterprise, he had just acquired 90kg of quality raw honey from his Grandad’s beehives in Geraldton. Flynn had also placed a bulk order for plastic honey pots.
He was now ready to fill them up and make his first sale.
Warming the honey. Honey pots ready to fill.
Preparing the Honey for Pouring
His honey was held in buckets that weighed over 10kg. Getting the honey from the buckets into the 400g honey pots was not going to be easy.
Firstly, the honey was very thick, making it tedious to decant into the pots. Secondly, it required strength to hold the honey bucket while pouring.
Flynn called on his mates to help. He poured the buckets into a large pot and heated the honey to 50 degrees Celsius. This temperature was not high enough to destroy the enzymes that make raw honey so beneficial, but it was high enough to make the honey more fluid and easier to pour.
The production line. Quick! Gimme another pot!
Setting Up the Production Line
The kitchen table was wiped down and set up for the honey pot production line. The team were excited about finally seeing the product in the pots. I helped pour, while Flynn and his gang filled and capped jars.
The jars were washed on the outside to ensure there was no stickiness, then labelled with Flynn’s “Howitt’s Honey” labels.
This was one of the first times Flynn could see how much work sits behind a product before it is ready for customers. It is one of the practical lessons young entrepreneurs only really understand when they have to prepare a product themselves.
Mmmm… smells good! Giving each pot a rinse in fresh water.
Packaging and Branding the Honey
Flynn’s product looked clean, pure and professional. He understood that to get a market edge and sell his honey for a premium, his first-class product needed to be well packaged and hygienic.
Flynn carefully drew up a poster pointing out the benefits of his product. This was attached to the boxes containing the honey pots.
He was not just selling honey; he was learning about presentation, trust, product quality and brand identity. These are powerful money lessons for kids, especially when they are connected to a real product and real customers.
First batch stacked and ready to label. The labels!
Selling the Honey: Young Entrepreneurs Learn by Doing
Flynn researched what honey was selling for in shops and online. He worked out what he could sell his honey for and still make a decent return. To provide an incentive to customers, he offered a special price if they bought more than one pot at a time.
Marketing his honey required little effort at first. Visitors to our home took an interest in his honey, and his honey began to sell.
He gained permission from his school principal and left a box in the staffroom. He organised with a teacher friend of ours from another school to place a box in their staffroom, and he approached the local general store, where he was allowed to sell his pots of honey for a small commission.
This is where kids business ideas become more than ideas. Flynn had to think about pricing, placement, presentation, customer trust and repeat sales.
Developing the brand “Howitt’s Honey”.
A Real Business Problem for Young Entrepreneurs
His honey was selling well, and it was not long before he needed to restock all his boxes. As word got out about his product, people even began placing small orders by telephone.
Flynn’s “Howitt’s Honey” business went very well, except for one problem.
Raw honey has many benefits that you would be hard pressed to find with heavily processed honey. However, a downside with raw honey is that, over time, it can candy, or begin to solidify. This occurs especially when the room temperature drops, such as during winter.
Flynn’s honey that had been waiting to be sold began to candy in the honey pots. People do not generally want to buy honey that has hardened, which is why commercial honey producers often process honey using heat to reduce crystallisation.
Luckily, this problem only happened to the last remaining pots that had been waiting for sale. He brought these home, opened them up, scraped the honey into a pot and heated it back to 50 degrees Celsius. This liquefied the honey again, and he returned it to the pots. We bought those last pots for our family.
The lesson learned was that Flynn needed to sell his raw honey product before it showed signs of candying. He also needed to inform customers about what to do if their honey began to crystallise.
That is the sort of problem-solving young entrepreneurs remember, because the lesson comes from experience rather than a worksheet.
Profit, Pride and What Flynn Learned
Profits from Flynn’s Honey Enterprise.
Flynn’s net profit from his honey enterprise was outstanding. He achieved the goal he set before he began, plus much more. He learned many lessons along the way and recognised that it was a lot of work, but satisfying work.
Flynn became an expert in his own honey business and gained enormous skills and understandings of how to run an enterprise.
Flynn may now be ready to take his honey enterprise to another level. We hope to guide Flynn to move from being a small business owner to thinking more like an entrepreneur. How we do that will be shared in another Enterprise for Kids blog.
As a story about young entrepreneurs, Flynn’s honey enterprise shows how a simple family opportunity can become a real lesson in money, initiative, marketing and responsibility.
Flynn’s Honey Business Series
This article is Part 3 in Flynn’s honey business series, a family enterprise story about young entrepreneurs, family business ideas, money lessons for kids and learning by doing.
Part 3: Flynn’s Honey Turns to Gold — you are here
These posts show how children can learn by doing, rather than just being told about business, money and opportunity.
For Families Interested in Honey Enterprise
For those interested in having your own honey enterprise, or keeping a beehive for a regular supply of raw honey for family and friends, you could seek out an expert, such as Flynn or his Grandad, or do a course.
For readers interested in honey handling and food safety, the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council provides information about Australian honey and beekeeping.
Key Takeaway: Young Entrepreneurs Learn by Doing
Key takeaway: Young entrepreneurs do not need perfect conditions to begin. Flynn’s honey business started with a family opportunity, a quality product and the courage to take action. Through the process, he learned about pricing, branding, selling, customer trust, problem-solving and profit.
Where to Next?
Read more family enterprise stories, explore practical ideas for raising entrepreneurial kids, or see where our enterprising kids are today.
Money lessons for kids become much more powerful when children experience them in real life. For Flynn, that meant negotiating with his Grandad, harvesting raw honey, making an investment and learning what it really takes to grow a small business.
This is Part 2 of Flynn’s honey business story, where his idea moved from plan to action — complete with bee suits, honey frames, sticky hands and a very serious investment for a twelve-year-old.
Flynn with Grandad collecting honey frames for his honey business.
Money Lessons for Kids: Flynn’s Honey Investment Continued
You may remember from a previous blog that Flynn’s Enterprise for Kids plan was to buy honey at wholesale and sell it at retail. All he needed was a good source of cheap, quality honey that he could buy in bulk.
If you missed the beginning of the story, you can read Part 1: Honey Pot of Gold, where Flynn first explained his honey business idea.
Finding a Product for Flynn’s Honey Business
Flynn’s Grandad has kept bees for over twenty years and had a number of hives which he regularly harvested honey from. The honey produced from his bees is very light in colour and tasty, as the bees forage over the Mid West fields of Paterson’s Curse and coastal gums.
Flynn knew that he had a good quality product.
His plan was to pay a visit and strike up a deal with his Grandad.
Flynn’s Grandad saw that Flynn had thought through his plan. He was more than willing to support Flynn with his new honey enterprise. Flynn negotiated a good price per kilogram, however, the deal included Flynn having to help his Grandad rob the honey from the hives.
Flynn was up for the challenge. He donned a pair of overalls, gloves, boots and bee veil. Then he and his Grandad disappeared for the morning, returning later in the day with a heavy load of honey supers in the back of the ute.
They were carted around to the rear of the house and quickly stacked in the garage. Already the local bees were honing in on the honey, hoping to pinch it for their own hives. The garage door was closed to keep the bees out.
This is where money lessons for kids become very real. Flynn was not just talking about business. He was helping collect the product, understanding the effort behind it and learning that profit starts long before anything is sold.
For families in Western Australia interested in bees and beekeeping, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has useful information about beekeeping in Western Australia.
Extracting the Raw Honey
Flynn slotting the honey combs into the honey extractor.
Extracting the honey from the honey combs.
Grandad sliced the caps off the honey combs with a hot, special-purpose electric knife and Flynn slotted them into a honey extractor.
The extractor uses centrifugal force to extract the honey from the combs. It was Flynn’s job to spin the extractor, which proved to be a lot of fun. Although everything nearby became sticky with escaping honey, including Flynn!
Preparing the Honey for Sale
Checking the temperature of the honey.
Yummy raw honey — a great enterprise venture.
Flynn’s brother Jai, and a family friend Jack, stopped by to lend a hand. Many hands made light work and before long, after warming and sieving the honey, it was sealed into 10kg buckets.
Angry bees do not take too kindly to people robbing their hives. It was pretty amazing that Flynn managed to do all this work without getting stung. His Grandad and Dad were not so fortunate though!
A Big Investment and Money Lessons for Kids
Enterprising Flynn paid cash for 80kg of honey from his Grandad. He loaded it all up in our car to take it back to his home.
It was a large investment for a twelve-year-old and Flynn, knowing its value, took great care to ensure that the honey was well sealed and cushioned for the long trip home. He did not want it spilling, nor did he want any ants finding their way into his containers.
This was one of the most important money lessons for kids in the whole project. Flynn had to understand cost, risk, value and responsibility before he even made his first sale.
Filling tubs with Grandad.
Flynn wanted to sell his honey at retail. He had done his research and found that honey generally sold in shops for around $12 or $13 a kilogram.
He had a unique product. It was tasty, raw and full of enzymes, which are generally destroyed during commercial pasteurisation processes.
Learning About Presentation and Retail Value
Flynn had also searched online for plastic honey pots. We discussed with him that people would pay a premium for his product if it looked professionally bottled and was not sold in recycled jam jars.
New plastic honey pots were not cheap. The larger the order, the better the price.
Flynn made his order over the phone and bought five hundred 500ml pots. These were delivered by mail within a few days, arriving in a massive cardboard box.
Flynn ordered honey jars and lids.
…ready to be filled.
So now he was all set to go with his Enterprise for Kids project. He had his honey and honey pots and had spent every cent that he had.
It was a huge investment and Flynn had no choice but to make it work. He had overcome fear and had taken a calculated risk with his business. All he had to do now was bottle, market and sell his honey.
And this will all be revealed in a later blog!
Flynn’s Honey Business Series
This article is Part 2 in Flynn’s honey business series, a family enterprise story about money lessons for kids, family business ideas, product value and learning by doing.
These posts show how family enterprise stories can teach children lessons that are hard to learn from theory alone.
Key Takeaway: Money Lessons for Kids Need Real Experience
Key takeaway: Money lessons for kids become much more meaningful when children handle real products, make real decisions and take real responsibility. Flynn’s honey investment gave him practical experience with cost, risk, quality, presentation and enterprise.
Where to Next?
If you enjoyed this part of Flynn’s honey business story, you may also like:
Family business ideas can start with something simple, practical and close to home. For Flynn, that opportunity came through raw honey, a family connection and a very enterprising plan that helped him learn real money lessons.
This is the beginning of Flynn’s honey business story — a family enterprise project where he learnt about opportunity, product value, buying wholesale, selling retail, confidence and taking action.
Flynn — a budding young entrepreneur with a family business idea.
Family Business Ideas: Flynn’s Honey Enterprise Begins
Flynn is a natural budding young entrepreneur and he is never afraid to chase an opportunity. He often comes up with brilliant enterprising ideas, and the idea he planned to take on with Enterprise for Kids was a definite money spinner.
Why Family Business Ideas Need a Different Money Mindset
Prior to us starting Enterprise for Kids, our children were following the same conditioning around money that we had: earn money, spend money, borrow money. Society encourages this greatly.
Whilst many people may not see anything wrong with this, many of us actually spend far more than we have coming in. The cycle never gets broken, and by the time we reach retirement age, we have very little to show for the many years of hard work we have put in.
That is why building an entrepreneurial mindset is so important. Breaking old conditioned habits is even more important. The younger you are, the less conditioning you have.
So while we want to develop in our children a great work ethos — working hard and with integrity — we also want to help them move beyond that. We want them to learn how to spot an opportunity, take action and then help others achieve success as well.
This system moves a person from being the worker, to seeing an enterprising opportunity, to switching on their entrepreneurial self, to finally becoming the expert in their field.
This is exactly why we care so much about raising entrepreneurial kids and helping them learn through real-life projects. Family business ideas give children a safe, practical way to begin that learning at home.
Entrepreneurial Thinking Behind Family Business Ideas
An entrepreneur’s focus is in the development of a great system and finding great people to run it. They use other people’s time and other people’s money to do the work for them.
Their systems can continue even after they pass from this world. A classic example is Thomas Edison’s formula for General Electric. He is no longer with us, but his empire continues.
That is one of the powerful lessons behind family business ideas. Children can begin to see that a business is not just a product. It is also a system, a process and a way of creating value for other people.
A Queen Bee Is Entrepreneurial
Enterprising Queen Bee.
A Queen Bee most definitely comes under the bracket of entrepreneur. She controls her entire empire from within her hive.
Thousands of honey bees — the workers — head out of her hive each morning collecting nectar, pollen and other resources for the hive, such as water. The worker bees will risk life and limb and literally work themselves to death. A worker bee only lives a few weeks.
The Queen Bee will have employees whose main job is to guard the hive from danger. Others clean the hive and many fan the hive to keep the temperature controlled. The queen will have workers who care for the nursery and for her own needs.
All she has to do is eat and lay eggs!
A beehive is a unique system consisting of many specialised individuals that each have a job to do. The system performs like it is one large living organism. If the Queen dies, then she will be replaced by another Queen Bee, the workers keep working and the hive goes on.
Not a lot different to General Electric, Apple or Ford Motor Company!
Flynn’s Honey Family Business Idea
Flynn negotiating a honey deal with his Grandad.
So what has Flynn’s idea got to do with a Queen Bee?
Flynn’s enterprising idea has everything to do with our Queen Bee and her empire.
In fact, his plan was to use her company’s product: honey.
Flynn intended to buy raw, unprocessed honey at wholesale in bulk and sell it in smaller jars at retail. He worked out his figures and could see excellent profit potential.
Once his business got underway, he could also see the potential for it to grow quite substantially.
This is one of those kids business ideas that starts small, but teaches a lot: product value, buying wholesale, selling retail, confidence, negotiation and understanding profit.
Why Raw Honey Was a Clever Family Business Product
Seeing as we are on the topic of honey, I thought I would share a few facts about honey, and in particular raw, unprocessed honey.
Raw, unprocessed honey is pure, natural, unpasteurised and unadulterated. It is extracted from the beehive in its natural form and bottled. It is not filtered or heated.
Unlike many processed honeys, raw honey can retain more of its natural qualities from the hive, including pollen, propolis, minerals and flavour.
Mmmm… appears to be a fantastic product!
For Flynn, the clever part was not just that honey was useful and delicious. The clever part was that he could understand the product, buy it in bulk, bottle it in smaller jars and sell it in a way that made sense to customers.
That is why this became such a useful example of family business ideas in action. It was simple enough for a child to understand, but rich enough to teach real lessons about value, pricing, supply, confidence and profit.
Flynn’s Honey Business Series
This article is Part 1 in Flynn’s honey business series, a family enterprise story about family business ideas, product value, money lessons and learning by doing.
These family enterprise stories show how children can learn by doing, rather than just being told about business, money and opportunity.
Key Takeaway: Family Business Ideas Can Start Small
Key takeaway: Family business ideas do not need to be complicated. A simple product, a real opportunity and a child willing to take action can become a powerful lesson in entrepreneurship, confidence and money.
Where to Next?
If you enjoyed Flynn’s honey business story, you may also like:
So, what do you think? Is Flynn onto a real Enterprise for Kids success story? Follow along with the blog to see how he goes.
In our next blog, you’ll be inspired by another budding entrepreneur, four-year-old Chayse, as he showcases his business idea. It is as sweet as Flynn’s enterprising ideas!
