25 years ago I walked into a classroom
of 15 year-olds and I gave them my pitch
I offered to help them start a business
but there was one condition
they all had to agree to work with me
and it had to be a unanimous decision
now I have no idea how this would play
out you see this was an experiment for
me and right here in the middle of the
room there was a boy and he was sitting
there and he was slouched down he was
clearly not interested in what I had to
say in fact at one point he sat there
and he said this is a waste of time why
bother
so I addressed him right head-on and I
said hey you know what this is a real
business you guys get to be totally in
charge
you're the decision-makers you get to
set your own goals and at the end you
get to keep the profits well with that
he sat up and I knew he was on board and
a week later when I came back he was
actually standing in front of the group
and he had the entire class
brainstorming they were coming up with
different marketing ideas and he was
leading the whole thing at the end he
had the highest profit now what was so
interesting was when I sat down later to
do a debriefing with the principal and
the teacher and they shared with me that
this was a boy that typically did not
participate in school in fact he rarely
passed in homework assignments he
frequently skipped classes and yet they
were fascinated by his level of
engagement and they wanted to know what
it was about this project that captured
his imagination entrepreneurial skills
when we think about what people need
today they need a strong set of
entrepreneurial skills and what I mean
by that is creativity critical thinking
problem-solving and communications and
but they're not enough skills are no
longer and we have to help people
develop young people develop an
entrepreneurial mindset now when we
think about the future it's really
important that kids today that they
they're flexible
and they're adaptable need to be able to
see change before it happens they need
to be able to identify opportunities and
have the confidence to move foot towards
them really what it's all about
is actually being able to be constantly
focused on growing and developing and
improving you see and I want to point
out right from the very beginning that
I'm not talking I'm not suggesting in
any way that everybody needs to be
entrepreneur what I am saying is that
young people today regardless of whether
they work for themselves and start a
business or if they work for an employer
what they need is a strong set an
entrepreneurial mindset that's going to
enable them to be successful an
entrepreneurial mindset is actually
critical to success in our rapidly
changing world so that brings us to an
important question and the question is
can an entrepreneurial mindset be
nurtured absolutely in fact as I started
specializing this area I realized very
early on that not only can it be
nurtured but it's important to start
young so I created a program and it's an
entrepreneur project for elementary kids
and for students between the ages of
nine and twelve to start their
businesses and they actually develop an
entrepreneurial mindset by launching a
business venture so they have to create
business plans they develop products and
marketing materials and at the end they
participate in a real-life event called
the young entrepreneur show it's like a
trade show they get to interact with
customers and they earn real money the
program is facilitated which i think is
the most powerful piece is that it's
facilitated by the classroom teacher and
it makes topics like math and English
language arts and social studies more
meaningful and relevant for kids it's
already reached about 40,000 kids and
I'm really excited to be able to share
some of their stories with you here
today now the idea of coming up with a
product to sell for real to customers is
incredibly exciting for kids and in fact
they take it very very seriously
sometimes the students will create
products that you know people enjoy
other times they go a little bit deeper
and they think you know what can i how
can i solve a problem or
how can I make a difference in the world
by creating a product Mimi is one of our
students that decided to come up with
this cat toy and a toy that looked like
a cat I should say and she took this two
materials a mock suede and a mock fur
she cut strips sew them together and had
a cat face at the front and a tail and
she really wanted to have a fun name for
this so she called them roadkill kitties
and if that wasn't enough she took a big
branch that had fallen from a tree in
her garden she mounted it on top of the
table and then she had all the products
hanging up here so as you walk by all
you could see are these feline creatures
like in dad at you and then she'd take
them down she was all about showmanship
so she'd take them down and lay one on
the arms customers would come up and the
customers would smooth it down and it
would roll up and Mimi's product came
alive the roadkill Kitty came alive
Mimi's business came alive and Mimi came
alive you see Mimi wasn't strong she
wasn't a strong academic student and yet
had perhaps the most successful business
in her class and what was so exciting
was that she was able to achieve that
success by showcasing her
entrepreneurial and her artistic flair
the product development stage is also
very powerful because students starting
to come up with an idea but then they
have to use market research they do
prototyping and then they get into
production so it's very rich with
learning opportunities Tyler was very
determined that he wanted to create the
sock puppet and he is just market
research to really perfect the design so
when he asked the question what color
would you like everybody see him teal
one of the options was tie-dye and
everybody seemed to pick that choice so
it was an obvious design decision the
problem he had though was when it came
time to pick the the hair at the top and
the tongue inside and there didn't seem
to be a general consensus in his survey
data so he really was unsure what to do
now he immediately went right to the
teacher and said hey what do I do about
this and the teacher handled
beautifully the teacher said you know
what toilet this is your business you
have to make that decision yourself and
you've got great creative and critical
thinking abilities so can't wait to see
what you come up with so Tyler left and
we weren't really sure how this would
play out and a couple of days later he
came back and he had a solution he
actually put a snap up here on the head
and a snap inside the mouth so these
pieces could be removed and then he made
a bunch of extra design so people could
come up to the table and customize their
puppets and he didn't stop there he
actually made a bunch of extras and sold
them as accessories and was able to
increase his profits substantially as a
result of his creativity what we've been
looking at here really is is some key
features and and the entrepreneur show
is what they're working towards so this
is the final sales event where they they
interact with the customers and it's an
incredibly dynamic so it gives the
students an opportunity to think on
their feet and even solve problems along
the way as they're you know using the
communication skills to kind of pitch
and talk to customers now is that an
event just a few weeks ago before the
holidays and there was a boy there and
he was struggling because he had a
really great product he made this really
cool Christmas ornament out of twigs and
string it was just beautiful but he had
them hanging on a tree
and they weren't selling so he came out
with me and he said you know I'm having
a problem and and I swell to step back
and just look at what your customers are
seeing and what he came up with was that
maybe the problem was that the
decorations were part of the tree and
they weren't actually for sale so he
decided to take one down and then he
just stood here talking to customers and
he said then I can bring him over and
show them the different designs I said
great give it a try so I walked around
the gym and as I was coming around the
corner and Luke says bill I've already
sold three and it's all they've been 10
minutes as I saw you now I am not
exaggerating it was that level of
intensity and what was so interesting to
be is as I was watching his face I had a
flash of a conversation I recently had
with a teacher and she said that if you
can't teach
pride with a textbook but you could
certainly see pride on Luke's face that
day what we've been looking at is the
process of learning and the idea of the
process of learning is so important here
and when we think back to that original
experiment that I had what was the
driving force there was truly the fact
that the kids were in charge they get to
make their own decisions and they're
learning or something that's real to
them and meaningful and that's really in
essence the whole driving force with
this project but what's ultimately
important is the fact that the kids are
actively developing core competencies
and these entrepreneurial skills that I
mentioned up front they're actively
developing them in order to achieve
success with their projects and in order
for all of this to work there's two key
features and the why first one is that
the students have to have a freedom to
make mistakes and so when we think about
entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is
actually messy there's no one path or
right answer so it's really important
that the students have the freedom to
explore and experiment and treat
mistakes simply as learning
opportunities the second is that
students need to have the chance to
really reflect on their experiences and
be able to identify and internalize you
know what they're learning so as an
example they start a business they know
they can say I am a business owner or I
am an entrepreneur because I did it or I
am creative because I solve that problem
so that self reflection stage is really
key because it gets them a chance to
really define who they are as
individuals so I want to give you a
couple of examples of how they reflect
on on their experiences so when asked
what did you discover about yourself
this young boy said I learned that I'm
far more creative than I thought it was
when asked what did you learn this young
lady said I learned that if you take
risk you will succeed and taking risk
means thinking outside the box so words
of wisdom from a 10 year old now the
next one is purely for fun and it's a
question we always ask and we get some
serious answers
and in this case what tip would you have
for other young entrepreneurs that are
just getting started and this young boy
said wear deodorant the actual statement
was wear deodorant the young
entrepreneurs get nervous the room gets
warm and you don't want to be stinky so
we've looked at the really the value of
the process of learning and now I'd like
to look into some broader benefits of
this entrepreneurial experience and the
first it set of shifts culture and I
really this really became clear to me
one year when I'm working one of the
teachers reached the 10 year mark and I
asked her I said what's the difference
between one year one and now and she
said in year one I asked my kids how
many of you think he can have a Bastardo
business and one or two hands went up in
your ched she asked the same question
and every hand went up now when she
asked them why they all agreed but one
of the students captured it best and she
said I went to my first entrepreneur
show in kindergarten and I've been
thinking about my products ever since
so the entrepreneurial experience it not
only helps them discover that
entrepreneurship is a possible career
option it also helps them realize that
there's more potential for them as young
people they can do things that maybe
they didn't realize they could before
the second benefit is that it is really
about unleashing potential and one year
I was working with the students in this
particular case this student I walked in
it was about two years ago and and his
name was Keegan and Keegan had what we
call we call him a soap guy actually
because he had this really cool soap
product and he was standing with poise
and confidence interacting with
customers and so on and when I asked him
why it was fun he said it's fun because
I get to be me and I looked over at his
mom and she was crying and I realized
wow there's more to this so when a few
months later he was actually giving a
presentation in front of a group of
educators and as he was standing there
he said school isn't easy for everyone
and he went on to explain that he has
learning disabilities and often
struggled with school so with this
project he said he could think outside
the box
and he discovered that
he was far more creative and he had more
talent than he realized before and he
was able to discover things and it gave
him high hopes high hopes think about
how many kids out there feel anxiety
about the future this project really in
helps them or this type of project
really helps them discover new potential
the entrepreneurial mindset also helps
kids spark leadership and really one of
the students this really I got a call
one day from on a Friday afternoon and
this was about a boy that had social
performance anxiety and mild autism and
he had a real challenge with speaking in
front of groups and in fact he had to
always give presentations one-on-one but
yet at his entrepreneur show he was
standing there calling people over and
he ended up selling out his product and
did tremendously well at the end of the
project his mom and mom said he was in
it to win it and what was so cool was
that he was able to really sell his
products and and interact with customers
and he definitely had a win with that
program one of the features that I
haven't told you about is that the
students donate 10% to charity and and
his class wanted to donate to the SPCA
but in his situation what he did was he
wanted to donate to a mental facility
that was just opening up it was a wing
of a hospital that was going to support
these kids with anxiety and so he went
in there and he stood up in front and he
asked if he could speak in front of the
audience now this is a boy with social
anxiety and he stood in front of the
group and he said he talked about his
entrepreneurial experience and he talked
about why this organization was
important to him and then he announced
he was donating 50 percent to charity
really when we look at this
entrepreneurial experience an
entrepreneurial mindset helps kids
discover that they can make the world a
better place it really helps them
discover that they can have careers that
are fulfilling a meaningful and and even
and be self-reliant it helps them to
discover their passions and their
talents and their interest and it helps
them discover that they can actually
achieve success not only in the future
but in school today one of our
entrepreneur
he had the severe behavioral problems
and would blow up every day in class he
would scream and shout and leave the
room and and so on and at the end of the
program he flourished and a year later
he came back and he had a gift for me
and he said what do you see and I said
there's three stones and they're smooth
or colorful and they're special and he
said I'm special too and that's how I
want you to remember me let's get out
there and help kids develop an
entrepreneurial mindset and let's help
them use their special talents to put
their mark on the world thank you very
much
you