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author
Jennifer Wallis
Since age 8 I’ve been figuring out ways to make money. On the weekends I’d pedal furiously to the playground at my school and come up some pretty remarkable ideas.
But that was 40-some odd years a...view moreSince age 8 I’ve been figuring out ways to make money. On the weekends I’d pedal furiously to the playground at my school and come up some pretty remarkable ideas.
But that was 40-some odd years ago, and back then I didn’t know how to turn those ideas into reality—although it never stopped me from trying, and to this day I love hearing about the tenacity and straightforward approach of a young child’s entrepreneurial spirit.
When other girls were reading Nancy Drew my reading repertoire consisted of the who’s who of marketing and direct mail. Around age 10 I was already discussing home business models with my parents and buying real estate courses with my savings. I remember the feeling of sheer terror when I went to purchase my first business license at age 12.
My daughter was 4 years old when I caught her following in her mother’s footsteps—pulling out a chair and large table, she was eager to sell our household knick knacks for 5 bucks to passersby on the road in front of our house. Not able to convince me that she was old enough to require an allowance, she already possessed the problem-solving ingenuity of a biz-kid and apparently the financial sense that buying low and selling high substantially fattens up a piggy bank.
My daughter and I have all the typical traits of a entrepreneurial personality: We are high energy and strategic smart, and I haven’t counted lately but I’m sure we have 16 of the 20 signs of the CEO moods. We are passionate about everything and anything, possibly a little headstrong, certainly we prefer to lead than follow, but overall I’d give us a “10” for being charming and delightfully colorful.
Actually it’s our experiences as mother and daughter that are why we wrote this book and founded BizBee’s Kids Club. BizBee’s is a place where enterprising kids and their parents can build businesses from scratch, find friendships with people who think like they do, as well as cultivate business partnerships with other colorful kids who also have a deeply entrenched entrepreneurial spirit.
My daughter and I know that children have the right to flourish with a sense of belonging, acceptance, and confidence in themselves and their abilities, and to use their gifts as god had intended.
My daughter and I created BizBee’s and are writing this book of experiences as a way to prove all that.view less