What Even Is a Kidpreneur? (Spoiler: It’s Way Cooler Than Being a Regular Kid)

<protagonist age="9" name="Mikaila Usher" tag="bee-lemonade-founder"> Let’s start with the story that’s probably already floating around your TikTok feed, but maybe you didn’t know the whole wild backstory: 9-year-old Mikaila Usher didn’t just decide one day to sell lemonade because she wanted extra cash for candy. Two years earlier, she’d been stung by a bee twice in one week, and her grandma gave her a glass of her secret-recipe lemonade sweetened with local honey to make her feel better. While she was sipping it, she watched a documentary about how bees are disappearing super fast because of pesticides and people cutting down the flowers they eat. The documentary said if all the bees die, we won’t have strawberries, apples, or even almonds to eat, because bees are the ones that pollinate all those plants. Mikaila thought that was the stupidest, most fixable problem ever, so she decided to sell lemonade to raise money to save the bees. </protagonist>

<protagonist age="12" name="Maddie Bradshaw" tag="pet-bandana-founder"> Then there’s Maddie Bradshaw, who was 12 when she saw a news segment about a local animal shelter that didn’t have enough money to buy toys or beds for the dogs and cats waiting to be adopted. Maddie loved drawing, and she had a bunch of old bandanas her mom had bought her that she never wore. She thought, “What if I draw cute pictures on these bandanas and sell them for dogs to wear? I can give all the money to the shelter.” She drew her first bandana in 30 minutes: a cartoon pizza with googly eyes, because her dog loved stealing pizza off the counter. She wore it to the park with her dog, and three different people stopped her to ask where they could buy one. That weekend, she set up a little table at her neighborhood’s weekend farmers market, and sold all 10 bandanas she’d made for $10 each. She gave every penny to the shelter, and the shelter posted a photo of her donation on their Facebook page. By the end of the month, she had 200 orders, and she had to ask her mom, her little sister, and two of her friends from school to help her draw the bandanas. She’s now 17, her business makes over $200,000 a year, and she’s donated more than $80,000 to animal shelters across the U.S. </protagonist>

<kidpreneur-example age="10" name="Ryan Kaji" tag="toy-review-founder"> You might have seen Ryan Kaji’s toy review videos on YouTube—he started making videos when he was 7, reviewing toys he got for his birthday, and now his channel has more than 30 million subscribers. But what most people don’t know is that when he was 10, he launched his own line of toys and snacks, called Ryan’s World. Last year, his brand made over $250 million in sales. That’s more money than most small businesses make in 10 years. And he still goes to school, plays video games, and has sleepovers with his friends. </kidpreneur-example>

<kidpreneur-example age="7" name="Moziah Bridges" tag="bowtie-founder"> Then there’s Moziah Bridges, who started making bow ties when he was 7 because he thought the ones at the store were boring and ugly. He used fabric his grandma had left over from sewing projects, and taught himself to sew by watching YouTube videos. He started selling them at his grandma’s yard sale, and soon people were ordering custom bow ties from all over the country. When he was 11, he was invited to the White House to meet President Obama, and he gave the President a custom bow tie. His business now makes over $1 million a year, and he donates part of his profits to teach other kids how to sew. </kidpreneur-example>

<kidpreneur-example age="13" name="Ella Dawson" tag="eco-straw-founder"> Or 13-year-old Ella Dawson, who was watching a documentary about sea turtles with her class, and saw a turtle with a plastic straw stuck up its nose. She found out that Americans use more than 500 million plastic straws every day, and most of them end up in the ocean, hurting animals. She decided to make biodegradable straws out of cornstarch, which dissolve in water and don’t hurt animals. She started by selling packs of 100 straws to her classmates for $2 a pack, and soon the whole school was buying them. She got a local factory to help her make the straws in bigger batches, and now her straws are sold in over 200 schools across the U.S. She’s donated more than $50,000 to ocean cleanup groups, and she’s only 15 now. </kidpreneur-example>

Wait, so what even *is* a kidpreneur, anyway?

Let’s cut through the fancy jargon: a kidpreneur is just a kid (that’s you, whether you’re 7 or 17) who uses their ideas, skills, and passions to build something that helps other people *and* makes a little (or a lot) of money. You don’t need a fancy office, a business suit, or even a driver’s license to be one. You don’t need to drop out of school, or work 12 hours a day, or have your parents give you $10,000 to start. <myth content="Only grown-ups in suits can run businesses" busted="true"> Let’s bust the biggest myth right now: *only grown-ups can run businesses*. That’s 100% not true. The examples above aren’t special “genius kids” who are different from you. They’re just regular kids who saw a problem they cared about, tried to fix it, and didn’t let adults tell them they were “too young” to do it. Mikaila got rejected by 10 different grocery stores before one agreed to sell her lemonade. Maddie’s first day at the farmers market, only 2 people stopped at her table. Ryan’s first 100 toy review videos only had 10 views each. They all messed up, a lot, before they got good at it. </myth>

You don’t even need to make a million dollars (or even a hundred dollars) to be a real kidpreneur. If you sell the drawings you make of your friends’ cats for $1 each, and use the money to buy cat food for the stray cats in your neighborhood? You’re a kidpreneur. If you make custom Minecraft skins and sell them to your classmates for 50 cents each, and use the money to buy your little sister a birthday present? You’re a kidpreneur. If you help your neighbors walk their dogs for $5 a walk, and save up to buy a new skateboard? You’re a kidpreneur. The only rule is that you’re making something that helps someone, and you’re getting better at it as you go.

Why would I want to be a kidpreneur, anyway? (Spoiler: It’s way better than just being a regular kid)

You might be thinking, “Why would I want to do extra work after school? I already have homework, and soccer practice, and I want to play Roblox with my friends.” Fair question! Being a kidpreneur isn’t about working all the time. It’s about having *more* control over your life, and getting to do cool stuff that most kids don’t get to do. Let’s break down the best perks: <perk-list> 1. You get to buy the stuff you want, without asking your parents for money Remember when you wanted that new Switch game, or that limited-edition Nike sneakers, or that concert ticket, and your parents said “we can’t afford that right now”? If you have your own kidpreneur business, you can earn that money yourself. And the best part? You get to decide how to spend it. No one can tell you you can’t buy that giant gummy bear or that stack of manga if you earned the money yourself. 2. You get to fix problems you care about Most kids don’t get to decide what problems they get to solve. At school, you have to do the math problems the teacher gives you, or the science project the curriculum says you have to do. But as a kidpreneur, *you* get to pick the problem you want to solve. If you care about stray cats? You can make cat toys and donate the money to the shelter. If you hate that your little sibling always loses their stuffed animals? You can make stuffed animal tags with their name and your phone number on them. If you think school lunches are gross? You can make healthy snack packs and sell them to your classmates (check with your teacher first, obviously). The problems you solve don’t have to be “big” like saving the bees. They can be as small as making