Entrepreneurship

I think money is kind of awesome. It is something that I like receiving, that I enjoy spending, and that I don't particularly have a lot of. God bless America.

Growing up, too, I always had a little predilection for more Benjamins. Not to say that I was a little capitalist, but I did get excited at the idea of earning money. Sort of. For me, it was the opportunity to craft a new business. I loved writing out business statements, designing logos and ad campaigns, working out the logistics of who my target audience was (ie- my family.) I liked charging people for services, and developing a long list of things that I would buy. But aside from a new puppy, which I have asked for every year since I was two, there wasn't much that I actually needed or even wanted. I was in it for the whole experience, the entrepreneurship, in the very essence of the word.

You name it, I tried to sell it. I guess not much has really changed. My older sister and I talk about selling our homemade cards online, and I still tell my twin sister that when she becomes famous I will assume the role of her manager. With a 20% cut. (Because good work costs good money.)

Over the course of my childhood, I started several businesses. I had a dog walking business and a dog washing business (for after the dog was walked). I had a business where, if you were lonely, you could rent my stuffed animals. I dubbed that business "Rent a Pet," as I preferred the simple, straightforward approach. Like every little girl who grew up on the Babysitter's Club Series, I had a whole slew of babysitting services, though I don't recollect actually babysitting any children. I'd like to believe that this was not due to my babysitting skills.  I have notebooks and notebooks full of business models and their affiliated logos, which my mom has been prompting me to throw away for years. But how can one throw away such tangible evidence of ambition? One cannot. (or so I tell myself.) So the notebooks stay.

I had some less run-of-the-mill businesses as well. I was a commissioned bracelet maker for my sisters' various boyfriends and older friends. (Bless their hearts.) I had a maze-designing enterprise for small rodents, the gerbil and hamster set, that I designed and sold to other students before science fairs and such. (As this was through school, I couldn't legally receive any payments- but oh, there was many an extra cafeteria cookie in my day.) I sold erasers and pencils at my elementary school's yearly fair, something I looked forward to with relish every September. Even now, when I come across a container of eraser caps for pencils at Staples, I still get a little excited about the profit possibilities. Think of it- each eraser cap costs 15 cents, but to make it only costs a penny or less! That's a huge profit margin! But then I have to remind myself that after one has hit their twenties, maybe they should become a little less focused on school supplies. At least in public.

My favorite business, though, was having a lemonade stand. From June to August my sisters and I could be found camped out in front of our house behind a proud sign that read "Hancock Road Lemonade Stand." Perhaps you've heard of us. We decorated the poster ourselves, and with some cups, a table with chairs, a super legit metal box for making transactions, and even a few bracelets and beaded safety pins (which everyone did in the mid 1990s!) we had a solid business.

The Lemonade Stand was ridiculously lucrative. Aside from nearly all of our neighbors who probably were guilted into buying a drink, there was a woman  that would drive by and leave huge amounts of money in exchange for her one cup of lemonade. We're talking ten and twenty dollar bills, huge cash for an elementary-schooler. No lemonade in the world is worth that much money, but especially not ours; I remember my dad coming out and trying some of the lemonade during one of our outings. He said it was so bitter he had to spit it out. I guess we had mixed up our ratios or something; we were only in elementary school. But that woman came every summer and always drank the whole cup.

I'm not even sure how she initially found out about us, or how anyone not a neighbor or related found us. We lived on an extension a road, a roadlet really. My road was an afterthought to the real Hancock Road. But somehow we made a huge amount of money in the summertime. It was kind of awesome. Whenever I see a lemonade stand today I try to leave a goodly amount of money for the kids to get excited over. But I don't really see beaded safety pins for sale anymore, or else I would totally buy those. I guess I just had that market cornered.

Years later my family moved across town to a bigger house on a busier street. Though I thought I may be a bit too old for the Lemonade Game, I clearly remember weighing the possibilities of hosting a lemonade stand at our new house versus not having one. I heavily weighed in on the pros side. Maybe I wasn't as cute as a six year old, but I had a better business sense after all my previous business ventures. The road had way more traffic, and an infinite more amount of thirsty foot traffic. That first summer was also packed with record highs and humidity. And, most importantly, I was very confident in my ability to make less bitter lemonade, as the passing of years brought math skills and a better sense of proportions. But my twin wouldn't do it with me, and I was too nervous to do it alone. This is probably for the best: I was thirteen. But I still might have done it. And I would have been laughing all the way to the bank.

I wish I could still just make a business like this nowadays. How many people would laugh at me if I were to sell lemonade at the end of my busy road in Boston? How many people would buy it? While swine flu precautions would make a lot of people hesitate, I think the odds are good that I would be able to find that one woman who would drink the whole cup and leave an absurd amount of money. Maybe people would take pity on me for being young and unemployed. I'm still kind of cute. And I make a pretty decent cup of lemonade.