The Birth of a Business: A Modern Lemonade Stand

This weekend, we discovered that Principessa is more than a quirky kid with a passion for art. Principessa has a future as a business woman and entrepreneur.

It all started with our purchase of Rebecca Rubin, the American Girl doll earlier last month. It was on that day, that my little entrepreneur daughter was born.

Principessa has become just slightly obsessed with making money so that she can buy the various American Girl doll accessories all on her own (because as we explained to her, we bought her the doll. We will only buy accessories at birthdays or Hanukkah).  In the month that she has had the doll, she has already used money from her piggy bank to buy pajamas for her cherished doll.

But she wants more. She wants ice skates, a brush, dresses, and even Rebecca’s phonograph set.  She spent several weeks combing through the catalog to before she decided to buy the pajamas, and has been on an all out mission to make money ever since.

Some of the plans involved possible activities around the house, chores if you will, outside what is regularly expected of her, to help create income. Which really never took off as far as plans go. A lot of great talk, but very little action on any of our parts.  But last week, when she came home with her first semester art portfolio, she decided that this was her golden opportunity.

Turning her playroom into an art gallery, she filled the space with her masterpieces.   A modern lemonade stand if you will, except that instead of lemonade, she was selling art.

She used pieces of cardboard to create a store like area equipped with a cash register (aka shoe box) and art for purchase. She priced each of her items with a price tag and set out on the mission to convince her parents (Rocket and myself) that we should “buy” some of her art.

At first I thought, are you kidding? I love your art but there is no way I am giving you real cash for it. But the more I thought about it (and honestly, the pricing was very fair as far as art goes), I realized that my seven year old daughter has just created her own business. She used goods that she produced, independently, and wanted to sell them to consumers (even if they happened to be her parents).  Although I realize that essentially our purchases totaling $5.85 will be spent on the accessories (making it almost like we had bought the accessories ourselves), I realized that this was about so much more than buying overpriced accessories for a doll.

Principessa is proud of herself as an artist and she discovered a way, without any prompting, to creatively weasel some cash out of our wallets.  She applied her math skills to creating price points, and she thought about stylistic elements to create her gallery.

A mom cannot ask for much more. Truth be told, I would rather “pay” for art than for chores.  Chores that I would like her to do just because instead of because she is getting an allowance.

So yes, I bought a piece, her “house” for seven quarters. And Rocket bought her “cave art” for $4.00 AND a nature seen for ten pennies.  Feeling successful with these sales, Principessa smiled and happily counted her money before putting it in her piggy bank. It did not matter to her that we had not bought the most expensive items.  It was enough for her to feel like a successful business woman just to know that she developed a plan, carried it through, and actually generated income.

What gives you that “be enough” feeling?

Tagged as: Be Enough Me Monday, principessa