Entrepreneurial Beginnings

I’ve always considered myself to be an entrepreneurial type of person. I have a passion for watching business grow and finding ways to make organizations stronger, more efficient, and more successful. While driving to a meeting across the state a few days ago, I began thinking about my first entrepreneurial experiences. I find these experiences now to be amusing and thought they might be something to share that others might enjoy.

My first business experience that I can recall would be in elementary school, probably around 4th grade. As a child, I always enjoyed drawing mazes – often quite elaborate and complex. I used to draw these and give them to people. So, as a child I determined this is something I could do to make money. I put together a book of mazes of all different difficulty levels, designs, and types. I talked with the son of the local grocery store owner who was a fellow classmate about making copies of the book and selling it in the store. Unfortunately, this plan didn’t make it far as I determined it wasn’t feasible due to cost for copying plus the cut that the store owner’s son required.

My next business venture proved more successful. In middle school, I opened a candy business at the school. The business actually began somewhat by accident. I saw a student who charged another student to borrow something, and decided to make a point to him. So, the next day I brought in candy and when he asked for a piece, I said sure – but it would be a quarter. To my surprise, he accepted the offer, and a few other students sitting nearby accepted the offer as well. Seeing an opportunity, my business began. The business lasted only a few months before my family relocated, but was highly successful. I would purchase candy in bulk, set the price for each type, and sell it to students during class. I carried a money envelop where I stored the money received from sales, money to make change, and the credit slips. Each of my “customers” was extended a credit limit based on how reliable they were with paying me back, and credit balances were due at the end of each week. In addition to the credit policy, I set other policies – such as a replacement policy that would replace the candy if it was confiscated by the teacher during class. I calculated and tracked the gross sales and profit nightly and kept books showing how well my business was doing. Although the business only made a few dollars a day, I was on top of the world and thought I was loaded.

After my family moved, I undertook a “construction” job for my parents. My parent’s new property had a creek that ran across the back of the property. The creek was eroding the bank, and had cut into the hillside about 15 feet. So, my parents made an offer that if I would dig an area for the creek in its original spot, they would pay $20. Thinking this would be a project that would take countless hours as the new path would be around 50 feet long, and would need to be dug fairly deep and wide, I declined the project. Thinking about that tremendous “contract price”, I went back to evaluate again the next day. I noticed that, although the new creek bed was lower than the original path, there was a high spot between the original creek bed and the current bed. So, I let my parents know that I would accept the offer and went to work. I dug out a few feet at the beginning of the old creek bed, and used the dirt to make a damn in the creek. The damn caused the water to pool, raising its level to the height of the original creek bed, and the section I dug out routed the water into the original path. The slope of the land forced the water into the original bed. So, after only one hour of work, I collected my $20 payment. Years later, the “Thornton Canal”, as I named it, is still holding strong.

Over my childhood years, I had a few other business ventures, but, these are the most amusing that come to mind. Creating a maze book, running a classroom candy business, and building the “Thornton Canal” won’t exactly propel me to the cover of Fortune magazine, but are certainly a fun early start to a business career.