We all passed by lemonade stands growing up, set up either in front of supermarkets, or malls, or around the corner from our homes. Kids were entrepreneurs-in-training while proud moms and dads were looking over their shoulders to see how they performed trying to make the sale. It was supposed to teach youngsters the valuable lessons for making a sale and earning a profit. Yeah, you are in business!
Although occasionally you’d still see the familiar stands, in our days kids are interested in more exotic lines of business, apps, computer games and… slimes, yes slimes! My 12-year-old has taken over an entire closet which she transformed into a storage vault with add-on shelves to store endless plastic containers of various sizes, all filled with all kinds of regular and other exotic colors of… slime. With these come supplies of “cotton candy” and numerous other artificial jewelry like emblems and stuff to imitate cactus, Boba drink balls, “crystal waters’, “pizza heart”, “cactus cereal”, “fruit salad”, even “Winnie the Pooh” or poopsie slime surprise unicorn, whatever! I am like speechless, I feel like I’ve been thrown inside a super slime simulator. Of course any respectful business would have the appropriate video de slime collection, hence her endless time of videotaping everything on the iPhone. Finished products are in plastic jars so deliciously looking that many times I found myself grabbing one of them from the kitchen counter to eat, only realizing the last minute this thing can really kill you if eaten!
I said “hey lill lady, what’s you doing with all these stuff”? In the beginning the answer was: “I am making them to give away to my friends”. OK, no big deal. But after a while, when I realized I am spending some bucks on the monthly basis for these stuff, I said “what’s up”? To which she replied: “Oh, I started a slime company, I am going into slime business”. I said, “ok, like how”? Well, wouldn’t you know, she had a… website already at this business outfit called Etsy (never heard of it). I said why not Amazon or Google? She said those cost money, Etsy is very-very cheap.
I said, ok lemme see your website. Boom: bit.ly/CosmaSlimes. I said wow, how old are you again? I said, Oceana, I am very impressed! You know, at your age, I didn’t even think they were computers out yet, or they were the size of this closet, but you, out of your lap top doing all this, impressive! I got a “duh” response. Before I even questioned her about her “traffic” and stuff, she says: “I have 3 sales already”. I am thinking – Get out! You mean I don’t have to spend all that money for your college? Yeah, I can finally buy that Ferrari! She says, not so fast dad, it’s only $27 something. Yeah, but pumpkin, if you can make 3 sales, you can make 30, then 3,000, then 3 million, the sky is the limit! Ok, you get the point. I already feel like the time I got reincarnated as a slime!
The important lesson from all this is that she is learning about business, marketing, marketing analytics, profits-loss, etc. On top of this, she is learning about how to optimize her website traffic, about coordinating activities that can direct traffic to her site. She learned that me writing this article will further direct traffic to her website as I am referencing her link here and throwing high traffic key words I picked up from Google Insights all over it.
I am thinking, what is the potential for this person to succeed in business? I emphasize to her it is all up to her, it all depends on the effort she puts in, the energy and enthusiasm, discipline and willingness to listen and learn and apply her learnings to her business. Some of these learnings will spill over to her everyday life and relationships.
In the end, one thing is for sure: you can learn a lot by learning how to make slime: learn about, success and failure, about family and life itself. Good luck little girl. Glad to see you really like lemonade as well.
Signed: Your dad – who loves you baby?