In Their Own Words: 2017 National Youth Entrepreneurs of the Year Share Lemonade Day Lessons Learned
By Steven Gordon, Lemonade Day National President
You may already know that Hailey Hertzman and Katie Vonder Haar are our 2017 National Lemonade Day Youth Entrepreneurs of the Year. These young ladies, who are 12 years old now, participated in Lemonade Day in Louisville, Kentucky, last May. Both Hailey and Katie, along with their parents, were guests of honor at the “Business Startup Challenges and Youth Entrepreneurship Opportunities” Executive Briefing in Washington, D.C., last month. Lemonade Day co-hosted this inaugural event at Gallup World Headquarters. Before an audience of about 75 adults and two other youth, Hailey and Katie eloquently shared lessons they learned through their Lemonade Day experience.
What follows is an excerpt from Hailey and Katie’s presentation – in their own words!
Hailey:
We would like to share some of what we learned through Lemonade Day and how we approached the experience which led to our National Youth Entrepreneur Award. To begin, we created a business plan and set some goals. We learned that a business plan is important because it prepares us for everything we needed to help make our business successful.
Next, we worked on coming up with a fun and interesting name. We chose "Tropical Tiki Hut" because it sounded happy and tasty.
Then we came up with a design and a slogan. Our slogan was, "A smile in every sip". We then researched a great location, where many people would be.
We went to Kroger grocery near our home. We wore our matching tropical outfits, and talked to the manager Tom. At first, Tom wasn't interested in the idea, but after educating him on the spend, save, and share benefits of Lemonade Day, he agreed to let us put the stand in his store. We were excited that we could talk him into letting us use his store.
Katie:
Kroger was an awesome location because it was a high traffic grocery store, and many people we knew lived nearby. We told a lot of people ahead of time, and were happy that we had a location that was convenient for everyone. You know what they say in business…. Location, location, location.
Next, we experimented with Lemonade recipes, because if you don't have a great product, you can't have a great business. We tested many different ingredients. Some were too sweet, and some were too sour. When we finally decided on a delicious recipe, we felt it would be a hit, but after pricing out the ingredients we learned we had to reduce the cost of our lemonade or we wouldn't make a profit. We could do this, and still have awesome lemonade.
Hailey:
By far, the best part of our Lemonade Day experience was the wonderful feeling we got from donating $330 to Cedar Lake Lodge (a facility for disabled adults in Louisville). Through our moms, we arranged a visit to Cedar Lake Lodge and got to meet many of the nice residents who lived there. We brought lemonade for the staff, and they loved it! It made us feel so good that we could help the residents due to our hard work and our successful lemonade stand. We were even honored at Cedar Lake Lodge’s annual gala last November and got to go on stage. We were so glad to help so many people through our donation. We were also thrilled to make a $100 donation to our local Lemonade Day chapter and be recognized at our local Chamber of Commerce’s annual entrepreneurship event.
Katie:
Lemonade day taught us so much about starting and running a successful business. We learned that even if you have a great product with low expenses to maximize profits, you still must work hard to sell your product. We also learned that being an entrepreneur is hard work, but in the end, it is worth the effort. But best of all we learned that we loved working together and making joint decisions.
Most importantly, we learned that giving back to those less fortunate really is important and it does feel great!!!
Hailey:
We are excited for other kids, just like us, to also have this opportunity. The experience is so much more than just selling lemonade – it teaches kids about all aspects of business, how to run finances, and how hard work pays off. We hope this is the first of many big things for us as partners, and hope that Lemonade Day has a great year!
Thank you for giving us this opportunity!!
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Lemonade Day works. Hailey and Katie are proof of that. I am proud and honored to know these girls who are ambitious, poised, well-supported and much loved by their parents and other caring adult mentors.
Lemonade Day absolutely wants and needs more Haileys and more Katies – and more “all in” parents like Alan and Michelle Hertzman and John Vonder Haar and Libby Gray.
Please get involved now – as a mentor, volunteer, sponsor or City Champion. I invite you to join me in the process of inspiring young people today to become business owners of tomorrow. I welcome your questions and your comments. Please feel free to email me at steven@lemonadeday.org.
Thank you for your support!
About Lemonade Day
Founded in Houston in 2007 by Michael and Lisa Holthouse, Lemonade Day is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching every child across North America the business and financial skills that are the key ingredients of entrepreneurship. By learning these skills early in life, children will be better prepared to be successful, financially healthy adults. Through our fun, hands-on program, kids K-5 are empowered to start their very own business—a lemonade stand—and experience the feeling of earning real money, using 100% of their profit to spend, save and share based on their own goals.
Lemonade Day is hosted in 66 territories in North America and growing. Over the past 10 years, we have served more than 1 million kids in our kid entrepreneur programs.
Visit LemonadeDay.org to learn how to participate in Lemonade Day in your city or to donate locally or nationally.
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By Steven Gordon, Lemonade Day National President
You may already know that Hailey Hertzman and Katie Vonder Haar are our 2017 National Lemonade Day Youth Entrepreneurs of the Year. These young ladies, who are 12 years old now, participated in Lemonade Day in Louisville, Kentucky, last May. Both Hailey and Katie, along with their parents, were guests of honor at the “Business Startup Challenges and Youth Entrepreneurship Opportunities” Executive Briefing in Washington, D.C., last month. Lemonade Day co-hosted this inaugural event at Gallup World Headquarters. Before an audience of about 75 adults and two other youth, Hailey and Katie eloquently shared lessons they learned through their Lemonade Day experience.
What follows is an excerpt from Hailey and Katie’s presentation – in their own words!
Hailey:
We would like to share some of what we learned through Lemonade Day and how we approached the experience which led to our National Youth Entrepreneur Award. To begin, we created a business plan and set some goals. We learned that a business plan is important because it prepares us for everything we needed to help make our business successful.
Next, we worked on coming up with a fun and interesting name. We chose "Tropical Tiki Hut" because it sounded happy and tasty.
Then we came up with a design and a slogan. Our slogan was, "A smile in every sip". We then researched a great location, where many people would be.
We went to Kroger grocery near our home. We wore our matching tropical outfits, and talked to the manager Tom. At first, Tom wasn't interested in the idea, but after educating him on the spend, save, and share benefits of Lemonade Day, he agreed to let us put the stand in his store. We were excited that we could talk him into letting us use his store.
Katie:
Kroger was an awesome location because it was a high traffic grocery store, and many people we knew lived nearby. We told a lot of people ahead of time, and were happy that we had a location that was convenient for everyone. You know what they say in business…. Location, location, location.
Next, we experimented with Lemonade recipes, because if you don't have a great product, you can't have a great business. We tested many different ingredients. Some were too sweet, and some were too sour. When we finally decided on a delicious recipe, we felt it would be a hit, but after pricing out the ingredients we learned we had to reduce the cost of our lemonade or we wouldn't make a profit. We could do this, and still have awesome lemonade.
Hailey:
By far, the best part of our Lemonade Day experience was the wonderful feeling we got from donating $330 to Cedar Lake Lodge (a facility for disabled adults in Louisville). Through our moms, we arranged a visit to Cedar Lake Lodge and got to meet many of the nice residents who lived there. We brought lemonade for the staff, and they loved it! It made us feel so good that we could help the residents due to our hard work and our successful lemonade stand. We were even honored at Cedar Lake Lodge’s annual gala last November and got to go on stage. We were so glad to help so many people through our donation. We were also thrilled to make a $100 donation to our local Lemonade Day chapter and be recognized at our local Chamber of Commerce’s annual entrepreneurship event.
Katie:
Lemonade day taught us so much about starting and running a successful business. We learned that even if you have a great product with low expenses to maximize profits, you still must work hard to sell your product. We also learned that being an entrepreneur is hard work, but in the end, it is worth the effort. But best of all we learned that we loved working together and making joint decisions.
Most importantly, we learned that giving back to those less fortunate really is important and it does feel great!!!
Hailey:
We are excited for other kids, just like us, to also have this opportunity. The experience is so much more than just selling lemonade – it teaches kids about all aspects of business, how to run finances, and how hard work pays off. We hope this is the first of many big things for us as partners, and hope that Lemonade Day has a great year!
Thank you for giving us this opportunity!!
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Lemonade Day works. Hailey and Katie are proof of that. I am proud and honored to know these girls who are ambitious, poised, well-supported and much loved by their parents and other caring adult mentors.
Lemonade Day absolutely wants and needs more Haileys and more Katies – and more “all in” parents like Alan and Michelle Hertzman and John Vonder Haar and Libby Gray.
Please get involved now – as a mentor, volunteer, sponsor or City Champion. I invite you to join me in the process of inspiring young people today to become business owners of tomorrow. I welcome your questions and your comments. Please feel free to email me at steven@lemonadeday.org.
Thank you for your support!
About Lemonade Day
Founded in Houston in 2007 by Michael and Lisa Holthouse, Lemonade Day is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching every child across North America the business and financial skills that are the key ingredients of entrepreneurship. By learning these skills early in life, children will be better prepared to be successful, financially healthy adults. Through our fun, hands-on program, kids K-5 are empowered to start their very own business—a lemonade stand—and experience the feeling of earning real money, using 100% of their profit to spend, save and share based on their own goals.
Lemonade Day is hosted in 66 territories in North America and growing. Over the past 10 years, we have served more than 1 million kids in our kid entrepreneur programs.
Visit LemonadeDay.org to learn how to participate in Lemonade Day in your city or to donate locally or nationally.
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