An Unpopular Opinion About Lemonade Stands

My first entrepreneurial experience was running a lemonade stand. Anyone else?

They are the quintessential entry point into business creation and (if done properly) can teach important business lessons like product development, pricing for profitability, inventory management, sales, marketing, and more. In the Summer, I see children selling lemonade stand on almost every street corner, and I'm glad that their parents are supporting their entrepreneurial itch. But I am not a fan of the lemonade stand. Unpopular opinion, I know. But hear me out...

Most of us have bought a cup of lemonade from a cute kiddo peddling their lemony mixture. But, why? Because we wanted lemonade? Not likely. For most of us, it's because the sweet proprietors were adorable, and we want to support their creativity and entrepreneurial drive. But this is not the best way to do it.?

Lemonade stands don't teach kids to create something that customers actually want.?

Most businesses fail predominantly because there is no market need for their product or service. Customers simply don't want it. They aren't willing to pay for it. There's no demand. By purchasing an lukewarm cup of?(questionable quality)?lemonade (when there's another stand one street over, and another two streets down from that), we're failing to teach children how to actually think entrepreneurially.

When starting a business, you need to have something?that is filling an unmet need in the marketplace. You need to be solving some kind of problem for your customers or adding value in some way.?Are your customers even thirsty? If they are, do they want lemonade, or would something else be preferred? When they are so close to home, couldn't they have grabbed a drink before they left, or waited ten seconds to pull into their driveway to get something from their fridge??What is the real problem that a lemonade stand solves? What is the value-add? In this case, it's likely just creating a sense of "feel-good" for the person buying the lemonade. They don't care about the product itself, just the warm and fuzzies they get by giving a sale to a child. But that's not how the real world works. Customers won't buy your product just to see your eyes light up. Because in the real world, it's not about YOU as the business owner, it's about THEM as the customer. If they are spending their money, it's because what you have is something they actually want.

Moreover, in a neighborhood with five groups of children selling lemonade (or popsicles, or cookies, or Pokémon Cards... you get the gist), it is likely that none are learning (and certainly not practicing) the true magic of entrepreneurship.

My solution: Let's teach children to find problems in their neighborhoods that they can solve. What value can they create for others? How can they make someone's life easier?

I once heard a story about two young kids who lived with their family on a boat in a marina. There were two large dumpsters at the base of the docks where residents would have to drag their garbage (which often was heavy, smelly, and on a hot day, not very enjoyable of a chore). These two children posted flyers on each boat offering to pick up trash bags twice per week from the dock just outside their front door?for $2 per week. Not surprisingly, many of the residents in the marina signed up for their service. Every Tuesday and Saturday morning, the kids would pull their red wagon along the docks, stacking up garbage bags and depositing them into the dumpsters. They made enough money from that venture to put themselves through college. Now THAT is value creation.

These early entrepreneurial experiences don't have to be overly technical or complicated, but if we encourage kids to come up with a value-creating venture, we're positioning much more sustainable outcomes and reinforcing one of the most important entrepreneurial lessons: sell something that people actually want.