Budding Entrepreneur — A Story to Help Children Discover Entrepreneurship
The new movie Champions featuring a team of athletes with special needs reminded me of a book I have to offer to parents and teachers — it's free and I've included it here.
This is the backstory of why I wrote the book.
Way back in 2012, my kids were aged 7 and 4 — old enough to begin learning about something I feel is important — entrepreneurship.
Why? Because I believe that entrepreneurship is more than just running a business. Entrepreneurship is a mindset that empowers individuals to take control of their own future and helps them realize personal goals and objectives. It's about freedom, lifestyle, self-confidence, family, community, and more.
I wanted my children to discover this mindset.
At the time, I had already created a number of entrepreneurship education resources that were used in thousands of schools around the world — including software simulations and a board game. But these resources were better suited for teenagers and adults — my kids were too young.
I thought a book might be the best way to start. So I looked for a very simple book I could read to them or that they could read themselves. A book that would help them begin to discover the entrepreneurial mindset as early as possible.
But I couldn't find one.
I found a couple of books to help kids start lemonade stands, but the content was too specific and detailed. (By the way, a lemonade stand is a great learning experience for kids — I highly recommend it.)
It's said that necessity is the mother of invention, so I wrote my own book.
A friend and talented photographer (Wendy Gouthro) had recently taken photos of my children and I felt that I could easily repurpose those for a simple book (but I changed their names since it's a work of fiction). Custom illustrations would have been great, but I just wanted something quick and easy.
At the same time, on-demand print publishing was starting to get popular, so this project would also help me test out that service.
Within a few weeks, my first (and only) children's book was born — Budding Entrepreneur.
I gave the ebook away for free on the Apple iBookstore app. I posted it there hoping that others may find value in it. I never paid much attention to it, but I just checked the stats and it's been downloaded 5,600 times — not bad.
With the subsequent popularity of self-publishing, I'm sure there are many more entrepreneurship books now available for young children — if you know of any good ones, please share them in the comments below.
To make my book more accessible, I just converted it to a PDF and you can get it for free here — GoVenture.net/be
I hope you may find it helpful. And, if you're wondering why a movie triggered me to share this post, you'll have to read the book to find out.
The entrepreneurial mindset is one of the most meaningful gifts we can give to the world.
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I'm Mathew Georghiou and I write about how games are transforming education and learning. I also share my experience as an entrepreneur inventing products and designing educational resources used by millions around the world. More about me at Georghiou.com