Open for Business

Matthew had a great idea. Instead of having a lemonade stand, he wanted to sell french fries. I thought it would be a lot more work to cook and keep hot, but it was his idea and it was original.

He thought of it last Fall. Marc and Matthew built the stand and it sat in our garage until now. There was renewed interest in it this month, since we started teaching him to use his own money to buy toys.

He used his life savings (all the dollar bills in his cards over the years, etc) to buy his pirate ship. The pirate ship was a big purchase, after he went to buy it we informed him that he had enough for the ship but not the tax. Right away he wanted to know all about tax...what it was and why he had to pay it. He did a bunch of chores at home and earned enough for the whole thing.

While he was at the store buying the ship, he made sure to make note of the next thing he wanted. The Toy Story character, Woody. Why did they name a toy Woody? Now kids run around excitedly saying "I have a Woody". Anyhow, back to Matthew. Lucky for him Grandma knew about his venture into purchasing and gave him money at graduation. Still, he had to do more chores to have enough. So, back to work taking out the garbage and watering the plants. He was focused on the goal and he completed.

Realizing the potential of having control of his future toy acquisitions, it seemed that the sky was the limit. Whenever I go to the store, he wants to peruse the toy aisles searching for his next move. Knowing that he has very little left in the bank and that money from chores adds up very slowly, he quickly turned his attention back to his idea of a french fry stand. He opened for business this week and hired his sister as his assistant. Here is his 1st customer, our neighbor Cybele. He cleaned up with her. She bought 1 cup and then came back for another for her sister. Plus, she brought grapes for the workers to snack on during their busy day.

We all had a lot of fun with it. He definitely has a flair for business. He was having trouble flagging down the cars to get customers, so he thought about how he could get them to stop. His idea was to take the masking tape we had behind the counter and roll it out to the street. When the cars touched the tape it would pop their tires. Once stopped, they would look over and say "oh look, a french fry stand". Thus leading to increased traffic and sales. Once one car stopped there would be more behind it.

We've had all sorts of conversations about supply/demand, marketing and the like. At first he wanted to set the price at "all the money in your wallet". I couldn't change his mind so I let it play out. After the first customer, he realized that it didn't work very well and decided to charge 50 cents per cup of fries instead. The next day he wanted to raise the price. I explained that he could only do that if he had lots of customers. Otherwise, if traffic was slow, he'd have to lower it.

He got the concept right away. Later we were talking about how high gas prices are right now. He said to me that we should write a letter to all our aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas and tell them to only have one person at each gas station. He said, "that way the price will go down and down and down until it will be free". I like his idea! Who told him about chain/grass roots email? I held back on explaining subsidies, flat production and Israeli threats on Iran.