Using Computers for Small Businesses for Kids

Today your kids want to run their own small businesses, and many do the same things you did. But they have a blinding business advantage you never had - the family computer.

Remember your business ventures when you were a kid? You sold lemonade at stands during the summer and whenever the neighbors held a yard sale. You often got quite reasonable terms from your supplier: “You promise to stay out of the house for two hours? Fine. What do you need?” You shoveled snow in the winter, babysat, cleaned houses or yards, washed cars or took on just about anything someone would pay you to do.

Today your kids want to run their own small businesses, and many do the same things you did. But they have a blinding business advantage you never had – the family computer. Not only can they keep much better records, but if your kids are techno-savvy they can greatly multiply their business opportunities. And unlike your brother did when you were a kid, the computer as a business partner won’t steal half the company profits.

Helping your kids run any kind of small business is a great way to teach them work habits and how to handle money for the rest of their lives. And helping your little ‘Netrepreneurs set up with the computer teaches them useful computer basics as well.

Following are some ideas for small businesses kids could run with the help of computers. Maybe these will suggest some ideas for your child.

Joe Panepinto, executive editor of FamilyPC, writes about a design and printing business eleven-year-old Cameron Johnson of Roanoke, Virginia, runs. Cameron uses his own PC (purchased with the profits from his three-year old company, Cheers and Tears Printing) to make color greeting cards, business cards and stationery, flyers, signs, birthday favors and custom calendars. Panepinto says there are plenty of products on the market to get kids started in this business, including Microsoft Publisher, PrintArtist 4.0, Print Shop Deluxe, and CreataCard Plus. Such programs can also enable kids to use their innate creativity to make to-go menus for local delis and restaurants, flyers for other kid businesses or personalized stationery.

If your kid really knows her way around the keyboard, she could do low-level computer consulting for people of all ages just getting to know computers. She could easily undercut local computer consultants for certain simple consulting gigs – and may even establish a long-standing clientele for later in life.

Jay Conrad Levinson, author of Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business, says kids have an advantage over established businesses by being able to undercut prices. He recommends kids use computers to create personalized gift certificates as unusual gifts, and recommends kids get used to giving unconditional guarantees with everything they sell or do to instill quality consciousness.

But if you and your kids can’t come up with any doable business ideas, try a widely-available computer program called Money Making 101. It asks 16 questions, and identifies ideal job and business choices for your kid. And the answers aren’t rigged – it will steer the child into non-computer jobs if that’s where his real interests lie. Then he could use the computer as a record-keeping aid, and even do simple spreadsheets.

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