Childrens business ideas and dreams

I love the spark and enthusiasm of children. The ideas they come up with that they believe just can’t fail. I’m not sure that N’s latest ideas are that realistic for a 9 year old and his friend to make their millions. If they weren’t children and didn’t need the outlay at the start, and didn’t have competition, then maybe it would be a goer. But…

My brother was just the same when he was a child. He and his friend used to get up to lots of get rich quick schemes like garage sales and making a go kart vehicle to try and sell.

N’s ideas are a bit closer to home. Usually when he wants to earn some money he just does extra chores for additional pocket money. But this time he’s been discussing business ideas with his friend at school.

With both living on farms, they’ve been chatting about having a farm shop out of a container. N decided he wanted to do bacon butties for customers that he’ll cook. They’ve decided there’s customers because at his friends there are workshops and people coming in and out through the year.

I’m not sure they’ve really understood how many customers they would need, as well as the logistics. Cooking needs food safety checks which I doubt a child would get. If they were cooking they’d need an adult with them as they’re only 9.

A farm stand would be feasible if they did opening times, or had a stall with an honesty box. But then I had to ask where they were getting the meat from.

N had it all worked out as his friend’s there are sometimes pigs. He’s imagining that they can make sausages from them (err, freezer storage?). He also announced that he could have a pig too, and then decided he wanted chickens too. I don’t think he’s noticed that we’ve an egg farm up the road who sell eggs direct to customers tpp. So I’m not sure there’s much of a market for more sellers too.

He even drew out a diagram of how they were going to set out their shop. The 2 of them have obviously discussed it quite a lot.

I guess my job is to help them channel their ideas into something feasible that’s not going to be lots of outlay, but still make them a bit of pocket money. As well as them being able to do the work outside of school.

So any ideas for little businesses that farm children could start are welcome.

What kind of business ideas have your children dreamed up over the years?