Kids' Business Plan

My kids are working on their business plan today. They are creating a business to sell their drawings. My 9 year old son is the artist and my 7 year old daughter is the manager.

They have developed a product pricing scheme based on the medium of the drawing (crayon is less expensive than marker). We have talked about target markets and means to reach those markets. With a little bit of guidance and some leading questions, they are developing a pretty solid marketing plan for the business.

They rejected the ebay store because they don’t think strangers would purchase any of the drawings. I did convince that we could post the pictures on the internet (website or blog with a unique domain name pointing to it).

We even talked about licensing and royalties and how it affects the creative choices made in developing artwork. My son can still draw a picture of Mickey Mouse, but if he wanted to sell it, he would have to pay the Walt Disney Company a royalty. The kids did not like the minimum advance paid against the contract, especially if they didn’t sell as many drawings as expected. They didn’t think that was fair. I told them that was business.

Watch this space for more information about their business.