Entrepreneurial nostalgia from childhood

ArrowFlyer86

ArrowFlyer86

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The Little Arrow That Could
Sorry for the memory flashback... But when I was a kid (around like 9ish to 16) I used to operate a little business doing chores to make money. For each of the seasons I had a service that I would do: summer was mowing lawns/weed pulling, fall was raking leaves (the worst), winter was shoveling snow. I'd make simple flyers with comic sans font and microsoft clipart graphics (thanks clippy!) and put them in any mailboxes within a several block radius. That was my only way to make money when I was younger. I have almost entirely fond memories from those days.

Fast forward... Recently, after getting a ridiculously high quote from a landscaping shop for some spring cleanup work, my girlfriend mentioned that I should just hire a neighborhood kid to help with chores. The reasoning is that if I paid them even 1/3 of what the landscaping shop wants they'd be able to live like a king for the summer and would be motivated to do a good job.

That made me realize something: since moving out to the suburbs a few years ago I haven't had a single kid knock on my door or drop off flyers or anything to try and drum up some business. And it's left me wondering, is that not something people encourage their kids to do anymore? I get more professional pamphlets in the mail than I know what to do with, big shops offering all kinds of services, but there's a conspicuous shortage of entrepreneurial businesses from local youth.

So anyways that's just made me curious... Do kids still do that these days? Or did that whole thing die off in the last 20 years? Or do I just live in a weird suburban area that's an outlier?
 
Yep ... they put up a website, link up all the social media outlets, print some glossy flyers & business cards, put a bit of graphics on a pick-up and call it a pro-business ... and I guess it is. Then send in their little brother to mow & blow while they edge and collect the money.

I remember, many moons ago, printing cassette labels with a Commodore 64 that had (wait for it) two floppy disk drives! Took all day to set it up and all night to print it.
 
I started working summers in 1997 when I was going into 3rd grade. 3 bucks an hour pulling weeds and breaking down skids. All our neighbors had 5 acre lots with long driveways so raking leaves and shoveling snow wasn't gonna happen after I did ours.

My tenants oldest son seems enamored with my zero turn and been contemplating how old before he could run it under my supervision.
 
Daleandee said:
Yep ... they put up a website, link up all the social media outlets, print some glossy flyers & business cards, put a bit of graphics on a pick-up and call it a pro-business ... and I guess it is. Then send in their little brother to mow & blow while they edge and collect the money.

I remember, many moons ago, printing cassette labels with a Commodore 64 that had (wait for it) two floppy disk drives! Took all day to set it up and all night to print it.
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Wow. How did I not know they all migrated to social media to advertise their businesses... I guess I'm still thinking in the stone age here.

I've only heard of the legendary Commodore 64, never seen one. My first computer was a Packard Bell Legend 386 (16mhz I think?). It had a 3.25floppy and a 5.25floppy (I hated those bigger disks). I had to wait a while longer until our Dell 133mhz with clippy arrived on the scene!
 
Also a lot more activities are expected of kids to climb the schooling latter, especially in affluent areas or families with heavy focus on education. Gotta do those music lessons, prep classes, gifted and talented program to get into the Honors/AP/IB classes in freshman year of high school. Once in HS gotta do all sorts of stuff to build the college application. If you want a shot at the top schools, activities and academic prep becomes a more than full time job.
 
Well some of them affluent families ain't letting little Johnny ... excuse me I meant Johnathan, cut no grass with a mower. He might be the CEO of the Landscaping business but that's as close to real work as some of them are gonna get. It's the old white collar vs blue collar thingy ... :)
 
my theory is that some of the kids that did that back 20 years ago, today are driving around pulling trailers full of huge zero radius turn mowers and all sorts lawn cutting equipment doing it as a business. There are so many lawn companies around here anyway, some middle or high school aged kid pushing around dad's mower doesn't have a chance.

And the other thing....kids today in big part don't do stuff like they did back in my day. They don't go places with their friends to spend money so there's no real motivation to earn any.
 
Most kids would rather work retail or fast food than push a mower. If their parents have a yard service, they probably don't even have access to the equipment to do it even if they wanted to, without dump at least a few hundred in to start. I mowed lawns/shoveled snow/helped my brother with a paper route and eventually did customer service stuff for a tv/audio repair shop in high school.

My older teen works several hours a week doing live sound and video system set ups and live streams. He also volunteers to do the same stuff for his school theater group and is learning lighting systems. He learned how to do this stuff mostly on his own, and is now considering a career in sound engineering and design. He makes very good money for a teen, and earns every penny because he's ridiculously good at it.
 
Grade school ...like 4th and 5th grade...there was a new construction development behind my house so during summer a buddy and I sat on one of the corners with a cooler full of cold water and sodas selling to all the workers...made a killing.

Now aways we have Karens calling cop on kids with lemonade stands cuz they don't have the proper permits. Kinda pathetic.

We also unfortunately also have a generation of parents that do have disposable income unlike previous generations and give kids inflated allowances vs making them go hustle for spending money....which leads them to just expecting a high paying career right out of college for just showing up to class...but that is whole nuther rant...
 
Back in my day, we did not have computers to print out flyers. We just knocked on doors trying to drum up business.

Then I found out I am allergic to certain grass, and being fresh cut made allergies much worse.

So I had a paper route instead. I made an average of 30 bucks a month, and saved enough cash to buy my first truck at 15. Which was a 4 year old Chevy for only 700 bucks. I ended up driving it for 18 years.
 
somewhere in this world, there is a 9 year old with a youtube/tiktok/insta who will tell you how to rake your own damn yard over the course of 10 video installments, and he is "raking" in ad revenue of many multiples of the thin ten you were gonna offer for the job, plus a sponsorship/placement deal from dewalt tools. :)

"like and subscribe" o_O
 
A few years ago a kid knocked on my door to shovel after a snowstorm. I couldn't help but wonder what his scam was. :skeptical:
 
Those kids have been replaced by adults who have industrialized these services.

I had a kid stop by once, he was hosting a concert a few blocks away and getting everyone's permission to avoid noise compliant laws.
 
Shawn said:
Now aways we have Karens calling cop on kids with lemonade stands cuz they don't have the proper permits. Kinda pathetic.
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You're not wrong about that! For instance this case was only about 40 miles away from where I'm at. I remember a business oriented lobbying group going ape-shi* over them shutting down the girls lemonade stand, so I ended up becoming a donor to them. Their whole rejection of it was that you're needlessly stifling creativity and entrepreneurial lessons for kids, and in the most dickish way possible (sending the police and health dept in right after the county newspaper just published a glowing article about how much the neighborhood enjoys her lemonade stand). The karens in this world are very real.

schmookeeg said:
somewhere in this world, there is a 9 year old with a youtube/tiktok/insta who will tell you how to rake your own damn yard over the course of 10 video installments, and he is "raking" in ad revenue
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I thought this comment was intended as hyperbole, but apparently you're not far off haha.

kaiser said:
Those kids have been replaced by adults who have industrialized these services.
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That's a little depressing to me! I'm going to hire professionals for technical work or stuff that needs to be done right (e.g., not hiring a 12 year old to work on my septic system lol). But when it comes to weed pulling and lawn mowing? I'd happily hire a neighborhood kid. If you just have a basic lawnmower and value your time lower than a professional landscaping firm, you can really undercut the competition. And it's really a commodity service assuming you exceed some minimum level of quality.

Zeldman said:
So I had a paper route instead. I made an average of 30 bucks a month, and saved enough cash to buy my first truck at 15. Which was a 4 year old Chevy for only 700 bucks. I ended up driving it for 18 years.
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I got a workers permit the day I was eligible. At that point I abandoned lawn mowing and spent the rest of my teen years working at movie theatres as a projectionist, and then a teller at a bank in college. Sadly I didn't buy my first car cash with the saved earnings. My first car was a used VW Jetta that was a touch over $17k... And that was my first introduction to what it meant to be "car poor".

Brad W said:
kids today in big part don't do stuff like they did back in my day. They don't go places with their friends to spend money so there's no real motivation to earn any.
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But how do you buy loot boxes in Fortnight, or new character upgrades in Minecraft uses unless you have $!? :eek:
But yes, I have heard of similar trends. Like teenagers no longer wanting drivers licenses because they don't go anywhere. My cousin falls into that camp and it still blows my mind. Just truly does not care about driving. Totally content at home with an iPad.
 
The culture of lawsuits stopped it. You used to be able to hire a kid to mow your lawn but now if that kid so much as sprains their ankle while mowing their parents are ready to sue you. It just isn't worth the risk anymore so you.either do the work yourself or you hire a licensed and insured company.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
You're not wrong about that! For instance this case was only about 40 miles away from where I'm at.
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While I support entrepreneurs, I probably want to buy my lemonade from someone who has both running water and sewerage at their place of “business”.
 
kyleb said:
While I support entrepreneurs, I probably want to buy my lemonade from someone who has both running water and sewerage at their place of “business”.
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I've bought food and drink from plenty of street vendors who had neither running water nor sewage at their place of business... But I get what you mean.
The family fell upon financial hard times and was using bottled water to make it.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
I've bought food and drink from plenty of street vendors who had neither running water nor sewage at their place of business... But I get what you mean.
The family fell upon financial hard times and was using bottled water to make it.
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How'd they clean the stir spoon? ;-)
 
We moved into this house in 2001. Since then I think I've had kids knock on the door with offers to shovel snow once. In fact, the last time is snowed more than an inch I was out shoveling the 6" of snow off the driveway when a group of 4 teenagers with shovels and a snowblower walked by. I'd have gladly paid them to finish the job had they asked, but they were apparently either done for the day or had enough money already and didn't need mine.
 
kyleb said:
How'd they clean the stir spoon? ;-)
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toddler-licking-wooden-spoon-18771063.jpg
 
DaleB said:
We moved into this house in 2001. Since then I think I've had kids knock on the door with offers to shovel snow once. In fact, the last time is snowed more than an inch I was out shoveling the 6" of snow off the driveway when a group of 4 teenagers with shovels and a snowblower walked by. I'd have gladly paid them to finish the job had they asked, but they were apparently either done for the day or had enough money already and didn't need mine.
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Or on their way to four other customers, they wanted to get done.

And, did you engage them?
 
I don't know about everything said already about the downfall of the young entrepreneurial spirit. In my neighborhood, we see it all the time. There is a team of two brothers that started a lawn business a few years ago and seem to have a lot of the neighborhood locked up. We are constantly seeing ads for pet walking, babysitting, car detailing, that kind of thing.

The thing is, though, the ads aren't being put on our door or our mailboxes. Thank goodness, that's a lot of wasted paper. And a pretty low return on advertising effort. Rather, they are advertising on the neighborhood social networks, AND through simple things like yard signs when they finish the job. And, of course, word of mouth, which is usually the best method anyway.

In addition, the HOA employs neighborhood kids for pool duty - cleaning it, adjusting the chemicals, etc. So, not entrepreneurial, but still a summer job.
 
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