Tomorrow's Entrepreneurs

Yesterday at the market a group of kids who I would estimate to be around 10 years old approached my table tentatively with clipboards. It isn't every day that you see tweens carrying clipboards, so I asked if they were doing a scavenger hunt, which is not uncommon in the market. "No, we are from Bellevue Christian School and we're doing an economics project. We're going to create a market so we came here for ideas."

"That sounds like fun!"

"Is this your business?" the girl asked, gesturing to the soaps.

"Yes, it is," I replied.

At this point, the chaperone said to the girl in a stage whisper, "Ask if she has time to answer some questions for you."

"Yeah, um," looking down at her shoes, "do you have time to answer some questions?"

I made a big point of looking around to see if I was busy, and since I wasn't, volunteered myself as an interview subject.

"Okay," the girl started. Even though there were two boys with her, she seemed to be the designated spokeskid. "How did you start making soap?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story, so I'll tell you and you can write down whatever parts of it you like," I began. "My husband, who is an artist" I gestured to his artwork for sale on the adjacent table, "and I used to make things for people for Christmas gifts.  One year we made candles.  Another time we made pasta.  We gave people homemade barbecue sauce once.  We decided we wanted to make soap, but thought it was too hard, so I took a soapmaking class and really enjoyed it.  I realized you can be very creative with it, and it's a lot like cooking, which I really love to do."

At this point, a woman approached the table and began looking at my wares.  My little group of students stepped politely to the side, sniffed some soaps, browsed Scott's work, and talked amongst themselves while she picked out gifts for her family.  When she left, the girl posed the next question: "Who are your customers?"

"Well, did you see that lady?  She is pretty typical.  Mostly women buy from me because they're typically the ones who like good-smelling stuff.  And a lot of people come to me when they are buying gifts."

"How did you decide what price your soaps would be?"  Boy, these kids are astute!

"That is a very good question!  I took two main points into consideration: how much they cost me to make and the price of other soaps."

"Thank you for taking time to answer our questions.  I really like this soap, can I buy a bar?"

"Sure thing!  Good luck on your project."