Entrepreneurial Skills for Your Kids

Children are told many things on a daily basis.  Too many. Sit up straight. Chew with your mouth closed. Say “please” and “thank you.” Often, they’re so busy listening to the boss, or facing the consequences for not, that they don’t learn to be their own boss.

If you think your kids aren’t fantasizing about calling the shots for once, you’re dreaming. The sweet independence of being your own boss is what entrepreneurship is all about. That’s why kids and entrepreneurialism is such an excellent match. It practically comes natural to them

But, like learning to tie their shoes or to ride a bike, when it comes to fostering your children’s entrepreneurial spirit, they’ll need a guiding nudge here and there from you. From coaching them to see obstacles as opportunities, to -- sorry, kids -- making them stick to their chores, from letting them play (aka learn) to their hearts’ content, to encouraging them to voice their opinions, there are lots of things you can do to get your kiddos on their autonomous way. Who knows? Like my mother-in-law, you could one day end up calling them boss.

To help you help yours, here’s an adorably illustrated list of eight key entrepreneurial skills you can teach your little ones, while they’re still little enough to listen to you. This info graphic comes to us by way of Pumpic, a Tel Aviv-based startup that makes Smartphone-monitoring apps for bosses, er, parents.

Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Business

Starting a business begins with filling a need and building credibility, but the factors that go into making your business a smashing success don’t stop there. While the barriers for setting up a company are low, the majority of people starting an online business fail largely due to mistakes that seem obvious in hindsight. Such as overestimating profits or trying to be too many things to customers from the onset.

Money

Be optimistic -- just not about money. “There’s a very good chance that your company will run out of money before it makes any,” cautions Tobak. “Know how much cash you’ve got to run your business, what your burn rate is and make sure that you have a plan to try to get more before you run out.”

Customer service

With so many of our business transactions happening over the Internet, it’s easy to forget that customers are people who are way more likely to return to your website if they have a good experience.

Plan

You don’t need to have a formal business plan -- but you still need a plan. “People regard the business plan as homework they don’t want to do but planning helps me -- whatever my success is,” says Tim Berry, chairman of Palo Alto Software, which produces business-planning software and author of The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan

Early hires

Entrepreneurs rush the hiring process to quickly fill positions in order to scale their business. But by going down this route, founders run the risk of issues down the road, including a mismatch in skill set and business needs, a personality that doesn’t bode well with the culture or a lack of commitment to the company’s mission.

Social Entrepreneurship

Any definition of the term “social entrepreneurship” must start with the word “entrepreneurship.” The word “social” simply modifies entrepreneurship. If entrepreneurship doesn’t have a clear meaning, then modifying it with social won’t accomplish much, either.

Even with these considerations, we believe thatappropriating entrepreneurship for the term social entrepreneurship requires wrestling with what we actually mean by entrepreneurship. Is it simply alertness to opportunity? Although these and other behavioral characteristics are part of the story and certainly provide important clues for prospectiveinvestors, they are not the whole story. Such descriptors are also used to describe inventors, artists, corporate executives, and other societal actors.

Writing a century later, Austrian economistJoseph Schumpeter built upon this basic concept of value creation, contributing what is arguably the most influential idea about entrepreneurship. Schumpeter identified in the entrepreneur the force required to drive economic progress, absent which economies would become static, structurally immobilized, and subject to decay.

Entrepreneurs are believed to have an exceptional ability to see and seize upon new opportunities, the commitment and drive required to pursue them, and an unflinching willingness to bear the inherent risks.

Building from this theoretical base, we believethat entrepreneurship describes the combination of a context in which an opportunity is situated, a set of personal characteristics required to identify and pursue this opportunity, and the creation of a particular outcome.