How did you raise money when you were kids? A stereotypical answer would probably be setting up a lemonade stand right?  Well, I’m not one for the “when life gives you lemons…” cliché, but I’d like to share a personal experience with you about my childhood ambitiousness that might surprise you at how young an age the entrepreneur can come from. The first story is set during elementary school, when the Gameboy Advance had become old news, but the first Nintendo DS’s were trending. There were cliques of gamers all over campus, hiding in the library or behind some bushes, playing during class time, or even while they were using the toilet. I thought to myself “Man, if only I could afford my own Nintendo, then maybe the neighborhood kids would want to be my friends.” Well although my parents were in the situation to buy me one, I declined the offer because I simply refused to be in someone else’s debt by that time. So what did I do? I gathered all my available funds, which amounted to thirty-three dollars and eleven cents, which was far from being able to buy a DS. That’s when the idea struck me! When I approached one of the many gaming cliques on campus, I observed a very interesting detail. Then I went from one assembly of gamers to another until I confirmed a pattern. I thought, “Wow, those guys sure do play a lot. I wonder how long their batteries can last. Maybe…!?” And lo and behold, an idea was born!

Then, it was just a matter of waiting. The next time my mom said that she was going shopping and asked whether I wanted to tag along, the plan was set in motion. Right after the grocery store, I asked if we could go by RadioShack. When she said yes, my heart lost its rhythm. I jumped out of the car the moment the vehicle had come to a complete stop and looked at the chargers’ section. And there it was, a Gigaware DS charger, which would set me back only $24.97!!! So why was I so happy? I had observed that not a single one of those kids in the gaming cliques brought their own chargers to school. Why? They all said about the same thing. “My mom doesn’t let me, she says I’ll lose it” or “I don’t like bringing it, it gets all tangled and stuff” or even “When mine dies, I just like watching other people play.”

So my idea was to bring the newly bought charger to school and rent it out during recess and lunch. You see those Recharging Stations at the airport now, I’m pretty sure I was way ahead of its time. You should have seen the glittering sparkles in the eyes of those boys. They all agreed that for this act, I had been promoted to “commander-in-chief”, our elementary school boy hierarchy for most respectable friend. When it came down to business, I told them that one person could use the charger at a time for the rate of a dollar an hour, which would have been a horrible rate had it been accepted because mid-day recess was only 30 minutes long and lunch with a 15 minute recess was an hour long total. Thankfully, the boy’s couldn’t afford it because they used most of the money they held onto to buy lunch and snack bar refreshments. Though disappointed at the time, I re-evaluated my strategy and declared that a quarter would get any one person a five minute recharge. With that, I was in business! Conveniently for me, the school had external power outlets all over campus and coincidentally, all of the boys had settled around at least one of them. As I sat around finishing up any excess homework that I had and then starting on the next week’s assignments, my glasses would reflect the light of a few shiny quarters. I would bubble with glee every time the chink of a coin would sound every so often. Thinking that my new rate had ruined me, I was astonished by the weight of the plastic collection jar that I had set in front of me. When I peered inside, I felt faint. In just a single recess, I had earned my first dollar and fifty cents. I followed through with my “vending” until the end of the day, and with something to show for it. Not only was I now a week ahead of my class’s intended schedule, but also I had earned four dollars and fifty cents in one day. I continued this routine for the rest of my elementary school days. I paid off the expense of the charger in eight days. When I was finally able to afford my beloved DS, something else caught my eyes. It was the Gigaware multi-charger, with four DS charging cables, a PSP charger, an iPhone 3G charger, and the best feature of all, a lightning adapter, which could fill all four DS at the same rate. It shouldn’t be hard to guess what I used my small fortune to buy. This is the first of my series of stories. The question is could you have done the same?