My First Business

I was talking to a friend about something related, then I remembered -- I actually created my own business in 4th or 5th grade... I forgot when exactly.. I think 5th, anyways here's my story.

My sister taught me how to make these awesome origami ninja stars, the material was pretty easy, basically 8 squares... could be any size, -- that was part of the awesomeness it was easily scalable. However they were only suitable for throwing at a small size, too large and it became floppy and not firm enough . Anyways I naturally showed off my ninja stars to my friends and they were a complete hit =D. Oh I forgot to mention you could "transform" them into octagonal discs... but they weren't as cool but that functionality was pretty awesome.

So you guessed it, I got the idea to start selling these little gems for 1$ a piece, for a 5th grader that was quite a bit of chump change. Paper was essentially free... just needed to cut, fold, combine, sell. A nearly 99% gross margin business, I guess there was also time, however I just did this during math lessons 'cuz I was way ahead of the curve anyways, so the opportunity costs were small as well. Eventually I was looking to expand so I hired some friends to help make and sell these ninja stars to their friends and family, and by hire I would give them a cut I suppose -- I don't recall ever handling out money to them tho lol... but my best guess is they just took the money themselves or something.

So what caused my downfall? Well it was actually a confluence of factors. First we severely lacked any competitive advantage... all that was required was paper, scissors, time, and knowledge of how to fold and combine the paper. So guess what happened? Some other boys in the class bought one and basically reverse engineered the product *cough* future Microsoft employees? *cough*. Competition... so what's left.. we're forced to compete on cost, and to be honest these other boys were more popular.. so if anything THEY had the competitive advantage ='(. So thus margins were dwindling. Second, as this was happening, there was a severe lack of sales, I saw this was happening so I took some preemptive measures to start deleveraging. I had to fire 2 of my 4 friends. So I did.. and guess what... I was accused of racism! I kid you not, in 5th grade.. accused of racism in firing. TBH I just picked my friends who I knew were the smartest/good kids like me... and I guess they were closer to me too.. so If anything I was doing nepotism not racism -- I swear! But b/c of this one of my other friends left too ='(, My empire was falling apart! Third, our teachers caught wind of these competing business' and the um... healthy competition... that was going on between them, I overhead this cuz I had to stay after school one time for doing something wrong.. insulting this taller girl who annoyed me I believe -- she insulted me back so we were both there. Anyways I was stereotypical "good" kid back then so I didn't want to get in further trouble so I decided to close shop and quit. I think this was a poor decision on the teachers' part as they should encourage/foster creativity and entrepreneurship =X. But anyways I was getting quite bored of it, and the market was becoming quickly saturated as these little ninja stars were easily reusable. The other "company" was also having problems and wanted my leadership by "merging" and so me and the other head would be "Co-Presidents", I declined, he offered me a position on top, I also declined... I just basically lost interest and didn't think there was any more money to be made, I never kept count how much we sold.. prob less than <30, but that was good money back then. And so ended my first foray into business.