A Hot Day for a Five-Year-Old Capitalist

When I was a kid (this will date me for sure), I played a text game on our Apple IIc called Lemonade Stand. The goal was, of course, to run a lemonade stand and earn as much money as possible while still factoring in such crazy variables as whether it was sunny, cloudy, or raining, how much you spent on supplies and advertising, and such. I was likely only about ten or so at the time I played it, but it didn't take me too long to suss out that Lemonade Stand was the result of a rather lazy programming effort. There were certain key numbers that would guarantee you a maximum pay out. It wasn't random at all, but tied to a specific algorithm that had its golden inputs. The number 53 sticks out in my mind. I'm pretty sure that's how many cents you charged on a sunny day. Any more or less would result in sub-optimal profits.

Later, I got to put this little nugget to good use when my homeroom at school had a Lemonade Stand playoff (this was when computers were still so novel that it was considered good for you to play games on them during school). I took first place by a rather astounding margin as I recall.

By contrast, when I was a girl scout, the inevitable time arrived when I had to sell girl scout cookies. The point was to sell enough to attend girl scout camp--about $75 worth, I think. Now, girl scout cookies are ridiculously easy to sell. People love them. Post a girl scout cookie order form in any office lunchroom and it'll be full by the end of the day.

I sold a couple of boxes to my parents, and some to the neighbors across the street. I think, in the end, I made about $15 total. My dad rather generously made up the price difference so I could actually attend camp. If you're reading this, thanks Dad.

The moral of these stories, I suppose, is that I eventually went into computer science, not business. Algorithms make sense to me. Attempting to get actual people to purchase an actual product doesn't.

Which is why I got a thrill of trepidation today when Thomas declared out of the blue that he wanted to have a real-life lemonade stand.

I'm not proud of it, but I actually tried to talk him out of it. We didn't have anything to make lemonade, and the day was very cloudy (subpar profit margin!), even though it was warm and humid. Also, I felt self-conscious, the same way I felt approaching people for their money when I was a girl scouter. Friends and family: no worries--I will never become one of those people who market random products to their harassed loved ones. You are safe.

But Thomas, good for him, was adamant, so we headed for the store and bought up nearly all their teeny bottles of lemon juice (you know the obnoxiously small lemon-shaped ones). At home, Thomas helped me mix the sugar, lemon juice, and water into something resembling a tasty drink and together we decorated a blue poster board that stated "Lemon-Ade 25 cents". Then we dragged out an old table from our shed, rinsed two hundred spiders and their egg sacs off it, and put up the whole operation in our frontyard.

To get my Bub started, I gave him two quarters, one for me and one for him, so we could each drink a glass of our own product (Future entrepreneurs, take note. This is good business practice). Also, it helps to have a little money in the money jar from the start--then people think that someone else has already vetted your merchandise.

For about fifteen minutes, many cars passed, but we had no action. Thomas started out thrilled at his adventure in business administration, but soon became despondent. "No one wants my lemonade," he said, lower lip making a bit of a quiver. Just as despair was setting in and Thomas was asking that we start going door to door and asking people to buy it, we landed our first customer. A woman in her late fifties was crossing from the Acme parking lot just a little down the street to our table! "My husband gave me this quarter and asked me to get some delicious lemonade from that handsome boy here," she said. I helped Thomas pour and he eagerly presented his money jar for payment. Hearty thank-yous were exchanged around and she went back across the street.

The elation lasted another twenty minutes or so before once again Thomas decided the business was a failure. No one else was stopping. I urged him to give it a little more time and that selling stuff often meant sitting on your heels for awhile, but eventually he crawled into my lap and said he wanted to go inside. I said okay, and he disappeared into the house while I started to clean up the table. Just then, a van pulled into our driveway. A woman popped her head out the window. "Is your little boy still selling his lemonade?" she asked. I called Thomas back outside who looked like he might give her a big sloppy kiss. She gave him a dollar and bought two cups, telling him he could keep the change.

After that, the customers just started to flow. "Maybe you're getting excellent word of mouth," I told Thomas, who studied me in confusion, but didn't ask me to elaborate. Several bike-riders stopped by. A man in a business suit stood in our front yard to drink his lemonade, declare it "excellent", and say he just couldn't resist a little kid trying to make a buck. We served our final two drinks to a beautiful couple in a brand-new BMW that glided, shining, into our little gravel driveway like Apollo's chariot arriving. The driver also gave Thomas a dollar and told him to keep the change. Thomas has no idea what that means. I would have had a much harder time trying to get him to actually return any change.

In the end, he pulled in almost four dollars with his little lemonade stand operation and was an electric bundle of entrepreneurial spirit as we headed into the house. Later, after Thomas had decided--wisely, perhaps--to infuse his cash back into the economy rather than risk losing it in the market, we headed to Target, where he started out wanting several bouncing balls, but eventually settled on a Milky Way bar and some Sour Patch Kids. I wondered if he would notice how long it had taken him to earn the cash versus just how quickly he could spend it, but he didn't say anything. Finally, I asked, "I hope that you're happy with what you bought with your hard-earned profits?"

He said, mouth full of caramel, "Oh Mommy, I really am."