Lets raise kids to be entrepreneurs Cameron Herold
I would be willing to bet that I’m the
dumbest guy in the room because I
couldn’t get through school I started a
little school but what I knew at a very
early age was that I loved money and I
loved business and I loved this
entrepreneurial thing and I was raised
to be an entrepreneur and what I’ve been
really passionate about ever since and
I’ve never spoken about this ever until
now so this is the first time anyone’s
ever heard it except my wife three days
ago because she said what are you
talking about
and I told her is that I think we miss
an opportunity to find these kids who
have the entrepreneurial traits and to
groom them or show them that being an
entrepreneur is actually a cool thing
it’s not something that is a bad thing
and is vilified which is what happens in
a lot of society kids when we grow up
have dreams and we have passions and we
have visions and somehow we get those
things crushed and we get told that we
need to study harder or be more focused
or get a tutor and my parents got me a
tutor in French and I still suck in
French two years ago I was the highest
rated lecturer at MIT s entrepreneurial
master’s program and it was a speaking
event in front of groups of
entrepreneurs from around the world when
I was in grade two I won a citywide
speaking competition but nobody had ever
said hey this kids a good speaker he
can’t focus but he loves walking around
and getting people energized no one it
said get him a coach and speaking they
said get me a tutor and what I suck out
so his kids show these traits and we
need to start looking for them I think
we should be raising kids to be
entrepreneurs
instead of lawyers and unfortunately the
school system is grooming this world to
say hey let’s be a lawyer let’s be a
doctor and we’re missing that
opportunity because no one ever says hey
be an entrepreneur entrepreneurs are
people because we a lot of them in this
room who have these ideas and these
passions or see these needs in the world
and we decide to stand up and do it and
we put everything on the line to make
that stuff happen and we have the
ability to get those groups of people
around us and want to kind of build that
dream with us and I think if we could
get kids to to embrace the idea at a
young age of being entrepreneurial we
could change everything in the world
that is a problem today every problem
that’s out there somebody has the idea
for and as a young kid nobody can say it
can’t happen because you’re too dumb to
realize that you
figure it out I think we have an
obligation as parents in a society to
start teaching our kids to fish instead
of giving them the fish no parable if
you give a man a fish you feed them for
a day if you teach a man a fish you feed
him for a lifetime if we can teach our
kids to become entrepreneurial the ones
that show those traits to be like we
teach the ones who have science gifts to
go on in science what if we saw the ones
with entrepreneurial traits and talked
them to be entrepreneurs we could
actually have all these kids sprouting
businesses instead of waiting for
government handouts what we do is we sit
and we teach our kids all the things
they shouldn’t do don’t hit don’t bite
don’t swear right now we teach our kids
to go after really good jobs you know
the school system teaches them to go
after things like being a doctor and
being a lawyer and being an accountant
and a dentist and a teacher and a pilot
and the media says that it’s really cool
if we could go out and be a model or a
singer
sports hero like Luongo crosby our mba
programs do not teach kids to be
entrepreneurs the reason that I avoided
an MBA program other than the fact that
I couldn’t get into any excited a 61%
average out of high school and then 61%
average at the only school in Canada
that accepted me Carlton but our MBA
programs don’t teach kids to be
entrepreneurs they teach them to go work
in corporations so who’s starting these
companies it’s these random few people
even in popular literature the only book
I’ve ever found and this should be on
all of your reading lists the only book
I’ve ever found that makes the
entrepreneur into the hero is Atlas
Shrugged everything else in the world
tends to look at entrepreneurs and say
that we’re bad people I look at even my
family my both my grandfather’s were
entrepreneurs my dad was an entrepreneur
both my brother and sister and I all
three of us own companies as well and
and we all decided to start these things
because it’s really the only place we
fit we didn’t fit in the normal work we
couldn’t work for somebody else because
we’re too stubborn and we have all these
other traits but kids could be
entrepreneurs as well I’m a big part of
a couple organizations globally called
the entrepreneurs organization and young
presidents organization I just came back
from speaking in Barcelona at the YPO
Global Conference and everyone that I
met over there who was an entrepreneur
struggled with school
I have 18 of the 19 signs of attention
deficit disorder diagnosed so this thing
right here is freaking me out
it’s probably why I’m a little bit
panicked right now as other than all the
caffeine that I’ve had in the sugar but
like this is like really creepy for an
entrepreneur attention deficit disorder
bipolar disorders you know that bipolar
disorder is nicknamed the CEO disease
Ted Turner’s got it Steve Jobs has it
all three of the founders of Netscape
had it like I go on and on the kids you
can see these signs in kids and what
we’re doing is we’re giving them ritalin
and saying don’t be an entrepreneurial
type fit into this other system and try
to become a student sorry entrepreneurs
aren’t students we fast track we figure
out the game I stole essays I cheated on
exams I hired kids to do my accounting
assignments in university for 13
consecutive assignments but like as an
entrepreneur you don’t do accounting you
hire accountants so I just figured that
out earlier at least I can admit I
cheated in university most of you won’t
I’m also quoted weird and I told the
person who wrote the textbook I’m now
quoted in that exact same University
textbook in every Canadian University
and college studies in managerial
accounting I’m chapter eight I open up
chapter eight talking about budgeting
and and I told the author after they did
my interview that I cheated in that same
course and she thought it was too funny
to not include it anyway
but kids you can see these signs in them
the definition of an entrepreneur is a
person who organizes operates and
assumes the risk of a business venture
that doesn’t mean you have to go to an
MBA program it doesn’t mean you have to
get through school it just means that
those few things have to feel right in
your gut and we’ve heard those things
about is it nurture or is it nature
right is it thing one or thing to what
is it well I don’t think it’s either I
think it can be both I was groomed as an
entrepreneur when I was growing up as a
young kid I had no choice because I was
taught at a very early young age when my
dad realized I wasn’t going to fit into
everything else it was being taught to
me in school that he could teach me to
figure out business at an early age he
groomed us the three of us to hate the
thought of having a job and to love the
fact of creating companies that we could
employ other people my first little
business venture I was seven years old I
was in Winnipeg and I was lying in my
bedroom with one of the long extension
cords and I was calling all of the
drycleaners Winnipeg to find out how
much wood the dry cleaners pay me for
coat hangers my mom came into the room
and she said where are you going to get
the coat hangers to sell to the dry
cleaners and I said let’s go and look in
the basement and we went
the basement and I opened up this
cupboard and there’s about a thousand
coat hangers that I’d collected because
when I told her I was going out to play
with the kids I was going door-to-door
in the neighborhood to coat hangers to
put in the basement to sell because I
saw her a few weeks ago a few weeks
before that taking you could get paid
they used to pay you two cents per coat
hanger so I was just like well there’s
all kinds of coat hangers and so I’ll
just go get them and I knew she wouldn’t
want me to go get them so I just did it
anyway but and I learned that you could
actually negotiate with people this one
person offered me three cents and I got
him up to three and a half I even knew
at a seven-year old age that I could
actually get a fractional percent of a
cent and people would pay that because
it multiplied up at 7 years old I
figured out I got three and a half cents
for a thousand coat hangers
I sold license plate protectors
door-to-door my dad actually made me go
find someone who would sell me these
things at wholesale and at nine years
old I walked around in the city of
Sudbury selling license protectors
door-to-door to houses and I remember
this one customer who so vividly because
I could never sue did some other stuff
with these clients I sold newspapers and
he wouldn’t buy a newspaper from me ever
but I was convinced I was going to him
to buy a license plate protector and
he’s like well we don’t need one I said
but you’ve got two cars I’m nine years
old like but you have two cars and they
don’t have license plate protectors and
I said I know and I said and this car
here’s got one license plate that’s all
crumpled up and he said yes that’s my
wife’s car and I said why don’t we just
test one on the front of your wife’s car
and see if it lasts longer so I knew
there were two cars with two license
plates on each if I couldn’t sell all
four I can at least get one I learned
that at a young age I did comic book
arbitrage when I was about 10 years old
I sold comic books our cottage on
Georgian Bay and I would go biking up to
the end of the beach and buy all the
comics from the poor kids and then I
would go back to the other end of the
beach and sell them to the rich kids but
it was obvious to me right buy low sell
high
you got this demand over here that has
money don’t try to sell to the poor kids
they don’t have cash the rich people do
go get some so that’s obvious right it’s
like a recession so there’s a recession
there’s still 13 trillion dollars
circulating in the US economy go get
some of that and I learned that at a
young age I also learned don’t reveal
your source because I got beat up after
about four weeks of doing this because
one of the rich kids found it where I
was buying my comics from and he didn’t
like the fact he was paying a lot more I
was forced to get a paper route at ten
years old I didn’t really want a paper
route but at ten my dad said that’s
going to be your next business so not
only would he get me one but I had to
get two and then he wanted me
hire someone to deliver half the papers
which I did and then I realized that
collecting tips was where you made all
the money so I would collect the tips
and get payment so I would go and
collect for all the papers he could just
deliver them because then I realized I
could make the money by this point I was
definitely not going to be an employee
my dad owned an automotive and
industrial repair shop and he had all
these old automotive parts lying around
and they had this old brass and copper
and so I asked him what he did with it
and he said he just throws it out and I
said but wouldn’t somebody pay you for
that and he goes maybe remember at 10
years old 234 years ago I saw
opportunity in this stuff I saw there
was money in garbage and I was actually
collecting it from all the automotive
shops in the area on my bicycle and my
dad would drive me on Saturdays to a
scrap metal recycler where I got paid
and I thought that was kind of cool
strangely enough like 30 years later
we’re building one 800 got junk and make
money off that - I built these little
pin cushions I was 11 years old and Cubs
and we made these pin cushions for our
moms for Mother’s Day and you made these
pin cushions out of wooden post pins we
used to hang clothes on clotheslines
outside can you’d make these chairs and
I had these little pillows that I would
sew up and you could stuff pins in them
and because people used to sew and they
needed a pin cushion so but what I
realized was that he had to have options
so I actually spray-painted a whole
bunch of them brown and then when I went
to the door it wasn’t do you want to buy
one it was like which color would you
like like I’m 10 years old you’re not
going to say no to me and especially if
you have two options you have the brown
one of the clear one so I learned that
lesson at a young age I learned that
manual labor really sucks right like
cutting lawns is brutal but because I
had to cut lawns all summer for our all
of our neighbors and get paid to do that
I realized that recurring revenue from
one client is amazing that if I’m
cutting if I land this client once and
every week I get paid by that person
that’s way better than trying to sell
one clothes pin thing to one person
because you can’t sell them more so I
love that recurring revenue model I
started to learn at a young age remember
I was being groomed to do this I was not
allowed to have jobs
I would caddy I’d go to the golf course
and caddy for people but I realized
there was this one heel on our golf
course the 13th hole that had this huge
hill and people could never get their
bags up it so I would sit there with a
lawn chair and just carry up all the
people who didn’t have caddies I would
carry their golf bags up to the top and
they’d pay me a dollar meanwhile my
friends were working for
hours to haul some guys bag around and
get paid ten bucks I’m like that’s
stupid because you have to work for five
hours that doesn’t make any sense you
just figure out a way to make more money
faster every week I would go to the
corner store and buy all these pops and
I would go up and deliver them to these
70 year old women playing bridge and
they’d give me their orders for the
following week and then I just deliver
pop and I just charged twice and I had
this captured market you didn’t need
contracts you just needed to have a
supply and demand and this audience who
bought into you these these women
weren’t going to go to anybody else
because they liked me and I I kind of
figured it out I went and got golf balls
from golf courses but everybody else was
like lucky looking in the bush and
looking in the ditches for golf balls
I’m like screw that they’re all in the
pond and nobody’s going into the pond so
I would go into the ponds and crawl
around and pick them up with my toes you
just pick them up both feet and you
can’t do it on stage and and you get the
golf balls and you just throw in your
bathing suit trunks and when you’re done
you got a couple hundred of them but the
problem is that people didn’t all want
all the golf balls so I just packaged
them I’m like twelve right i packaged
them up three ways I had the pinnacles
and D DHS and the really cool ones back
then those sold for $2 each and then I
had all the good ones that didn’t look
crappie they were $0.50 each and then
I’d sell 50 at a time of all the crappy
ones and they could use those for
practice balls and I sold sunglasses
when I was in school to all the kids in
high school this is what really kind of
gets everybody hating you is because
you’re trying to extract money from all
your friends all the time but it paid
the bills so I sold lots and lots of
sunglasses and then when the school shut
me down the school actually called me
into the office and told me I couldn’t
do it so I went to the gas stations and
I sold lots of them to the gas stations
and had the gas stations sell them to
their customers that was cool because
then I had retail outlets and I was I
think I was 14 and then I paid my entire
way through first year university at
Carleton by selling wine skins
door-to-door you know that you can hold
a 40 ounce bottle of rum and two bottles
of coke and a wineskin so what right
yeah but you know what you stuff that
down your shorts when you go in to a
football game you can get booze in for
free everybody bought them supply-demand
big opportunity I also branded it so I
sold them for five times the normal cost
I had our University logo on it you know
we teach our kids and we buy them games
but why don’t we get them games if
they’re entrepreneurial kids that kind
of nurture the traits that you need to
be entrepreneurs why don’t you teach
them not to waste money I remember
being told to walk out into the middle
of a street in Banff Alberta because I’d
throw in a penny out on the street my
dad said go pick it up said I worked too
damn hard for my money I’m not going to
see you ever waste a penny and I
remember that lesson to this day
allowances teach kids the wrong habits
allowances by nature teaching kids to
think about a job an entrepreneur
doesn’t expect a regular paycheck
allowance is breeding kids at a young
age to expect a regular paycheck that’s
wrong for me if you want to raise
entrepreneurs what I do with my kids now
I’ve got 2 9 and 7 as I teach them to
walk around the house in the yard
looking for stuff that needs to get done
come to me and tell me what it is or
I’ll come to them and say here’s what I
need done and then you know what we do
we negotiate they go around looking for
what it is but then we negotiate on what
they’re going to get paid and then they
don’t have a regular check but they have
more opportunities to find more stuff
and they learn the skill of negotiating
and they learn the skill of finding
opportunities as well you breed that
kind of stuff each of my kids has two
piggy banks 50% of all the money that
they earn or get gifted 50% goes in
their house account 50% goes in their
toy account anything in the toy account
they can spend on whatever they want the
50% that goes in their house account
every six months goes to the bank they
walk up with me every year all the money
in the bank goes to their broker both by
nine and seven year olds have a stock
broker already um but I’m teaching them
to force that savings habit it drives me
crazy that 30 year olds are saying maybe
I’ll start contributing to my RSP no
you’ve missed 25 years like you can
teach those habits to young kids when
they don’t even feel the pain yet don’t
read them bedtime stories every night
maybe four nights out of the week read
them bedtime stories and three nights of
the week have them tell stories why
don’t you sit down with kids and give
them four items a red shirt a blue tie a
kangaroo and a laptop and have them tell
a story about those four things my kids
do that all the time it teaches them to
sell it teaches them creativity it
teaches them to think on their feet just
do that kind of stuff and have fun with
it
get kids to stand up in front of groups
and talk even if it’s just stand up in
front of the friends and do plays and
have speeches those are entrepreneurial
traits that you want to be nurturing
show the kids what bad customers or bad
employees look like show them the grumpy
employees when you see grumpy customer
service point that out to them say by
the way that guy’s a crappy employee and
say these ones are good ones
if you go into a restaurant you have bad
customer service show them what bad
customer service looks like right we
have all these lessons in front of us
that we don’t take those opportunities
we teach kids to go get a tutor imagine
if you actually took all the kids junk
that’s in the house right now all the
toys that they’re outgrown two years ago
and said why don’t we start selling some
of this on Craigslist and Kijiji and
they can actually sell it and learn how
to find scammers when they get email
offers come in they can come into your
account or sub-account or whatever but
teach them how to fix the price guess
the price pull up the logos like are the
photos teach them how to do that kind of
stuff and make money then the money they
get fifty percent goes in their house
account fifty percent goes in their toy
account my kids love this stuff some of
the entrepreneurial traits you go to
nurturing kids attainment tenacity
leadership introspection interdependence
values all these traits you can find in
young kids and you can help nurture them
look for that kind of stuff there’s two
traits that I want you to also look out
for that we don’t kind of get out of
their system don’t medicate kids for
attention deficit disorder unless it is
really really freakin bad the same with
the whole things on mania and stress and
depression like unless it is so
clinically brutal man bipolar disorder
is nicknamed the CEO disease when Steve
Jurvetson Jim Clark and Jim Barksdale
have all got it and they built in that
scape imagine if they were given ritalin
we wouldn’t have that stuff right Al
Gore would have really had to have
invented the internet these skills are
the skills that we should be teaching in
the classroom as well as everything else
I’m not saying don’t get kids to want to
be lawyers but how about getting
entrepreneurship to be ranked right up
there with the rest of them as well
because there’s huge opportunities in
that I want to close with a quick little
video it’s the video that was done by
one of the companies that I mentor these
guys grasshopper it’s about kids
it’s about entrepreneurship hopefully
this inspires you to take what you’ve
heard from me and do something with it
to change the world
you
thank you very much for having me
you