When Rowan joined his first class of How to Start Your Own Business he was only six and thought he would like to sell ice cream which he would make on-demand with bicycle power. Wow!

The drawings for his plan showed Rowan has the mind of an engineer. He had a clear vision of what the experience would be like for the customer. When asked, ‘why bicycle power’ he would explain his drawing and the innovation of using human energy to create food, not how that approach would offer better ice cream. It was clear the environmental benefits of bicycle power were his unique business offering. He was visualizing the experience and that was his selling point. But how was he going to pull that off in a week? We left that obstacle for him to figure out on his own. He was sure it was possible.

In the next class, each student was to bring a prototype of their idea and pitch it to the class. Rowan showed up with Ketchup.

Somewhere in the process of working through this at home, he discovered the limitations, both logistically and legally, of his ice cream idea. But I think he always had a food-based business in mind. His parents offered an alternative idea, a family organic homemade ketchup recipe which was a favorite of Rowan’s. This allowed him to produce a prototype in a week, and it met his unique business offering of providing an environmentally friendly food option. This idea evolved into a thriving business he continued for several years.

During this interview, Rowan is now eight. When I listened to him describe his learning from the first year business fair to the second year business fair, I was thrilled he figured out that by providing size choices to his customers he was essentially leaving money on the table. Plus he shifted his ideal customer from kids to adults because "they'll buy more expensive things" essentially realizing that although kids love ketchup, they aren’t really the people buying his product.

And the new labels, on the new bottles, now have the perfect tagline to reflect that:

"Ketchup for kids that love ketchup whose parents read labels".

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