Jul 303 min read

🍋 AITA: Lemonade Stands (and other cool things)

July 26, 2024

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Happy Friday!

Here are some things I found interesting, inspiring, and just plain cool this week…

Not surprisingly, but I’ve always been a big fan of 🍋 lemonade stands and kiddos practicing entrepreneurship.

My rich person dream is to carry around 💵 $10 bills in the summertime to just give to kids selling things because I remember how much it made my day when I was that kid. Hell, $10 still makes my day! 🤩

But the other day, I went to the 🧺 farmers market and saw two kids with lemonade stands right outside of the market. Like, 20 feet away from the entrance. CLOSE-close.

🥕 I used to work at this particular market and I know a number of the vendors who sell lemonade there. And because I know how slim the margins are for small businesses and vendors at markets, I was pretty cranky to see these kids right there.

They are kids, so what’s the problem?

I think it got to me because it seemed like they were taking advantage of the location and undercutting the vendors who have to pay to be there.

So, I started chatting about it with folks, trying to figure out: AITA (am I the a**hole)?

Some interesting counterpoints came up:

🍪 What about Girl Scouts selling cookies outside of the supermarket?
🪨 What if the kids were selling something different like decorative rocks? Don’t laugh, I’ve bought those!
💰 Or what if the neighborhood (and the kids’ presumed affluence) was different?

(Please tell me you get the 👆🏽 reference)

Even as I write this, I’m like what’s the big deal? They’re kids! 😅 Chill out, Rachel.

I guess for me, I would like to support kids who are doing the ambitious business thing but who are also intentional about what they are selling/where they are selling it. For example, the kid selling decorative rocks? Outside a farmers market, but no one else was selling that. Or Girl Scouts? They get permission from the store to sell there.

For me, these stands led to some interesting conversations about kids in business. Obviously, I have my own opinion, but What do you think? AITA?

🗳️ What a week in politics! And there are some interesting conversations going on with food metaphors and prejudices. Loved this explanation of why 🥥🌴 Coconut trees are trending for Kamala Harris!

And fascinated by the awkward clip of J.D. Vance talking about Diet Mountain Dew and why he’s not that off-base about the associated prejudices.

Getting back in the swing of social media and I am so proud of this carousel.

On the entrepreneur side of life, sometimes it can be hard to see the trees for the forest. I want this museum to feel like your best friend who’s super nerdy about food, but I’ve been getting all in my head about how to actually do that.

And I realize, I’ve been having trouble creating the ‘trees’ because I’ve been editing myself before I even put anything out there to see if things are going to “fit” into the forest. So this little piece of whimsical whatnot 😄 is exactly what I want my friends to share with me.

To go with the metaphor a bit more, my personal lesson for the week is:

If you have your forest in mind, plant those trees! The trees will be part of the forest because you planted them.

Check it out here!