venturcelerator using complexity science to fund and launch startups.

Michael Holthouse: Entrepreneur Meister

Interview with Michael Holthouse - Founder of Paranet, Inc. & Lemonade Day.

Entrepreneur Meister is a column that focuses on the lives and ventures of entrepreneurs. We take a close look at the entrepreneurs behind the vision, strategy, passion and action in ventures across all sectors.

I was driving down my neighborhood street recently and saw kids pitching me to stop and have some lemonade at their highly decorated lemonade stand. With a heat index of 110 here in Texas, I was thrilled to buy a lemonade.

Countless business books mention lemonade stands as a tool to teach children about business. Ironically in America, the greatest entrepreneurial economy in the world, the educational system doesn’t take the time to teach children about entrepreneurship until college. Schools in America focus on the three R’s: reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic but in today’s world, that’s not nearly enough.

You can use lessons in entrepreneurship your entire life. Can you say the same for physics? Unless you’re going to be an engineer, I seriously doubt it. I can say confidently I’ve seldom used Isaac Newton’s third law of motion f=ma formula from physics, but I have used e=48X7X52.

Michael Holthouse is one entrepreneur who’s made it big and is now giving back to the world by promoting entrepreneurship. He founded Lemonade Day, a community-wide program which teaches youth how to start a business using a Lemonade Stand, held the first Sunday of May in major cities across the U.S. The first Lemonade Day (2007) helped over 27,000 children start their very first business, and last year in Austin alone, helped 100,000 children. Next year’s event already promises to be much larger. continued

Download the PDF of Entrepreneur Meister: Michael Holthouse

Become a Featured Entrepreneur

Tags: entrepreneur, entrepreneur meister, entrepreneurdex, entrepreneurship, lemonade day, meister, michael holthouse, paranet

Next Post >

Comment

You need to be a member of entrepreneurdex to add comments!

Join entrepreneurdex

Comment by Damir Perge on July 27, 2009 at 4:25pm: Dear Ray, you are right on the money. What we need more in schools is entrepreneur classes. I was heavily influenced by an "Entrepreneur 101" class in college at Southern Methodist University taught by Professor Jerry White. Even today, I still have his Entrepreneur Master Planning Guide textbook.

We have Algebra, Chemistry, English and Biology as mandatory classes in high school. Entrepreneurship should be taught in Middle School and High School. What we lack is teaching real life situations and what better way to do it then through entrepreneurship.

Comment by Ray Cates on July 24, 2009 at 4:19pm: It is unfortunate but many students in college have NEVER had a job, and graduate without that experience. My parents never gave me money unless I earned it, even with tasks around the house when I was little.

Lately I've been teaching in college, and students are afraid, because they have had no experience with jobs, or bosses, and they don't even know much about dealing with money. It is very sad.

I think that parents scare kids about strangers. Stay away from dangerous strangers is the message, especially for girls. Girls have fewer jobs in high school than boys, this holds true in college. High school students should work half time at some productive job -- where they make money. Money is not sinful, or greedy. Money is just a tool of an active, alive society. Money is not evil and it does nothing wrong by just being there. If kids are attacked it is most often by a relative, not a stranger.