The Beginning of a Young Entrepreneur
Hey You,
What have you been up to lately? It’s been a few days, maybe even weeks - since we’ve last talked. My life has been .... honestly, the same so far for the past month or two. Ever since I got back from my Vietnam trip, it’s been nothing but work almost everyday. Isn’t it crazy how people think America is so great? Yet it’s literally a land of work slaves who follow a 9-5 job. Haven’t you even seen people who literally put their grandparents into nursing homes after they’re old just so they can collect the property or income that’s left behind?
It’s so sad. From the moment you are born in America, you are forced into going to school- in which they provide as a “free public education”. Yet, although it may sound so good to be true, it’s a nightmare. Without you even knowing you, you are forced and taught to learn basically how to become an employee in the real world. You grow up with the same question being asked countless of times of “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. I find it so useless of a question because when do we really ever stop growing up? Our lives and paths change as we get older. We may change our subjects and majors, or career choice. Our lives are always constantly changing.
From the young age of 9, I was already finding ways to make money through the kids at school. Seeing my older brother, Hung, sell chips and candy for $1 dollar each, I figured I could do something the same. I would bring the small packets of Cheetos and Doritos that you get for 25 cents and sell it to my classmates. Soon enough, other kids started copying my trend so I had to find another source of income. LIP GLOSS! Back in 2010, a brand called “smuckers” was popular amongst my 5th grade class. Due to having so many girls in the room, I figured this was a good chance to reach out to them. I started selling each one for $2 dollars! The cash was slowly racking up. Like every business, there’s always a start and always an end.
When I got to 6th grade, everyone changed. The kids from my 5th grade class were now listening to music and all of these new technology items were breaking the market. I remember the first iPod Touch came out and this boy Eddie Santiago was the first one of the entire school to have one. It was so expensive. What could I do to get these kids attention? In 2011, CD’s and MP3 players were the talk of the town. If you couldn’t afford an iPod, having an MP3 was the next best thing. I decided to take a trip to Walmart. In the kid’s toy section, they used to sell Disney MP3 players. What it could also do was load music onto it. Thanks to the hours I spent at the public library after school, I learned how to burn music onto these MP3 players. The next day at school, I was selling each one for $50 dollars! It was a lot of work to do. Therefore, I only sold three. However, I had a small business for the time being.
Honestly, all of this hard work and play was due to growing up poor. My parents weren’t home all the time since they had to work. When I got hungry, I needed money. I never wanted to ask my parents for money because I knew they needed it more than I did. They normally got home around 8-9pm at night. To a kid, this was pretty late. All I was really going to do was maybe stop in at the gas station in front of my school or the Burger King in the same plaza to grab a snack. It was always either a bag of salt and vinegar chips, a pickled sausage, or a small french fry from Burger King. When you need to survive, your survival instincts come out.
This skill helped a lot as I was growing up. Once I hit high school, I started learning new skills such as sewing and painting. I created distressed shorts and kimono cardigans to sell online. I sold new or gently used clothes in my closet to make some extra cash. People are always working for money but they never think outside of the box for other ways to make money other than a job. It’s 3:07pm now. I’m sitting outside as I’m waiting for a table to leave. We close at 2:30pm.... yeah... I know. They’ve been here since literally noon. I guess no nap time for me today.
TTYL? You know we will,
Rose.
What have you been up to lately? It’s been a few days, maybe even weeks - since we’ve last talked. My life has been .... honestly, the same so far for the past month or two. Ever since I got back from my Vietnam trip, it’s been nothing but work almost everyday. Isn’t it crazy how people think America is so great? Yet it’s literally a land of work slaves who follow a 9-5 job. Haven’t you even seen people who literally put their grandparents into nursing homes after they’re old just so they can collect the property or income that’s left behind?
It’s so sad. From the moment you are born in America, you are forced into going to school- in which they provide as a “free public education”. Yet, although it may sound so good to be true, it’s a nightmare. Without you even knowing you, you are forced and taught to learn basically how to become an employee in the real world. You grow up with the same question being asked countless of times of “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. I find it so useless of a question because when do we really ever stop growing up? Our lives and paths change as we get older. We may change our subjects and majors, or career choice. Our lives are always constantly changing.
From the young age of 9, I was already finding ways to make money through the kids at school. Seeing my older brother, Hung, sell chips and candy for $1 dollar each, I figured I could do something the same. I would bring the small packets of Cheetos and Doritos that you get for 25 cents and sell it to my classmates. Soon enough, other kids started copying my trend so I had to find another source of income. LIP GLOSS! Back in 2010, a brand called “smuckers” was popular amongst my 5th grade class. Due to having so many girls in the room, I figured this was a good chance to reach out to them. I started selling each one for $2 dollars! The cash was slowly racking up. Like every business, there’s always a start and always an end.
When I got to 6th grade, everyone changed. The kids from my 5th grade class were now listening to music and all of these new technology items were breaking the market. I remember the first iPod Touch came out and this boy Eddie Santiago was the first one of the entire school to have one. It was so expensive. What could I do to get these kids attention? In 2011, CD’s and MP3 players were the talk of the town. If you couldn’t afford an iPod, having an MP3 was the next best thing. I decided to take a trip to Walmart. In the kid’s toy section, they used to sell Disney MP3 players. What it could also do was load music onto it. Thanks to the hours I spent at the public library after school, I learned how to burn music onto these MP3 players. The next day at school, I was selling each one for $50 dollars! It was a lot of work to do. Therefore, I only sold three. However, I had a small business for the time being.
Honestly, all of this hard work and play was due to growing up poor. My parents weren’t home all the time since they had to work. When I got hungry, I needed money. I never wanted to ask my parents for money because I knew they needed it more than I did. They normally got home around 8-9pm at night. To a kid, this was pretty late. All I was really going to do was maybe stop in at the gas station in front of my school or the Burger King in the same plaza to grab a snack. It was always either a bag of salt and vinegar chips, a pickled sausage, or a small french fry from Burger King. When you need to survive, your survival instincts come out.
This skill helped a lot as I was growing up. Once I hit high school, I started learning new skills such as sewing and painting. I created distressed shorts and kimono cardigans to sell online. I sold new or gently used clothes in my closet to make some extra cash. People are always working for money but they never think outside of the box for other ways to make money other than a job. It’s 3:07pm now. I’m sitting outside as I’m waiting for a table to leave. We close at 2:30pm.... yeah... I know. They’ve been here since literally noon. I guess no nap time for me today.
TTYL? You know we will,
Rose.
love it <3
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