Your inner lemonade stand

Lots of people say they'd like to be an entrepreneur, but society puts up barriers so most adults just go out and get a job. This results in people who don't think they have what it takes to be a business owner. But, if you've ever tried to get a job you've tried to sell your services...and that's what an entrepreneur (or freelancer) does

Seth Godin said recently at a WSJ event that the way you become an entrepreneur is to "get in touch with your inner lemonade stand". When we were kids we inherently knew how to make a living. We knew that if we could find a market (thirsty people), and provide them a product they wanted (lemonade), and charge them more (10 cents) than we paid for it (free from pantry) we could make a living.

Most successful businesses aren't started by people with a great new idea. They're started by people like Annie and Mark Danielson, who realized that people like to hang beautiful things on their walls and became one of the largest employers in southern Colorado. Or Jacob D’Aniello, who was sitting in a cubicle looking for change and found it in pet waste removal (and was recently named one of the top franchises in the country by Entrepreneur magazine).

The driving force of our economy is small businesses. Perhaps the answer to our current economic woes is for more people to be like Annie, Mark and Jacob, and get back in touch with their inner lemonade stand.

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Comment by Dan Miller on March 17, 2009 at 8:21am: Jon -- I love the image created here - get in touch with your inner lemonade stand. I remember so well the little things I tried as a farm kid to unlock the entrepreneur in me. A lemonade stand wouldn't work way out in the country but lots of other things could. I would get up at 4:30 in the morning - pick the remaining sweet corn in our garden after my Mom had the freezer full. I'd then drive our little Ford tractor pulling a trailer full of corn two miles up to the only intersection in town. I'd sell that corn for $.30 a dozen and do it as long as the corn lasted. I took Christmas cards door to door in the bitter cold out in the country. I'd fix up old bikes I found at the county dump and sell them for a few bucks to my buddies. And I know that along the way I was learning the principles for selling books, speeches and coaching services. I've loved every minute of it.