[ ARCHIVE_02 // 20 ENTRIES // AGES 08–18 ]

The Venture
Index.

Every swing I took between 8 and 18 — the kid projects on the kitchen counter and the real businesses with payroll. Filed by age, status, and whether it was a real attempt or me messing around.

10

Projects

10

Businesses

02

Sold

02

Active

01 — Kid Projects

Tinkering. Not businesses.

001
AGE 08
Feather Tree
CRAFTS
KILLED
Painted feathers, glued them into little artificial trees, sold a handful at a craft fair. First time I ever swapped something I made for money.
002
AGE 09
Lemonade + Bake Stand
STREET
KILLED
Classic driveway operation with my sister. Cookies, lemonade, a hand-drawn sign. Learned that sweating in the sun is a marketing channel.
003
AGE 11
Pokémon Card Flipping
RESALE
KILLED
Bought packs at retail, flipped chase cards on eBay through my mom's account. Made enough for more packs. Burned the float on more packs.
004
AGE 12
Slime Etsy Shop
ECOMMERCE
KILLED
Mixed slime in mason jars on the kitchen counter. Listed it on Etsy. Shipped maybe nine orders before mom shut the kitchen lab down.
005
AGE 12
Ivy Admissions Landing Page
EDUCATION
KILLED
Built a landing page selling 'Send Your Kid to an Ivy School' consulting. Got two inquiries. Did not respond. I was twelve.
006
AGE 13
Minecraft Server Hosting
GAMING
KILLED
Spun up a survival server, charged $3 for ranks. Five paying friends. Killed it when I couldn't keep the host bill paid.
007
AGE 13
Gaming YouTube Channel
MEDIA
KILLED
Reps before the real channel. Posted eighty videos to crickets. Taught me thumbnails, retention, and how to quit and try again.
008
AGE 14
This or That
MEDIA
KILLED
Tiny YouTube channel built on binary-choice prompts. Spiked briefly on the algorithm, then I lost interest before the second upload schedule.
009
AGE 14
Discord Trading Server
COMMUNITY
KILLED
Free Discord posting paper-trade calls. Tried to gate it behind $5/mo. Three subs, then the market turned and they all left.
010
AGE 14
Mural Painting Side Hustle
SERVICES
KILLED
Painted a single mural for a neighbor's coffee shop. Tried to turn it into a 'business' with a logo and a website. Did one more job. Quit.

02 — Real Businesses

Bank accounts, contractors, customers.

011
AGE 15
Lawn Care, Statewide
SERVICES OPERATOR
KILLED
Hiring and outsourcing teenage operators across every town in the state. Built the ops plan, never got past the first crew.
012
AGE 15
Neighborly
MARKETPLACE / SAAS
KILLED
Software matching kids who want to mow lawns with homeowners refusing to pay $1,000 for a cut. Built the prototype, couldn't crack supply.
013
AGE 16
The Agency
MARKETING
SOLD
Cold DMs to retainers to acquisition. Sold for $100,000. The exit that paid for everything underneath it.
014
AGE 16
SMB Sales Strategy
CONSULTING
KILLED
Cold-call scripts and pipeline frameworks for local small businesses. Closed a few. Learned I was selling sales without owning a real quota.
015
AGE 16
Print-on-Demand Apparel
ECOMMERCE
KILLED
Niche merch funnels on Shopify with Meta ads. Burned the float on CPM before the second sale ever cleared.
016
AGE 17
Automotive QA Studio
B2B SERVICES
SOLD
QA-as-a-service for software companies running 200+ engineer teams. Built ops, hired contractors, handed off the book.
017
AGE 17
Coffee Subscription DTC
ECOMMERCE
KILLED
Single-origin beans, monthly box. Logistics ate the unit economics. Killed before the second roast cycle.
018
AGE 17
Founder Round Table
NETWORK
PAUSED
Weekly intros between young operators and 8–9 figure entrepreneurs. Real value, no monetization model. Shelved.
019
AGE 17
Children's Finance Books
PUBLISHING
ACTIVE
Personal finance literacy series for kids. 5,000 copies sold. Built the audience that the bank now plugs into.
020
AGE 18
Kid-Friendly Bank
FINTECH
ACTIVE
A first-account experience built for the readers of the books. Allowance, savings, parent dashboards. Live and shipping.
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