How to Test a Kid's Business Idea in One Weekend

Buy nothing until somebody has said yes to a price. Not supplies, not a sign, not a domain name. Nothing.

This will feel like doing it wrong. Buying things feels like starting a business and asking questions feels like stalling. It is the reverse.

Your kid writes down ten actual people. Not categories like neighbors, names. The Hendersons two doors down. Aunt Rachel. Mr. Ortiz who has the truck. The family with the two dogs on the corner.

Ten is the number because it is small enough to finish and big enough that a couple of no answers do not end it. If your kid cannot get to ten, that is useful information about the idea before a dollar is spent.

Then one sentence, written down and said out loud a few times until it stops feeling strange. What it is, what it costs, when they could do it. That is all. The first ten customers script has the exact wording, including the part that makes it easy to refuse.

Set the price before Friday, not during the conversation. The pricing method takes about ten minutes and it is the difference between a confident sentence and a guess.

Your kid asks all ten. In person where possible, by text where not, sent by them rather than by you.

The ask needs to be easy to refuse. Something like: I am starting a bin service, three dollars a week, out on Tuesday night and back Wednesday. Want me to add you? A person who can say no comfortably is a person who can say yes without bracing.

Your job on Saturday is to be somewhere else, or at least to be quiet. If you make the ask, you have learned that you can sell it. That was never in question.

Three numbers. How many asked, how many said yes, and how much money those yes answers add up to over a month.

Two or more yes answers out of ten is a real business, and now gear money exists that did not come from you. One yes is a maybe, and usually means the price or the offer needs adjusting rather than the idea being wrong. Zero out of ten is not failure, it is a fifty dollar mistake your kid did not make.

They are not all the same and the difference matters. Not interested at any price means the idea is wrong for these people. Too expensive means the price is wrong or the value was not explained. Already have someone means there is demand and a competitor, which is the most encouraging no there is.

Have your kid ask why, once, kindly. Most people will tell them, and it is better market research than anything they could read.

Change one thing, not everything. Usually it is the idea rather than the kid. Browse the other thirty ideas or run the fit quiz, pick something closer to what those ten people actually need, and run the same weekend again. It still costs nothing.

With two yes answers in hand, open the starter guide for that idea and buy from the get these list. Skip the rest. The skip list exists because most of what looks necessary is what a business buys in year two.

1. Agree the rule out loud before anything else: nothing gets bought until somebody says yes to a price.
2. Friday, write ten real names. Not categories. Names.
3. Set the price Friday using the pricing method, so Saturday's sentence has a number in it.
4. Write the one sentence and say it out loud until it stops feeling strange.
5. Saturday, your kid asks all ten. You are somewhere else.
6. Sunday, count three numbers: asked, said yes, and monthly value of those yes answers.
7. Ask one no why, kindly, and sort the answers into wrong idea, wrong price, or existing competitor.
8. Two yes answers means buy from the get these list only. Zero means change one thing and run it again.