Teen POV: How I Became An Entrepreneur

By Liam Stidham

When I was 7 years old they were opening a market in my neighborhood, and my parents asked me if I wanted to sell something. My response was a three letter word "Yes". My parents and I started to think about what I could sell, and finally we decided to sell coffee: the brown substance that kids think tastes bad, but adults love. When I started at the market, my booth was just a small rinky dinky set up. I was really shy at the time, so I didn't exactly have the social skills to talk to adults... But the funny thing is I was a seven year old working at a place of business with tons of adults.

Most of the time I would play with kids my age that came to the market instead of working. But since then I've learned the importance of working hard to achieve something in life. When I turned nine years old, I wanted to save up for a trip to Japan, so my parents told me that if I wanted to do that, I had to work really hard and save my money.

After two years of saving, I could finally afford to go to Japan last summer. That was an amazing opportunity to experience a different culture, food and people. I'm very thankful for my customers and the people in the park who supported me and helped make my dream come true. In fact I got a lot of ideas over there from street vendors that I have been adding and still want to try in the future. As time passes, I am learning that I can't just stick with the same stuff and setup. I have to evolve. So I started adding more choices and products: iced coffee, frappes, cappuccinos and now Tex-Mex breakfast tacos for the gringos. I realize the importance of signage and marketing. But most importantly of how I treat the customer. Shaking hands, looking in the eye, being positive and listening to them thanks to my parents. And I've met a lot of amazing people and a lot of my customers are now my friends. My mom and dad say that "the customer is king!" It's a good lesson to learn.

As I grow up I'm gonna have to expand and improve my business and my next big goal is buying a food truck. Yes, a food truck.

I've learned a lot about coffee, I'm eleven and I love coffee! How weird is that?! There is nothing like tasting that sweet foamy milk on a good cup o'coffee. Free advice here: coffee from Veracruz is better than coffee from Chiapas, it has more of  a sweet chocolate caramel flavor.

Hopefully in the future I'll be able to inspire kids to start their own business and be entrepreneurs. I know it's changing my life and helping me grow.

Thanks to all that hard work, I know all of this is going to benefit me in the future as I grow up and search for a career. It's not easy getting up on a Saturday morning while all my friends are waking up with nothing to do, but it's nice to know that it's all worth it once I get to the park to start another day as an entrepreneur seeing all of my amazing customers and friends.

Meet Liam at the Los Frailes Saturday Market 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.