Tinkering with MindSpark

Young Americans Center for Financial Education YouthBiz Leave a Comment

Tinkering:  Attempting to repair or improve something in a casual hands-on way. Synonyms: fiddle with, adjust, fix, try to mend, play about with, fool with, futz with; tamper with, interfere with, mess about with, meddle with. Did you know Thomas Edison tried over 10,000 times to create the light bulb before he was actually successful? He came up with lots of other great ideas along the way, but …

Entrepreneur Success: Award and Space

Young Americans Center for Financial Education YouthBiz Leave a Comment

We’re always so proud of all our young entrepreneurs.  Two of these we’d like to call attention to. An everyday hero Maia Drugmand, who won our 6-11 age category last year at the Celebration for Young Entrepreneurs, was just named a Channel 7 “Everyday Hero” by Mitch Jelniker.  Maia received this award for making a difference in her community.  She has …

Presenting Mentors: Meet Them Here

Young Americans Center for Financial Education Get Involved, YouthBiz Leave a Comment

We are thrilled to announce our three Presenting Mentors for our Celebration for Young Entrepreneurs.  These three business people are movers and shakers in Colorado.  They will each be paired with one of the winners of our youth business competition.  Over the next 12 months, the pairs will work to accomplish one or two goals so the young entrepreneurs can …

Finally! The Finalists

Young Americans Center for Financial Education YouthBiz Leave a Comment

Every year we scour Colorado for the best youth businesses. We find youth who own a lawn mowing business, sell lemonade, make greeting cards, or run any other type of business, select the top businesses, and award those entrepreneurs with cash prizes and mentoring. Our panel of business and education judges has reviewed all the entries and selected the finalists. …

young-ameritown2

Need Help? Small Business Resources (Part 2)

Young Americans Center for Financial Education General, YouthBiz Leave a Comment

A few months ago we gave you a list of tools and resources to help you get your business streamlined.  That was a very popular post and one we’ve referenced frequently for our budding business owners.  Here to help is another list of additional resources.  Think of this as “Stage 2” resources, because we know that your business has grown …

Shark Tank at Young Americans

Young Americans Center for Financial Education YouthBiz Leave a Comment

Shark Tank! Shark Tank! There was intense competition last week during Be Your Own Boss summer camp.  The campers learned all the ins and outs of starting and running a business.  The week was capped off by a mini pitch session, similar to the show “Shark Tank”.  Below, we share some of the best pitches from the competition. http://youtu.be/5kCIrLdLV60 http://youtu.be/W7PACd_reQo …

Inside Scoop on Business Competition Judging

Young Americans Center for Financial Education YouthBiz Leave a Comment

We have our winners!!  Sorry — we’re not going to share the names yet.  You’ll have to wait until September to find out the winners of our youth business competition. In the meantime, I’d like to share an insiders’ look at the judging process and how we end up with our winners. (If you want more info on the competition …

So You Want To Be An Entrepreneur?

Young Americans Center for Financial Education General, YouthBiz Leave a Comment

Each month we take one financial concept and offer our customers a deep dive.  In recent months we’ve worked through needs versus wants, talked about investing, and explored budgeting.  Now we’re taking a step back to include a concept that Young Americans is exploring and growing into.  July’s Concept of the Month is Entrepreneurship! Getting started Each year Young Americans …

Entrepreneur Success: Supporting One Another

Young Americans Center for Financial Education YouthBiz Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Nyla Higgs, a 10-year-old owner of Aahhh 2 J’s Lemonade, and bank customer.  Read below how she is growing her business while supporting the businesses of other young entrepreneurs. For my 10th birthday party I wanted to go to Sweet and Sassy. There they do your hair and your nails and you get to …

TR, Nic and TED

Young Americans Center for Financial Education Events, YouthBiz Leave a Comment

What was your first business, and what age were you when you started? Hundreds of people answered that question and others at Saturday’s TEDxMileHigh event at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.  Young Americans was one of more than 30 exhibitors connecting with the nearly 2,000 audience members.  We brought along two stellar young entrepreneurs to show the crowd what businesses …