I love the concept of the lemonade stand. It's one of those seasonal events that I think every kid should be given an opportunity to get in on. It's another one of those areas where you can teach kids the value of money, and some basic business skills. Sometimes you even learn things like teamwork, ingenuity, public speaking and the art of persuasion.
Sometimes though, the kids push it beyond the simple roadside stand. Sometimes their ambition and drive can't be contained to that small an endeavor and in those instances, the kids sometimes end up planting a flag on the terrain of history. One example is the young entrepreneur, Mikaila Ulmer.
There's not a lot of biographic info to spout here. The girl's only 11 years old but she's already managed more than most people twice to nearly 3 times her age (myself included). Things were ticking along just fine for Mikaila and she was probably living life like any other kid until she had an origin that sounds more like it came out of a comic book than real life as coincidence visited her in two ways in rapid succession. First, her great grandmother sent her and her family an old cook book that had the matriarch's recipe for Flax Seed lemonade (sweetened with honey) and around the same time, she was stung by a bee.
Now not everyone reacts the same way to bee stings but I remember when I was her age a bee sting just made me skittish around the bugs. Instead of causing her long term fear (short term she freely cops to) and leading her on a bee destroying crusade the girl went and learned pretty much everything she could about the dang things. Of course it probably only took her a single internet search to discover they had a population in decline and Mikaila decided she wanted to get involved.
In another perfect confluence of events a local children's entrepreneurship fair was coming up in the family's town and Mikaila got an idea. She created Bee Sweet lemonade in an effort to both make some money, and raise awareness for the plight of the bees. A portion of the profits from her endeavor at the event would go to beekeepers and efforts to protect the all important insects.
Things got serious though after she ended up on the show Shark Tank. You know, that place where people try to separate rich borderline sociopaths/psychopaths from their money to try to get them to fund some kind of dream, invention, project or business the contestant has going on? Well she talked one of the sharks out of 60.000 dollars for an investment in her company and even got a contract with Whole Foods recently. At the age of 11 she's already giving talks about bees and how to save them as well as lectures and panels on business. She regularly sells out of her product at events and at her various stands and the demand for her product is strong. The girl's definitely going places. The future for Ms. Ulmer seems... quite sweet.
Yes I know it was bad and I don't feel bad in the least.
Hopefully Ms. Ulmer's efforts to support Bees and Beekeepers are successful. At some point in the future, it's possible we may even be seeing a great deal more from her, even if her entry here is short. With that thought though, this month comes to a close. It's been a blast but it's been a major struggle to be positive for so long. This blog was built for snark and a little ridiculousness. We return you to your regularly scheduled programming next time. See you then.
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