The $5 Challenge for Entrepreneur Kids

When children are given a small budget, they learn to stretch their imagination. The Stanford students realised that five dollars was not much and started thinking outside the box. They asked, “What can we do with what we already have?”

How to teach this at home: Give your child a tiny budget, similar to $5 or the equivalent in your currency and ask what kind of business idea they could try. Encourage them to think beyond spending the money on goods. They might think of offering a service, using items at home or finding a way to use their time and skills.

Some Stanford teams never spent their five dollars at all. Instead, they asked what people around them needed and found ways to solve those problems. One team helped cyclists by checking tyres and offering to pump them for donations.

How to teach this at home: Ask your child, “What problems do people in our family or neighbourhood have that you could help solve?” Show them that the key is not how much money they start with, but how much value they create for others. A child who offers to help neighbours carry groceries or walk a dog is learning to spot needs and meet them.

The bicycle team first charged a fixed price but then switched to asking for donations. They earned more because they were willing to change their plan halfway through.

How to teach this at home: Encourage your child to try small experiments. If they are selling biscuits, suggest they test two prices or try selling in different locations. Afterwards, talk about what worked better and why. Children learn resilience when they see that changing direction is part of success, not failure.

While most teams earned a few hundred dollars and impressed their classmates, one group stood out by seeing the challenge from a completely different angle. They realised their biggest opportunity wasn’t the five dollars or the two hours, but their three-minute presentation slot in class.

Instead of using it to report on their project, they sold that time to a company eager to recruit Stanford students. The team created a short advertisement for the company and played it during their presentation slot. It was a clever move that showed how valuable overlooked opportunities can be when you learn to spot them.

This was the winning team and they made the most money of all the teams by selling that 3-minute time slot for $650. They realised their biggest resource was not the 5 dollars, but access to an audience.

How to teach this at home: Ask your child to list all the resources they have besides money: their time, skills, creativity, friendships or even a place to sell from. Help them see that money is just one tool and often not the most important one.

The real breakthrough in the $5 Challenge was a shift in thinking. Instead of focusing on how little they had, the successful teams focused on what was possible.

How to teach this at home: Model this mindset by talking about challenges as opportunities. If something goes wrong, like a cancelled outing, ask, “What can we do instead?” Show your children that problems are not roadblocks but invitations to think differently.

The $5 Challenge proves that with creativity, flexibility and the right mindset, even the smallest resources can grow into something meaningful.

For parents, the message is clear: you don’t need to give your children large sums of pocket money to teach them financial skills. What they need is the chance to practise solving problems, creating value and looking for hidden opportunities.

By weaving these lessons into everyday life, you raise children who are not just good at handling money but also resourceful and ready to shape their own futures.

Here are a few discussion questions families can use after reading The $5 Challenge for Entrepreneur Kids:

• If you were given only five dollars and two hours, what would you do to make more money?

• Which team’s idea from the article do you think was the most creative and why?

• What do you think mattered more in these projects: the money or the ideas?

• Can you think of something in your home or neighbourhood that people would pay for because it saves them time or effort?

• How did the students’ willingness to change their plans help them earn more?

• What hidden assets or opportunities do you have that might be valuable if you looked at them differently?

• How could we try a small family challenge like this to practise thinking creatively about money?

• What did these stories teach you about what it means to be entrepreneurial?