Last Saturday in Round Rock a preschooler sold every glitter candle on her table in ninety minutes. No ad budget, no CRM, just a marker poster and unstoppable enthusiasm. If that stings, good. Discomfort is data, and data fuels growth.
The Moment My Lens Flipped
Nichole Walton Durban sat in front of the mic and dropped a single word that rewired the conversation: edupreneur. She is not an educator who dabbles in commerce. She is an entrepreneur who builds learning ecosystems where children test first and learn second.
That mentality mirrors the opening scene of I Think I Swallowed an Elephant. Staring at a two-hundred-seventy-seven-pound problem made “one bite at a time” feel like a cruel joke, until those bites melted the weight and cleared business friction.
Three Levers That Move Mountains
• Time for practice and reflection
• Tools that lower the barrier to action, whether a camera, a drum kit, or a spreadsheet
• Trust solid enough for adults to zip their lips while kids wrestle with chaos
Success is mostly mindset, strategy fills in the rest. Parents and leaders alike supply that mindset when they keep their cool during the messy middle.
Imagine a Report Card That Lists Profit
At the annual Children’s Business Fair each booth is a live funnel. Kids discover product-market fit in real time. They hear no, pivot, try again, and log real revenue before lunch. One afternoon teaches more about conversion than most quarterly reviews.
Marketing Moves You Can Steal Before Lunch
• Treat failure as raw data, run smaller tests, measure, iterate.
• Invite customers into co-creation the way peers critique one another in Nichole’s studios.
• Demand wow-level quality or rebuild, mastery starts at one hundred percent, not seventy.
Stories sell, actions prove, words create worlds.
Five Tiny Bites to Take Today
1. Name your elephant in one crisp sentence.
2. Shrink the first bite by drafting a five-line email instead of a ten-page plan.
3. Set a feedback clock and review results within twenty-four hours.
4. Celebrate visible progress. Badges for kids, dashboards for teams, both release dopamine.
5. Repeat tomorrow because momentum compounds faster than motivation.
Your Move
Circle the next Round Rock Children’s Business Fair on your calendar. Bring your team or register your child. If you doubt what a messy learner-led ecosystem can do, step aside and watch a kindergarten CEO close a cold sale.
The only sound louder than that victory laugh is the thud of an elephant shrinking to bite size. Ready for your first chew?
