Young people plan a small business, pitch it to people who know them, sell something real and report back on how it went. You pick how far along that road your program goes.
It takes about a minute, and there is nothing to set up.
A program that runs alongside the school year and a camp that runs through the summer are not the same problem, so we have stopped pretending one plan suits both.
About 35 weeks. Even meeting once a week, there is room for the whole venture loop, including selling something and writing back to the people who backed them.
About 9 weeks. A camp meeting most days has plenty of time for the full loop. A camp meeting once or twice a week is better aiming at a pitch night.
Each one produces something the young person can show somebody. Stopping at one of these is a proper ending, not an unfinished course.
What entrepreneurship really is, and how to spot a problem worth solving. No business plan yet.
The problem, who it is for, the solution and why theirs. That is enough for a pitch page they can share and a pitch night you can run.
Adds how it reaches people, what it costs to make and what to charge. Enough to open a shop page and hold a market day.
Adds tracking the money, knowing whether it worked, and writing back to everyone who backed them.
We could tell you a program takes six weeks, but that would be made up. A camp meeting five mornings a week and a club meeting one afternoon a week will turn the same material into wildly different calendars.
The number that actually paces a program is the assignments. The videos are short and a group can watch several in one sitting. An assignment is where they stop, think and produce something, and that usually takes a session on its own.
Count your sessions, then pick the finish line with about that many assignments in it.
Send a list of email addresses. Everyone who registers through theirs appears on your list automatically.
Lesson by lesson, not a single percentage. You can tell at a glance who is stuck and who has run ahead.
They hand in writing, a file or a link to something they made. You write back, and they get an email telling them to look.
There is no mark, no score and no gradebook on assignments. You leave comments, which is the right shape for a club.
Set up a showcase, let them enter their pitch, and have the room vote. Nothing is visible until you approve it.
Each young person gets a shop page. Customers reserve, then pay them in person on the day. No card, no float, no cash box to reconcile.
Modules 1 to 8 are published in full with no account, so you can build your sessions against the real material.
Running something we have not thought of? Tell us about it.
