Business education for children: a new niche for entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship may be learned from the childhood. We spoke with the players on the children business-schools market about the potential of this niche and about the things required for the start.
The main goal of business education for children is to unleash their potential, not only to teach them the basics of financial literacy, economics and business, but first of all to develop a set of soft skills that will allow to learn themselves better, their talents, superpowers, discover what they like and who they want to become.
The sooner children unleash their potential, the sooner they will become whole, successful and happy personalities. Children can begin developing their entrepreneurship skills starting from 6-7 years. Currently business education is considered a part of comprehensive education of a child.
Business education for a younger generation is a pretty unique service in the Ukrainian market, notes Marianna Lutsiv, owner a business school for children and teenagers MiniBoss Business School Kyiv (GULLIVER). “Price range depends on the quality and consistency of the approach and may vary from 100-300 dollars per month”. The price of the entrepreneurship course in Youth Flow Academy constitutes UAH 4-6k, depending on the age of the child. Tetiana Patokova, founder and director of Start Now Business and development school for children, outlines that “they try to set the price range that is affordable for the target audience”. For example, a 3-month course (12 two-hour classes in the group consisting of 10-12 persons) costs UAH 4200.
Learning format may be different – from financial literacy classes, trainings for children and teenagers, courses, quests, Cash Flow type games and webinars to systematic business education scheduled for several years of conscious growing-up. Educational program in MiniBoss Business School is developed for 8 years of studies and apart from theory and project activities includes family business tours, master classes from leading entrepreneurs, start-up forums and entrepreneurship contests as part of educational process.
Youth Flow Academy works in the format of one-year financial literacy course, personal development and mindset development (including interactives, excursions to the enterprises and many games-simulations for the kid’s practical skills training).
MBA Kids International has both long-term programs – project-oriented during which children get trained a set of skills and learn about entrepreneurship activities and short-term intensive courses aimed at the development of one skill – time management, leadership, financial literacy, public speaking skills, etc. They arrange business tours during which teenagers learn about business cultures of other countries, which encourages greatly to find own area of interests.
Start Now started with one program that included not only business topics, but also basics of public speaking, teamwork and other soft-skills. Later this program became the basis for the specialized business courses offered in the school: “Marketing, PR”, “Finance and management”, “Startup laboratory”, etc. Start Now programs are studied offline in a form of trainings, during which teenagers create projects and brands, develop advertisements, hold press conferences. “Many boys that finished our business courses continue studying marketing, finance, economics in the Ukrainian universities and abroad, some of them use the obtained knowledge to assist in family business and even establish their own projects. In pre-quarantine times Start Now arranged regularly business clubs for teenagers – meetings with managers and entrepreneurs from different areas.
This year customers of such schools are concerned about whether the providers would be able to go online in case of the strict quarantine imposition. For modern children gadgets are integral part of their life and access to the network is the basic need. The quarantine showed the world the advantages and disadvantages of online studying. “It is adults that are not ready for the change of the educational paradigm”, claims Mykola Dorichenko, founder of MBA Kids International leadership school.
Iryna Melnychenko, founder of Youth Flow Academy, says that classes in online mode showed great results due to the gamification and involvement of students into the class development. She underlines that “Remote studying is not effective for students of primary school, since they still need the assistance of adults. Such a format may serve only a temporary alternative considering the importance to sell a product of high quality which is based on the age, psychological and physiological specifics of children and understanding of tools”.
After the quarantine imposition MiniBoss school owned by Marianna Lutsiv immediately switched to online format, so she outlines with confidence: “Online mode works and allows to teach efficiently. Skillful application of various tools will inevitably lead to the development of adaptiveness and flexibility.”
When speaking about the experience in online classes holding, Tetiana Patokova notes that they finished current programs successfully and even launched new programs that will be held in online mode – “IT professions” and “Learn to write essays”. However, Tetiana admits that online mode is inferior to offline due to the absence of personal communication, which is extremely important for business communication.
The target audience of this niche is successful parents of children and teenagers in the age of 6-16 who are 30-55 years old: managers that work in big and medium business, individual entrepreneurs. These are people with university degree (possibly MBA), which realized the importance of business knowledge and business skills development, people with the above-middle income, who know the value of the money and are ready to invest in the future of their children.
Marianna Lutsiv says that she does not feel any competition. Profitability in this market depends directly on the effort already made and effort that will be made in the business and is not gained at once, she assures: “You cannot just work in this business, you should live in it”. Mykola Dorichenko emphasizes that “profitability of the child educational projects market may be reached only if you provide the value for the parents, which is dynamics of their children development and the results. It means that you should offer the content and format of classes that will keep the attention and show the development”.
Iryna Melnychenko believes that children business education services market is very promising, but she warns that due to this people establish educational institutions, “which want to earn money and are not paying attention to the quality”. Tetiana Patokova admits that “this business is not very profitable, but is very interesting and inspiring”: “When our graduates come to us in several years and tell about their accomplishments, we understand that our work was not in vain. It is the value which may not be converted to money equivalent”. We barely had competitors when we started our business. She says that nowadays, there are many schools offering business education for children and teenagers. “I am sure that this market segment will keep developing. Now many alternative private schools include business courses into their programs and it is the right decision”, notes Tetiana. In terms of business profitability, Iryna Melnychenko says that “operations organization will pay off during first 9-11 months of work, but these numbers do not include marketing costs.”
In terms of the startup capital, Mykola Dorichenko claims that for his team that works under the franchise with the partners the budget (lump sum, first capital investments, remuneration of the staff, etc.) is $25-30k. Marianna Lutsiv underlined that the average budget may significantly vary depending on the format you choose for the school, as well as on the fact whether you work alone or under a franchise. For the systematic business (in MiniBoss business school program is developed for 8 years. – Edit.) “dozens of thousands dollars” are required at the first stage. Tetiana Patokova founded her Start Now school without investments, she rented premises for classes on an hourly basis, gained students by posting advertisements in the Internet. After the competition became tougher, the prices for the advertisements in the Internet increased, the primary budget is required for the start, but it may be small, if you do not make many mistakes.
The best channel to attract customers for such business is the word of mouth, since parents select very carefully additional education for their children. Marianna Lutsiv noticed that the great share of new students of MiniBoss Business School already heard about the success of their peers that are studying in the school and parents heard about the school from the students’ parents and she says that it “proves one more time that organic growth is the characteristic feature of the proper systemic actions”. However, Mykola Dorichenko claims that one cannot do without the professional targeted marketing mix: “We use the standard set of tools: digital, radio, outdoor – it allows to create awareness, attract interest and make an interested person a customer.” Marianna Lutsiv added to this mix the presence “on almost every specialized platform and exhibition”.
