mummiez & daddiez magazine March/April

We Were Child Entrepeneurs...
Look where dreams, aspiration, hard work and
determination got us:
Aaron Kennedy
Noodles & Co.
When he was eight-years-old, Aaron Kennedy started two
seasonal businesses in Elburn, Illinois – selling greeting
cards in the fall, and selling vegetable-seed packets door-todoor
in the spring. "I sold to anybody I could get to on my
bicycle," Kennedy says. To better understand the customers’
needs, he planted seeds and tended to a garden in his own
backyard. Today, he runs Noodles & Company, a 12-state
franchise of restaurants that grossed more than $200 million
in revenue last year.
Tony Hsieh
Zappos.com
Jennifer Barclay
Blue Fish Clothing
Growing up on a farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
Barclay kept herself busy making “thumbies,” animal
figures she created by dipping her thumb in ink and
pressing it onto card stock. She sold them for a quarter
each, and she built on that creativity as a teenager, piecing
together fabrics that expressed her personal style. What
evolved was Blue Fish Clothing, an artisan, organic
clothing company, with retail stores in New Mexico and
New Jersey, and projected revenue of $2 million for 2009.
Long before he became the CEO of Zappos.com, Hsieh
made $100 each month selling photo-buttons by mail.
Customers would send him photos and self-addressed
envelopes and a 12-year-old Hsieh would transform
them into buttons that people could pin on clothing,
hats, and backpacks. That early success made him
confident as an entrepreneur. Today, people can’t stop
ordering their shoes from Zappos.com; the
company booked $1 billion in gross sales in
2008.