Leah

I Was an Entrepreneur at Age 12

It’s been about a year and a half since I left my full-time job to start my own business. But in many ways, I’ve been an entrepreneur since before my teenage years. When I was 12-years-old, I was the proud owner and editor of the “Summer Sticker Club, ” a pen pal and sticker newsletter club that I ran through the mail.

Every summer I created a series of newsletters on my typewriter (and later Apple IIE computer) with stickers, rubber stamps, and Printshop templates as graphics. There was no Internet in the 1980s, so I sold subscriptions — which came with complimentary stickers and “cool prizes” — to my pen pal friends. I considered myself pretty influential with my 25 pen pals (back then there was no Facebook, mind you). My favorite time of the day was afternoon when I ran to my ~~email inbox~~ family’s mailbox hoping to find more letters from these friends I never even met.

I loved writing those issues of the “Summer Sticker Club.” I locked myself in my bedroom for hours — writing content, brainstorming themes, picking just the right paper colors for each page, creating editorial calendars, and editing the articles sent in by my guest contributors (aka newsletter subscribers). “Summer Sticker Club” had quite a few subscribers and I was thrilled to actually earn money from this venture.

I even had my mom working for me for a while. I would leave the newsletter copy (along with strict instructions) in a labeled “out box” in my bedroom. She was responsible for taking the newsletter draft to Kinko’s to make the copies. More often than not, mom didn’t get around to her work (guess she was busy raising four kids!). Needless to say, I did have to chew her out a few times when I came home from school and found the newsletter still sitting in the “out box.” I was pretty strict about deadlines (see below) and apparently it was tough to find good help, even back then.

I also created a “Super Duper Catalog” (summer and holiday edition) where I sold rubber stamp stationery and notepads. I don’t recall how many orders I received, but it was quite the multi-page catalog.

It’s funny to look back at what my passions were as a young kid and see how it mirrors what I love to do now. I may have been only 12, but I loved creating content and distributing it to people around the country. I was passionate about communicating with distant friends called pen pals via mail. That’s exactly what I love doing today with this blog, Facebook and my own business.

I recently came across a file folder that contained all my entrepreneurial relics. Here’s a glimpse of my young endeavors (apologies for the scanned-turned – edited photo quality).