This morning I read a post that brought back some early childhood memories of my earliest entrepreneurial endeavors.  The post, Capitalist Kids: Encouraging Young Entrepreneurs, is about the JD Roth’s early entrepreneurial experiences.  It triggered thoughts of things I hadn’t thought about in years.  It’s a good story, so I thought I’d share my story with you.

To be honest, I can’t figure out how my entrepreneurial spirit came to me. Most entrepreneurial traits are hereditary (see 5 Personality Traits of a Successful Entrepreneur ). My folks were both education professionals during their careers.  As a young man, my father owned a garage along with his older brother repairing cars and trucks. Somewhere, hidden away, I have papers with “Mates Garage” on them.

Nothing in my grandparents indicated entrepreneurial tendencies either.  One grandmother worked in retail and the other was a housewife.  One grandfather was a circus performer and the other worked for the same Fortune 50 company for 48 years, starting there as a teenager. After he retired, he became a stockbroker.

My earliest business venture started when I was about 5. I was a door to door salesperson (GASP!).  Each year for several years I sold Christmas cards and wrapping paper to our neighbors.  I would go up and down the street knocking on doors presenting my wares from a brochure and some samples.  And, who could resist such a cute little boy with such a handsome smile?  I made lots of sales and collected the money.

My mom was my operations staff.  She would place the orders and handle the money.  When the orders arrived, I would go deliver to all my customers.  For my hard work, the company (I have no idea what the name was) would reward me with prizes.  I earned no money.  I don’t think they could pay me because of child labor laws.  One year I earned a rocket launcher and another year, a chemistry set.

I learned a lot over those few years – how to present myself and my samples, how to sell, how to provide customer service, to be reliable and I learned  I could get what I wanted if I just worked at it.  Big lessons for such a little guy.

The greeting card and wrapping paper venture was only good for one big pop during the holiday season and so my second venture started during my business “downtime”.  Back then we did not have recycling the way we do today.  Some non-profit organizations would conduct paper drives where people would give their old newspapers to the organizations.  The non-profit would take the papers to recycling centers that paid them by the pound for their paper.

I decided this was a for profit business I could do and make some money.  I would take my little red wagon and go around the neighborhood collecting newspaper from the neighbors.  I would make my rounds once every couple of weeks.  People got used to me coming around and would save their newspaper for me.

Once I had enough paper to fill the trunk of the car, dad would drive me to the recycling center. We would drive in and up on the scale.  To a small boy, it was very exciting.  At the newspaper bin, we emptied the car of newspaper.  On the way out, we would get weighed again and the attendant would shout out the amount and hand dad the money.

I earned enough this way for new bikes, sports equipment, movies and all the ice cream I could eat.  I didn’t know it then, but I was a pretty well off grade school kid.

Looking back I realize I learned some valuable lessons from this little venture.  The first was that this was much better than having a paper route.  A paper route meant you had to get up every day, mostly in the dark, and deliver papers.  On top of that you had to go back once a week and collect from each of your customers.  Me? I did my “work” in the daylight when I wanted to and only had to collect money from one very reliable source.  A pretty good deal.

I learned that persistence pays off.  When I first started collecting newspapers, I wasn’t able to collect from everyone.  I was new and just starting.  But as time progressed and word of mouth spread, I picked up more and more customers.  I was as reliable as the milkman, the bread man or the produce wagon.  People were looking forward to my visits and many times had cookies and other goodies for me.

Little known to me, at that young age I had built a powerhouse Wayne Mates brand.  The brand was built with a smile, a laugh, reliability and service.

I had actually built my first ongoing and growing business. A few short years later, when my family moved away from the neighborhood, I sold the business to a friend.  There were two that wanted it, but this one made me the best offer so I took it.  No purchase and sales agreements, just cash, some baseball cards, some cats eye allies, a few steelies and some other good boy stuff.  Maybe he is still out there today with his little red wagon collecting newspapers!

Happy Entrepreneuring!!

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