A Los Angeles-based startup is bringing a whole new meaning to the term "young CEO."
Kidworth recently announced its goal to turn 1 million children into entrepreneurs. The company's platform seeks to help kids build virtual storefronts to sell goods and collect payments. (Hat tip: VentureBeat.)
How it works: Parents set up a master account and in three minutes, according to Kidworth’s site, kids can design their own online business and begin sharing their products or services via Facebook.
"Everyone has sports equipment, game consoles, recreational gear, toys and games, DVDs or clothes they no longer use," the site says. "You can sell all those things through your Kidworth company." To address privacy concerns, the site allows parents to screen all orders and correspondence with customers.
Running a business on Kidworth is free, though the company collects a 99 cent service fee on each item sold, which it adds to the price you set.
Kidworth comes at a time when more kids want to be Internet entrepreneurs, and follow in the footsteps of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. According to the Kauffman Foundation, 40 percent of people ages 8 to 24 want to start a business at some point.
The growing ease with which anyone -- including kids -- can launch moneymaking schemes online may bode well for future generations of executives. A recent aptitude test performed on more than 200 top founders and business builders around the world found that 80 percent of "Guts-dominant" founders -- those who exhibited especially thick-skin and perseverance -- had ventures as children.
In his new book "Hearts, Smarts, Guts and Luck," Anthony K. Tjan, the venture capitalist who conducted the test, says that early childhood "businesses" like a lemonade stand or a snack kiosk played a “substantial role in shaping future risk takers.”
Rudy DeFelice, Kidworth’s founder and a father of three, told VentureBeat that Kidworth aims to capitalize on the entrepreneurial aspirations he’s observed in today’s youth. "All their business hereos were startup guys -- kids in their 20s with their shirt untucked changing the world," he said.