Lessons From My Kids’ Lemonade Stand

A few weeks ago, my wife, Kristen, was out of town for the weekend on a trip with friends. The weekend was mine to plan, so my enterprising daughters and I decided it was time for our annual tradition: The Doescher Girls Lemonade Stand (and Fashion Boutique).

This is our 4th or 5th summer of lemonade stands. We also do a hot chocolate stand in the winter. The girls love it because they can accomplish great things (with some help from mom and dad).

Not only is it fun, it helps instill great values in our children, including cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit. This is so important to Kristen and I, to give our kids the idea that you can make things happen in this world if you apply yourself.

Each year, we’ve focused on doing things better, and I’d like to take this blog to summarize some of the key aspects for you.

I think you might find this lighthearted breakdown of our kids’ lemonade stand surprisingly illuminating. 

Customers are Essential

As I like to say to startups, “Until you have a customer, you have an idea, not a company.” Few people will turn down lemonade from cute little kids, but we live in a neighborhood with limited traffic (due to a bridge outage).

So this year, the girls had me more aggressively post on social media and text nearby friends to get the word out. But we also got more innovative with our in-person marketing, going down the beach and personally inviting neighbors to come to our lemonade stand, rather than just relying on passersby. Another innovation that we implemented last year (or perhaps the year before) was cashless pay via Venmo. Many people carry no cash, especially walkers in the neighborhood. By offering Venmo, we addressed this objection, leading to more customers.

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Great Product Builds a Brand

Even when my oldest daughter was 5 or 6 years old and we did our first lemonade stand, I taught her that if people are stopping because you're a cute little kid, that’s great. But we are going to wow them with a great product, so they’ll tell their friends and, most importantly, come back.

We make fresh-squeezed lemonade with simple syrup. No Countrytime at our lemonade stand. We also charge for it, but people love it and come back year after year.

On the boutique side, our kids have improved the materials they use to make jewelry, and they also find a few customers who buy some items, providing an added benefit to stopping by the stand.

Capital Investments are Key to Scaling

After leveraging Dad’s hand strength to squeeze lemons, we purchased an automated juicer last year.

Each time we use it, the girls pay me a rental fee since they couldn’t afford the outlay at the time. This has given them the ability to get me (dad) to produce more lemon juice, increasing their sales potential.

I feel that this teaches them important lessons about long-term commitment and investment. This summer, we produced enough for them to run a second day, generating meaningful incremental income.

Additionally, the girls improved their signage this time, switching from a posterboard menu to a beautiful felt-style board.

These investments are going to continue to add up over time.

Improving Ways to Serve the Customer Base

The lemonade stand has always featured gluten-free blueberry muffins (King Arthur’s mix–i.e., the good stuff), but the girls (inspired by their culinary expert mom) have started making things from scratch.

Of note recently, they’ve gotten into making cupcakes (including homemade buttercream) and frozen custard (the first flavor was peanut butter cup, my favorite).

So the plan is to move beyond a single-day lemonade stand, but instead create an order form and allow customers to order products at their convenience. The product offering might include lemonade, cupcakes, muffins, and frozen custard … Additionally, custom jewelry orders could be included.

Expanding too fast?

While I’m excited about these new ideas, I do caution the girls about the crucial error of adding too many options too fast. It’s important for them to always focus on providing a great product or service, rather than several mediocre offerings. The key to long-term profitability always requires a great value proposition to the customer. 

Yes, they’re just kids, but I’m their dad after all. And I’m going to advise them just like we do our clients!

All of these simple principles apply whether I’m advising my own children, selling a $3.50 cup of lemonade or hard-working business owners who've spent the past few decades running a $7, $17, or $70 million business.