Intro to Accounting and Market Expansion


When my 7 year-old daughter wanted to take money to buy stuff at the school canteen, I tried shooting it down pointing out that she didn’t know to subtract in her head. “How would you know how much they should return?”, I asked. “It’s OK if they don’t return the right amount,” she said. Seeing my jaw drop, she explained her stance, “It’s your money, I am fine if you spent a little extra”.

Another time, she told me that giving extra money for something is better than giving the exact amount. “Why?”, I asked. “Simple,” she said, “That way they give you back some money. Imagine that: giving you money for buying something from them.” Patience, I reminded myself. She will learn when she is ready. Or even better, when she has an incentive to learn such things.

I think that incentive driven moment to learn about subtraction and accounting has arrived. Of late, she has taken to growing plants. It soon became a group activity with her friends where they’d all plant seeds in cups, leave the cups in a safe place outside, and water them daily.

She then came to the logical conclusion (to her, at least) that what’s precious to her must be precious to others. Ergo, continued her line of reasoning, others would be willing to pay for her plants. The princely sum of 1 rupee per plant.

Not surprisingly, the (apartment) market was soon saturated. Like any good business person, she decided to expand to newer markets. “How do you plan to do that?”, I asked. “Via Amazon”, she answered as if it was the most obvious thing to do. “You can help me send things via courier”, she said making me her first employee (the shipment guy).

I guess I should be glad she’s thinking of earning money. Also, that she didn’t ask me to write an app to sell the plants…

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