My eldest son is saving for a new phone.

Apparently hand-me-down iphones don’t cut it any more. Too many cracks, too slow. Whatever.

We said he could not draw upon his savings, they’re for a first car, or something. As such, he is putting his 2024 Christmas and 2025 Chinese New year money towards this new effort.

He also worked during the summer for his grandparents (washed windows) and great-auntie (front of shop in a cafe).

Now he’s looking for more opportunities to get the phone sooner. Of course.

I draw him a “money map” (opportunity map?) to help him think through people that know/trust him, people that have money, people that he may be able to help.

It was a mind map and went though all of his sports, clubs, affiliations, etc.

The gist of it was something like:

* High School
	* Students ($)
		* Parents ($$)
	* Teachers ($)
* Primary School
	* Students (.)
		* Parents ($$)
* Sports Clubs
	* Players ($)
		* Parents ($$)
* Family
	* Immediate ($$)
		* Cousins ($)
		* Aunts/Uncles ($$)
		* Grandparents ($$)
* Others
	* Neighbors/Neighborhood
	* Local Community/Suburb
	* Strangers
* And on...

My overarching advice was:

Help people do/get what they already want, not something new.

And:

A service is easier than a product, when starting out.

And:

Make offers to the parents (who have the money) to help their children succeed (what they care about most)

And:

Target students behind/younger than you be about 1-3, even 5 years, you know so much more than they do.

Without being too direct, I was thinking that a sport coaching or academic tutoring service would be a good fit.

  • Teach what he already knows.
  • Do one specific/focused thing, like test-prep (e.g. ICAS, NAPLAN, etc.) or sport technique improvement (footwork, etc.)
  • Short 30-45min sessions, perhaps even over zoom
  • Word of mouth marketing through the parent community
  • Productize later if successful (flashcards, workbook, video course, etc.)

He’s 13…. he’ll probably start a youtube/twitch channel and burn a year.

He has an entrepreneurial friend that is trying to get him to buy into his discord/aimbot/roblox/something-something “business”… It might be a trap.

Anyway, good general advice for all of us I think.