Hinton Youth Entrepreneurship Award
Curriculum
A free, four-class course in practical entrepreneurship: from testing an idea to starting and running a business.
Special thanks for helping us take our ideas and turn them into a practical curriculum for the kids:
- Class 1
Introduction
Meet your mentor, Jonathan Hinton, who went from flipping school supplies to founding companies, and learn how the course and the $10,000 competition work.
What you'll learn
- Lifestyle companies vs. growth companies, and which you want to start
- Why founders start companies, and the key question: what can you do well and love doing for a long time?
- Entrepreneurship isn't a solo sport: building a founding team that balances you out
- A first pressure test of your idea: feasibility, market and competition
- Class 2
Testing Your Idea
Work out who you'll sell to first, how big the opportunity is, and where you stand against the competition, using a real estate company in Forsyth County as the example.
What you'll learn
- One-sided vs. two-sided markets, and who actually pays
- Segment the market, pick your first target customer and build a customer profile
- Size the opportunity: number of customers × lifetime value of each
- Find your core advantage, map competitors on price and quality, and build barriers to entry
- Class 3
Money Matters
Figure out what it costs to get started, how to raise that money, and whether your business can turn a profit, from a $150 lemonade stand to a $162,500 landscaping business.
What you'll learn
- Capital expenses (paid once) vs. operating expenses (paid as you go)
- Raising money: friends and family, bank loans, investors, and competitions like this one
- Reading a profit and loss statement, business models and unit economics
- Payback period: upfront capital ÷ yearly net income (the shorter the better)
- Class 4
Tactics and Strategy
The nuts and bolts of making a business official, deciding whether to grow it, and a few lessons to carry with you as a founder.
What you'll learn
- Five steps to launch: incorporate, open a business bank account, buy insurance, set up accounting, pay your taxes
- Choosing a business structure: sole proprietorship, LLC, S-Corp or C-Corp
- Growing by reinvesting profits, delegating and staying positive
- Founder wisdom: sunk costs, aligned incentives, opportunity cost, confirmation bias and the 80/20 rule