FEATURED ENTREPRENEUR: MEET YASH!
He just turned 8 years old and is in 2nd grade. Yash is on the Honor Roll and part of the gifted and talented program at Barbara Bush Elementary School in Houston, TX; one of the many HISD campuses that embraces the Lemonade Day program and teaches it as part of the curriculum in the classroom.
Yash’s lemonade stand is called “Make A Difference One Cup at a Time” because he is raising money for the “Help Kids be Kids” program at Texas Children’s Hospital.
In Yash’s second year of participating in Lemonade Day, he made over $5000 with a net profit of approximately $4500. In his spare time, Yash participates in Cub Scouts and has successfully completed his BobCat trail to become a Bear from a Wolf. Yash and his parents are also involved in TiE Houston.
Here is Yash’s story from his own words:
I am Yash Semlani, 7 yrs old, a 2nd Grader and a Cub Scout. This is the second year that my brother Jay Semlani, 4yrs old and I are doing the lemonade day program through TiE. This year we were so excited when Dad told us in March that TIE mentoring was starting early. I came home from that session with many many ideas in my head.
The next day I sat with my Mom & Dad to read the lemonade day book and do the worksheets. When my mom asked me what my goal was I quickly replied that I wanted to make a million dollars. My parents just smiled and said that was too much money and that I needed to set a reasonable, achievable goal. So I thought some more and said that I wanted to make a 1000 dollars. My mom once again said that it was too much. I quickly asked “Why ?”. So we did the math together and figured out that to make a 1000 dollars at 2 dollars a cup I would have to sell 500 cups of lemonade. That was a lot!
On way to school the next day my mom asked me “Why do you want to do the lemonade stand?” and unlike last year where I just wanted a video game, this year my response was “I want to help the kids at Texas Children’s Hospital”. I was born at Texas Children’s and I wanted to give back a little.
Instead of finding an investor, I decided that to focus on the pre-selling vouchers because it worked last year and made things more predictable. However, this year we designed a voucher without a price that clearly showed my cause & what people would get like lemonade, cookies, raffle prizes where winners did not have to be present to win. I was nervous to knock on doors and find out whether people will buy a 25 dollar lemonade voucher to support my cause and help me reach my goal.
That evening after school I sold 12 vouchers and made 300 dollars. Then another thought came to me – if people are buying one voucher – will they buy a two pack. The next day I stapled two vouchers together and offered the two packs and made another 400 dollars in half the time.
Hearing how excited I was about the work one of my friends Ananya asked if she could join me in my lemonade stand. Now we increased our goal to 3000 dollars and felt confident that we could make it happen.
Ananya, Jay and I recorded our pledge and our parents posted in online so we could spread the word faster and get people to buy online too using a credit card. I also spoke to several local businesses who donated boxed lunches and more raffle prizes so we would not have to spend on food and increase our profit.
This year we had 4 original lemonade recipes, sold 30 gallons of lemonade, 3 dozen cookies, 300 pre-packed lunches donated from Mcdonalds, Boudreax, Russo’s, Papa John’s, Red Dot and more. We had a water slide, snow cone machine and 15 raffle prizes that were also donated. We had sales of over 5000 dollars and profits of over 4500 dollars.
My dad asked me what I learned from this experience. There were so many things and I couldn’t really decide but I liked something my mom said. She said she loved that every time she put a hurdle in my path and thought that I would stop or think smaller that I instead thought of a way around it. She said what has really helped me reach my goal and past it is that I believed I wanted to make a difference and that people saw this and they wanted to help me too. I like that lesson. I believe I’m going to start earlier and try harder next year to meet my original goal of a million dollars and maybe mom will help me by putting some more hurdles in my path.
Dad says my customers really got value for their money and are sure to return next year. If you couldn’t make it this year do come next year and help me reach my goal to Make – A – Difference, one cup at a time.
Thank you for listening to my story.
Congratulations to Yash on his success and winning Houston’s first annual Entrepreneurial Excellence Award! We can’t wait to see what he comes up with his stand for this year!
back to blog
He just turned 8 years old and is in 2nd grade. Yash is on the Honor Roll and part of the gifted and talented program at Barbara Bush Elementary School in Houston, TX; one of the many HISD campuses that embraces the Lemonade Day program and teaches it as part of the curriculum in the classroom.
Yash’s lemonade stand is called “Make A Difference One Cup at a Time” because he is raising money for the “Help Kids be Kids” program at Texas Children’s Hospital.
In Yash’s second year of participating in Lemonade Day, he made over $5000 with a net profit of approximately $4500. In his spare time, Yash participates in Cub Scouts and has successfully completed his BobCat trail to become a Bear from a Wolf. Yash and his parents are also involved in TiE Houston.
Here is Yash’s story from his own words:
I am Yash Semlani, 7 yrs old, a 2nd Grader and a Cub Scout. This is the second year that my brother Jay Semlani, 4yrs old and I are doing the lemonade day program through TiE. This year we were so excited when Dad told us in March that TIE mentoring was starting early. I came home from that session with many many ideas in my head.
The next day I sat with my Mom & Dad to read the lemonade day book and do the worksheets. When my mom asked me what my goal was I quickly replied that I wanted to make a million dollars. My parents just smiled and said that was too much money and that I needed to set a reasonable, achievable goal. So I thought some more and said that I wanted to make a 1000 dollars. My mom once again said that it was too much. I quickly asked “Why ?”. So we did the math together and figured out that to make a 1000 dollars at 2 dollars a cup I would have to sell 500 cups of lemonade. That was a lot!
On way to school the next day my mom asked me “Why do you want to do the lemonade stand?” and unlike last year where I just wanted a video game, this year my response was “I want to help the kids at Texas Children’s Hospital”. I was born at Texas Children’s and I wanted to give back a little.
Instead of finding an investor, I decided that to focus on the pre-selling vouchers because it worked last year and made things more predictable. However, this year we designed a voucher without a price that clearly showed my cause & what people would get like lemonade, cookies, raffle prizes where winners did not have to be present to win. I was nervous to knock on doors and find out whether people will buy a 25 dollar lemonade voucher to support my cause and help me reach my goal.
That evening after school I sold 12 vouchers and made 300 dollars. Then another thought came to me – if people are buying one voucher – will they buy a two pack. The next day I stapled two vouchers together and offered the two packs and made another 400 dollars in half the time.
Hearing how excited I was about the work one of my friends Ananya asked if she could join me in my lemonade stand. Now we increased our goal to 3000 dollars and felt confident that we could make it happen.
Ananya, Jay and I recorded our pledge and our parents posted in online so we could spread the word faster and get people to buy online too using a credit card. I also spoke to several local businesses who donated boxed lunches and more raffle prizes so we would not have to spend on food and increase our profit.
This year we had 4 original lemonade recipes, sold 30 gallons of lemonade, 3 dozen cookies, 300 pre-packed lunches donated from Mcdonalds, Boudreax, Russo’s, Papa John’s, Red Dot and more. We had a water slide, snow cone machine and 15 raffle prizes that were also donated. We had sales of over 5000 dollars and profits of over 4500 dollars.
My dad asked me what I learned from this experience. There were so many things and I couldn’t really decide but I liked something my mom said. She said she loved that every time she put a hurdle in my path and thought that I would stop or think smaller that I instead thought of a way around it. She said what has really helped me reach my goal and past it is that I believed I wanted to make a difference and that people saw this and they wanted to help me too. I like that lesson. I believe I’m going to start earlier and try harder next year to meet my original goal of a million dollars and maybe mom will help me by putting some more hurdles in my path.
Dad says my customers really got value for their money and are sure to return next year. If you couldn’t make it this year do come next year and help me reach my goal to Make – A – Difference, one cup at a time.
Thank you for listening to my story.
Congratulations to Yash on his success and winning Houston’s first annual Entrepreneurial Excellence Award! We can’t wait to see what he comes up with his stand for this year!
STAY CONNECTED TO LEMONADE DAY NATIONAL
@LemonadeDayNational