M n’ I’s Lemonade Shack started one day when our mom seen it on an Instagram photo. Our mom brought up the idea to do it next year, because it started in one week, but we wanted to do it this year. We knew we could get it done in one week. The day we found out about it, we got to work.

First we had to pick a location. Our mom looked up some places to set up our stand and we came to three options, Sertoma Park, Kiwanis Park, and Lillian’s. We decided on Lillian’s because it was downtown and no one else was in that area. That day we went to Lillian’s to get permission from her. Thankfully the owner Susan said yes we could set up our lemonade stand outside of her shop. She was a great business mentor for us. She gave us lots of good advice!

Then we got out our little notebook and started to draw up some ideas how we wanted our stand to look like. We started to design what our stand would look like/color scheme. We also came up with our logo, where our money would go to, a good slogan, a menu, a to-do list, a shopping list, and reasonable prices.

Macie came up with the logo on a program called Google Docs. Then we got working on some flyers to hang up around town. After supper our mom took us shopping to buy some of the supplies to make our lemonade. We made sure that we got the best deals and spent our money wisely.

With our money that we earn, we are going to give 25% of our earnings will go to Northern Plains Dance, 25% will go to our savings, and the other 50% will go towards our Boston family trip as spending money for us. We chose NPD Studio because that is where Macie dances and she loves her dance studio.

The next day we went to the Farmers Market to see how they set up their shops, and to see what pricing was. We also tried out our Poppin’ Pineapple Lemonade, after a few changes to our recipe, we loved our end result!

On Sunday we went shopping for materials and built our Shack with our family. This was our favorite part!

Our menu was Poppin Pineapple Lemonade, Homestyle Lemonade, Chocolate chip cookies and PB&J Bites. We came up with pricing and went in to show Susan, our business mentor. She suggested we raise our prices a little bit to make sure we covered all of our costs if we didn't sell out. She explained that we also should consider the time we’ve put into the planning and the time we will be working at our stand.

Our mom advertised for us on Instagram and Facebook. Our parents also own a business and they advertised it on their business pages as well. Susan, the Owner of Lillian’s advertised it on her Facebook page. She even called the news station to help promote us and Lemonade Day. We were nervous to be on the news, but it was fun.

We think we did well by partnering up with Susan, the owner of Lillan’s, and choosing a downtown location. Our location was very busy with people walking by. We had a great pineapple lemonade recipe that customers loved. We also sold special pineapple cups. We sold out of everything we had by 2:15!

Isaac and I want to both be business owners one day. This was a great experience for us to see how much work goes into owning your own business.

We think we should be named Entrepreneur of the Year because we looked professional, we had a unique Pineapple lemonade that everyone loved. We sold out of everything we had to offer, and we had excellent customer service. We teamed up with business partners and took their advice to help make us successful. We learned that you have to spend money to make money, and you have to work together.