A lot of parents would hear their 13-year-old say, “I want an e-bike,” and immediately start thinking about price tags.

Neeraj saw something else.

He saw a business lesson.

Instead of simply buying his son the thing he wanted—or shutting the idea down because it cost money—Neeraj used that motivation to teach him something far more valuable:

How to create the money himself.

In my conversation with Neeraj on Legacy Launchers, one of the stories that stayed with me most was how he helped his son turn his interest in an e-bike into his first real lesson in entrepreneurship.

The result?

His son made roughly $200 selling trading cards.

But the money wasn’t really the point.

The point was learning that wanting something doesn’t always have to end with asking someone else to provide it.

Sometimes it can become the beginning of a business.

A Better Answer Than “No”

Kids ask for things constantly.

A new phone.

A game.

Shoes.

A bike.

The easiest parental responses are usually:

“Yes.”

or:

“No.”

Neeraj found a third option:

“How could you earn it?”

That one question changes the entire experience.

Now the child has to think about value.

What do I have?

What might someone else want?

What could I sell?

How much should I charge?

Where do I find a buyer?

What happens if nobody buys?

Those are entrepreneurship questions.

And his son began answering them through something he already understood: trading cards.

Start With What You Already Have

There is a misconception that starting a business requires a giant idea.

A logo.

A website.

A business plan.

An LLC.

A pitch deck containing at least three unnecessary graphs.

It doesn’t.

Sometimes entrepreneurship starts with looking around your bedroom and asking:

“What do I already have that someone else values?”

For Neeraj’s son, the answer was trading cards.

He already understood the product.

He knew which cards were interesting.

He understood the culture surrounding them.

And there were buyers.

That’s a legitimate market.

It might not look like Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, but the fundamentals are exactly the same.

Asset + buyer + transaction = business.

The $200 Matters Because He Earned It

Two hundred dollars means something different when you’re 13 and you generated it yourself.

That’s where this lesson becomes powerful.

When money simply appears, it’s easy to think about money as something adults possess.

When you earn it, money becomes connected to:

effort, judgment, value and opportunity.

You begin understanding that $200 isn’t simply a number.

It represents transactions.

Decisions.

People deciding your product was worth paying for.

That realization can change how a young person thinks about money for the rest of their life.

Motivation Is Better Than Lecturing

What I liked about Neeraj’s approach is that he didn’t begin with:

“Today we’re going to learn entrepreneurship.”

Nothing makes a 13-year-old more excited than an unsolicited seminar on cash flow.

Instead, the lesson started with something his son already wanted.

The e-bike created motivation.

Then entrepreneurship became the bridge between where he was and what he wanted.

That’s incredibly effective teaching.

Adults work the same way.

We tend to learn fastest when the lesson solves a problem we genuinely care about.

Entrepreneurship Is Really Problem-Solving

One of the reasons I think entrepreneurship should be taught earlier is because it isn’t primarily about becoming a CEO.

It’s about learning to solve problems.

Want something you can’t afford?

Find a way to create value.

Have something someone else wants?

Find the buyer.

Nobody is interested?

Change your offer.

Something isn’t selling?

Figure out why.

Those lessons apply whether someone eventually becomes an entrepreneur, engineer, employee, artist or executive.

They teach agency.

Instead of assuming the world simply hands you opportunities, you start asking:

“What can I create from what I already have?”

Parents Can Teach This Without Giving Their Kids a Business Lecture

You don’t need to build a miniature MBA program in your kitchen.

The lesson can be surprisingly simple.

Your child wants something.

Instead of immediately purchasing it, ask:

What could you sell?

What service could you provide?

What skill could you use?

Who might pay for it?

That could mean:

Selling collectibles.

Washing cars.

Pet sitting.

Tutoring.

Designing something.

Reselling an item.

Helping a neighbor.

Making something online.

The specific business almost doesn’t matter.

What matters is experiencing the cycle:

Want → Idea → Action → Value → Money.

Once someone understands that cycle, they start viewing opportunities differently.

The Bigger Lesson: Don’t Remove Every Struggle

Parents naturally want to make life easier for their children.

But sometimes removing every obstacle also removes the lesson hidden inside the obstacle.

If Neeraj had immediately purchased the e-bike, his son would have gotten an e-bike.

Instead, he helped his son gain something potentially much more valuable:

evidence that he could make money himself.

That confidence compounds.

Today it’s trading cards and $200.

Tomorrow it could be a side hustle.

Eventually it could be a company.

The first transaction is often psychologically more important than the thousandth one.

Because the first one proves:

Someone will actually pay me for something I create or sell.

Entrepreneurship Before You’re Old Enough to Drive

We spend years teaching children how to prepare for jobs.

Get good grades.

Get into school.

Build a résumé.

Apply.

Interview.

Get hired.

Those are valuable skills.

But there is another question worth teaching:

What happens if instead of waiting for someone to give you an opportunity, you create one?

That doesn’t mean every child needs to become an entrepreneur.

It means every child should understand that entrepreneurship is an option.

Neeraj gave his son that lesson through something wonderfully ordinary.

A kid wanted an e-bike.

A father saw an opportunity.

A few trading cards changed hands.

And a 13-year-old learned that money could be created through value, not simply requested.

That’s Good Parenting—and Good Business Education

The most impressive thing about Neeraj’s story isn’t the $200.

It’s the way he transformed a purchase request into a lesson about independence.

Good parenting sometimes means providing.

Sometimes it means protecting.

And sometimes it means resisting the urge to immediately solve the problem for your child so they can discover that they’re capable of solving it themselves.

Neeraj didn’t just help his son get closer to an e-bike.

He taught him something much bigger:

If you want something, you can learn how to create value to get there.

And that’s a lesson that can last far longer than any bike.

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🎙️ Listen to the full Neeraj episode of Legacy Launchers for more about fatherhood, entrepreneurship, teaching children about money, and turning everyday moments into lessons that build confidence and independence.

Legacy Launchers explores entrepreneurship, AI, business, reinvention, and the people building something worth leaving behind.