WATCH: Calgary non-profit teaches kids business skills through hands-on entrepreneurship program

CALGARY — A Calgary-based non-profit is giving children and teens a taste of real-world business and entrepreneurship by letting them plan, build, market, and sell their own products — then keep the profits.Mini Titans — created in 2022 — was founded on the belief that hard work, resilience, and discipline are best learned through experience.The organization positions itself as a hands-on alternative to traditional classroom learning, with a strong emphasis on entrepreneurship and personal responsibility.The program, aimed at youth aged seven to 17, immerses participants in a fast-paced business environment.Over the course of camps or school-based sessions, kids develop business ideas, budget for materials, build products, market them, and ultimately sell them at community pop-up markets.“We started with our summer programs, and it was a five-day program where kids came in, learned how to plan, learned how to build and produce, and then also the sales and marketing aspects of things,” Mini Titans founder Mike Mammel told the Western Standard.“Then, at the end, the kids got to sell their inventions back to the community and keep the money they earned, all while also supporting a charity of their choice and donating as much or as little money as they want.”.Since launching, Mini Titans students have earned more than $1,900 and donated over $600 to charitable causes.Children work in groups to invent their own products, ranging from paper-built airport models to sugar scrubs, and are responsible for every stage of the process.“We want them to have full ownership of the planning, the production, and the sales and marketing aspects,” Mammel said.“We just enable them to think outside the box and encourage whatever they want to create.”Director Bowdie Bragg says the program isn’t meant to replace schools, but to complement them.“[Schools are] required to deliver a specific curriculum over a certain period of time,” Bragg said.“There’s a lot of time spent in [our] program on conceptualizing a product, building the product, and learning how to market it. So it’s highly interactive and fast-paced.”Learning to deal with failure is also a core part of the curriculum’s teaching model.In one example, a team producing slime dropped their entire inventory while transporting it to a market, losing all of their product.Instead of giving up, instructors helped them pivot — an essential entrepreneurial skill — by creating new products and partnering with other teams to sell items.“Pivoting is a very important part of business, and we teach it as part of the program so that kids can understand its importance,” Bragg said.“A negative occurrence in business isn’t an opportunity just to give up.”The program also introduces concepts like debt and inflation, charging interest on unpaid “loans” and gradually increasing prices in the camp store.According to Mammel, both parents and kids have responded positively to the program.“Most of the time, the parents are having to pull the kids away — they’re really engaged the entire time,” he said.The program even encourages kids to set goals at home, such as helping with chores, and rewards those efforts within the camp to help bolster the children’s experience.After early success with camps, Mini Titans has begun expanding into schools.The program recently ran at St. Benedict School within the Calgary Catholic School District, where 28 students earned nearly $1,000 and donated about $335 to the school’s special needs program.The opportunity came after St. Benedict’s principal saw Mini Titans operating at a fundraiser market and advocated for the program’s inclusion at the school..Looking ahead, Mini Titans hopes to increase exposure through evening, weekend, camp, and school-based programming.Its biggest challenges currently are securing more sponsors and recruiting instructors with real-world entrepreneurial experience.“Because of the nature of the program, the instructors we want ideally have some training background, but most importantly, they have an entrepreneurial background,” Bragg said.“When you’re teaching or training, the stories you tell have as much impact as the curriculum you’re delivering. So if you’re actually an entrepreneur, it’s easier to share stories about failure, success, or challenges you’ve faced.”For Mammel, the long-term goal is simple: normalize entrepreneurial thinking early.“Entrepreneurship is really about building good habits. So we’re looking at getting as many regular touchpoints as possible with kids and families,” he said.Bragg agrees.“There really isn’t a whole lot of education available beyond trial and error for most entrepreneurs,” he said.“So we’re giving kids a head start — both on the values required to be successful and on the skills.”For more information on the program, visit here.

WATCH: Calgary non-profit teaches kids business skills through hands-on entrepreneurship program

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