A 10-Year-Old's Journey, from Lemonade Stand to Silicon Valley | Hacker News Reader

A 10-Year-Old's Journey, from Lemonade Stand to Silicon Valley

dealbook.nytimes.com

35 pointse15ctr0n9 comments

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Laura California 6 hours ago

Why do I get the queasy feeling that the dad is exploiting the daughter?

Eric Harr Marin County, Calif. 22 minutes ago

Hi Laura:

Thank you for taking the time to post your comment.

As a parent, if I read this article about someone else's daughter, I would have the same initial reaction that you did: "Is the dad exploiting the daughter?"

However, I am Vivienne's dad and I will tell you, from my heart of hearts, that we are simply doing everything we can to lift up Vivienne and help her realize her dream of giving anyone the chance to do what she did -- to make a stand and make a difference.

When I left my well-paying job to support Vivienne, truth be told, it was scary. I have a family to support. Over the past two years, we have made tremendous sacrifices to see this dream through, and we are fully, emotionally invested in it. I believe I made the right choice.

I know you don't know me, and I know these are just words on a computer screen. I hope we might meet one day, so that you can look into my eyes and see the sincerity in them. I will tell you that this experience has been the most rewarding journey of our lives.

Mark Twain once said: "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." The day Vivienne set up that first lemonade stand was the day I found out why.

Thank you for listening. I wish you all the best, Laura.

Eric Harr

From the comments on nytimes.

> Perhaps we shouldn’t be cynical. Instead, maybe we should just marvel at the velocity of Silicon Valley in all its absurd glory, and at a 10-year-old who has raised millions for two separate businesses and may also help change the way we look at charity.

I missed the part where a 10-year old raised millions of dollars. The previous NYT story[1] by the very same author presented a slightly different narrative of the company less than a year ago:

> Vivienne’s success was spurred by a heart-rending cause, a cute face and a good tagline in the form of “make a stand.” But she would most likely have just been another lemonade stand if not for her father, a social media expert. Eric Harr was president at the time of Resonate Social, and his clients included CBS News and Lexus, among others. He led a media-savvy Twitter campaign that attracted national attention for Vivienne’s cause.

> What makes this feel-good story really interesting is what happened next. Instead of moving on, or even forming a nonprofit to continue those goals, Mr. Harr and his wife, as well as Vivienne, formed a business around this cause.

> Mr. Harr raised $982,000 in financing and incorporated Make a Stand. He quit his job and is now the chief executive. Make a Stand sells fair-trade, organic lemonade.

If the author wanted to make a point about "the velocity of Silicon Valley in all its absurd glory," I think he could have found plenty of better examples.

[1] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/in-a-lemonade-stand-a...

I am really happy for the success here, and it does reflect the Silicon Valley narrative that anyone can make it big. But I am never sure if stories like this help or hurt. The cynic in me sees a PR guy who exploited his own daughter to create a viral PR campaign, the optimist in me sees it as validation that shooting for a large goal is never "stupid" and if your chance of success is equal for what ever goal you aim for then "go big" as they say.

I would be both sad and pretty impressed if the lemonade stand idea was just a pre-planned launch vehicle for the app.

I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think the narrative here is that anyone can make it big... it's that if you have connections in Silicon Valley, it's fairly easy to raise money.

This shouldn't diminish the creativity and good-heartedness of the 10-year old, but if her dad were a fast food worker, I don't think we would be reading about her in the Times.

I always find stories like this troubling because 1) how much of it was actually driven by the parents? 2) what's going to happen when it's no longer a quirky action by a cute little girl?

Planet Money's podcast 567 covered an assertive, outgoing little girl who was making good money by buying lollipops at retail and going around selling them to adults at a markup. She acknowledges that it only works because she's adorable, and that her sales have dropped as she's gotten older.

Maybe this kid is really driven and will go on to great things, or maybe she'll end up burnt out and miserable because her primary value turns out to be her youth and novelty.

We live in a world of contradictions - I think it's both.

Agreed.

>Why pay 4.9 percent, the amount Make a Stand charges, as a transaction fee?

If it was a pre-planned launch, then it's impressive. I'm leaning more toward cynical. Hopefully she'll learn enough to navigate those waters for herself in the future, if she's so inclined.

I like how instead of sugar they list "Evaporated Cane Juice" as one of their ingredients, it's one of several hundred legal names for sugar. Given that sugar is probably one of the leading causes in child obesity, together with them being a for profit company, I'm not entirely sure why you would not give money to charity directly.

Not to sound jaded, but surely if this had been a non-white 10 year old girl from a disadvantaged background it would have been something to make me warm and fuzzy inside. Instead, the cynic in me wonders how the Dad pulled this off ...

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