What if the most important thing students learn from running a business has very little to do with profit?

At Santa Fe Christian Schools, that question is shaping something powerful.

Now in their second year working with Seed Tree Group, Santa Fe Christian has built a growing entrepreneurship program under the leadership of Sonia Sturgeon. One of its most visible expressions is The Landing, a student-run coffee shop where students are learning the realities of operating a business: serving customers, managing products, marketing, tracking finances, solving problems, and making decisions that actually matter.

But Sonia has pushed the program beyond simply teaching students how to run a successful enterprise. She is helping them understand what it means to practice redemptive entrepreneurship.

In Sonia’s words, the program is built around “people over profit”—helping students use their God-given gifts and talents to serve the people and communities around them. That means asking a different set of questions. Not simply, How can we grow this business? but Who can this business serve? Where is there a need? How can what we are building create value and contribute to the good of others?

Those questions helped lead Santa Fe Christian into a partnership with Vista Bean Coffee, a missionally minded coffee company connected to growers in the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda.

But this is where the story gets especially interesting.

Santa Fe Christian already had a deep ministry partnership with another community in Uganda, where a K–12 school has been built and coffee is also grown. That community had coffee but needed help processing and exporting it. Vista Bean had the expertise to help.

At the same time, Vista Bean had a dream of eventually helping build a school in the Rwenzori Mountains, where much of its coffee originates. Santa Fe Christian’s existing ministry partners had already done exactly that.

One relationship began creating value for another.

The result is what the school describes as a reciprocal, redemptive relationship between Santa Fe Christian and these two communities in Uganda. Each brings something to the table. Each has something to contribute. Each has something to learn.

That is what makes this story so compelling.

The Landing is no longer simply a place where students practice entrepreneurship. It is becoming a vehicle through which they can see how business, service, ministry, relationships, stewardship, and human flourishing can intersect.

This is the heartbeat of redemptive entrepreneurship.

It is not simply adding a Christian message to a business project. It is helping students see that entrepreneurship itself can become a way of participating in the restoration and flourishing of the world around them.

A business can generate revenue, but it can also create opportunity. It can connect people, strengthen communities, solve meaningful problems, and build relationships that otherwise may never have existed.

And at Santa Fe Christian, students are beginning to experience that firsthand.

Students have already helped name a coffee blend combining beans from the two Ugandan regions, and this spring, entrepreneurship students will travel to Uganda. They will visit the existing school, meet the communities connected to the coffee they sell, and then travel to the Rwenzori Mountains, where they will participate in the beginnings of a new school.

Think about the power of that learning experience.

A student can stand behind the counter at The Landing, sell a cup of coffee, understand where that coffee came from, know the people who grew it, and begin to see how the business they operate can contribute to something far larger than themselves.

One of the things I especially appreciate about what Sonia is building is that none of this was fully scripted from the beginning.

Santa Fe Christian started by creating authentic entrepreneurial experiences for students. They built something real, developed relationships, paid attention to opportunities, and allowed one connection to lead to another.

That is entrepreneurial thinking at the program level.

Too often, schools feel pressure to have every piece of an entrepreneurship program figured out before they begin. But entrepreneurship rarely works that way. You start with what you have. You create something of value. You build relationships. You remain open to opportunities. Then you take the next step.

Santa Fe Christian is doing exactly that, and their story raises an important question for every school trying to create meaningful entrepreneurial experiences for students:

What if the student business is not the destination, but the platform?

A platform for students to create value and serve others. A platform for relationships. A platform for stewardship. A platform for helping young people understand that business can be about much more than making money.

It can be a way to love people well.

That may be one of the most important things we can teach the next generation of entrepreneurs.

One of the most engaging units in our Foundations of Entrepreneurship curriculum begins with a deceptively simple challenge: Sell something.

At first, the lesson is really about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Selling forces students to speak up, take a risk, face possible rejection, and learn how to communicate clearly under pressure. But underneath all of that is a much more important entrepreneurial lesson: Why would someone want what you are offering?

That question forces students to think about value. And value is almost always connected to solving a problem.

Recently, I was talking with Sonia Sturgeon at Santa Fe Christian Schools about how she is teaching this idea, and she shared a simple classroom practice that I loved.

At the beginning of class, Sonia keeps a bag filled with random objects: sunglasses, hand warmers, a candle, and other everyday items. Students come to the front of the room, reach into the bag, pull something out, and then have to sell it to her and the class.

The object itself almost doesn’t matter . . . what matters is what the student does next.

They have to think about their audience. They have to identify why this particular person might care about the product. They have to communicate a value proposition. And then they have to articulate that value confidently enough to persuade someone else.

Sonia has deliberately made this a recurring exercise rather than a one-time activity. Her students begin doing rough elevator pitches early in the year and gradually refine them as they gain confidence and skill.

And that repetition matters because selling is a skill, and like most skills, students get better by doing it. They learn how to read another person, they learn that features are not the same thing as benefits, and they learn that a good pitch isn't simply talking more—it is understanding what the other person values.

Sonia told me that one of the reasons she introduces this activity immediately is so students understand from day one that it is okay to come to the front of the room, try something, fail, and experience rejection. She wants them comfortable with that process before they reach the larger selling project later in the course.

That is entrepreneurial mindset education in practice. We can teach students about growth mindset, grit, creativity, empathy, and redefining failure. But eventually, they need situations where those ideas become real. And selling provides exactly that.

There is another interesting result Sonia is already seeing. As students repeatedly practice selling and thinking about value, they have started approaching her with their own ideas—things they are inventing, business concepts they are considering, and problems they think they could solve.

As Sonia put it, they are beginning to get “the bug” of being creative, thinking things through, and actually acting on their ideas.

That is the bigger win.

The goal isn't to turn every student into a salesperson. The goal is to help students understand that they have the ability to create value for another person—and then give them enough opportunities to practice communicating that value so that they become confident enough to act on it.

Students selling homemade salsa after some product testing.

I was recently on a college campus talking with a professor of entrepreneurship when I asked him a simple question: What age do you think is the right age to start teaching the entrepreneurial mindset?

He immediately grabbed my arm and said, “Stephen, if we’re not starting in kindergarten, we’re starting too late.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

One of my favorite definitions of an entrepreneur comes from Jordan Raynor’s Called to Create, where he describes an entrepreneur as someone who takes a risk to create something new for the good of others. When we view entrepreneurship through that lens, it becomes much easier to see why this work belongs at every grade level. 

That brings me to several kindergarten teachers at one of my absolute favorite schools in Houston, Texas.

These teachers attended our three-day summer training and completed the process of becoming certified in teaching the entrepreneurial mindset. When they returned to school, they began thinking through an important question: How do we take concepts like grit, risk-taking, and opportunity seeking and make them meaningful for five-year-olds?

What they came up with is both simple and brilliant.

Each kindergarten classroom will have a stuffed-animal “classroom pet” that represents a different component of the entrepreneurial mindset. One classroom will have Gritty the Grizzly Bear, representing grit. Another will have Rita the Risk-Taking Cheetah, representing the willingness to take healthy risks. And the third will have Ollie the Opportunity-Seeking Otter, helping students learn to recognize possibilities and see problems differently.

Throughout the year, teachers will use children’s books and classroom conversations to reinforce these ideas in age-appropriate ways. But the piece I especially love is what happens when those animals leave the classroom.

Each week, one student will take the classroom pet home for the weekend. That student will then be challenged to do something connected to the mindset represented by the animal. A student taking Gritty home might attempt something difficult and stick with it even when it becomes frustrating. A student with Rita might try something new that requires a little courage. A student bringing Ollie home might identify a problem or opportunity and figure out a way to respond to it. Then, when the student returns to school on Monday, they come prepared to share the story with the class.

There is a lot happening inside such a simple activity.

First, it reinforces a principle I come back to constantly: what you measure moves. If we tell students that grit matters but never ask them to practice it, recognize it, or reflect on it, the idea can remain abstract. But when a kindergartener knows that Gritty the Grizzly Bear is coming home this weekend and that they will need a story to share on Monday, suddenly they are paying attention to moments when they can persevere. The mindset becomes something they actively practice rather than simply something a teacher talks about.

The second piece may be even more important: it brings parents into the process.

Instead of the school sending parents another explanation of why grit or healthy risk-taking matters, a five-year-old arrives home carrying a stuffed bear and saying, “I need to do something gritty this weekend.” Now the parent becomes part of the experience. They help their child recognize an opportunity to persevere, take a risk, or solve a problem, and suddenly entrepreneurial mindset education has moved beyond the classroom and into the family.

That is exactly what this work should look like.

Entrepreneurial mindset education does not begin when students develop their first business plan. It begins when a young child learns that struggling with something difficult does not mean it is time to quit. It begins when students discover that making a mistake is not something to fear, that trying something new is worth the risk, and that problems can often be viewed as opportunities waiting for someone to act.

And sometimes, it starts with nothing more complicated than a stuffed bear named Gritty.

Interested in helping your school build the entrepreneurial mindset across grade levels? Reach out to learn how Seed Tree Group can help create a K–12 approach that develops students who take risks, solve problems, create value, and see opportunity wherever they go.

Sometimes the entrepreneurial mindset starts with nothing more complicated than a stuffed bear named Gritty.

There is something powerful that happens when an entire faculty begins thinking differently about what it means to prepare students for the world they are entering.

That is why, when we work with schools serious about developing the entrepreneurial mindset from kindergarten through 12th grade, we often begin with a one-day professional development experience for the entire faculty and staff.

We dig into the why behind entrepreneurship education and introduce a definition from Jordan Raynor that tends to change the conversation: An entrepreneur is anyone who takes a risk to create something new for the good of others.

Suddenly, entrepreneurship is no longer limited to starting businesses or writing business plans. It becomes a way of thinking about how students approach problems, uncertainty, failure, initiative, and the opportunity to create value for others.

We frame that mindset through four core attributes: growth mindset, grit, redefining failure, and opportunity seeking. As teachers begin applying those ideas to their own classrooms, the possibilities multiply. A kindergarten teacher starts thinking differently about how students respond when something does not work the first time. A middle school teacher considers whether students are being given enough opportunities to wrestle with difficult problems. A high school teacher begins looking for ways to move students from passive completion toward ownership and initiative.

That first day can ignite a school, but ignition is only the beginning.

Too much professional development ends when the session ends. Teachers take notes, have great conversations, and return to classrooms where the urgency of the school year quickly takes over.

That is why the next step is critical.

Following the initial professional development, we build a cohort of educators representing different disciplines and grade levels throughout the school. Over the course of the year, this group goes deeper into what it actually means to develop the entrepreneurial mindset across the entire K–12 experience.

They engage with readings, podcasts, research, teaching, and examples from schools around the country already doing this work. More importantly, they begin putting the ideas into practice.

What does growth mindset look like in elementary school? How do we intentionally develop grit in middle school? How can assessment help students redefine failure rather than fear it? How do we teach students to become opportunity seekers who see a problem and instinctively ask, What could I do about this?

Over time, these ideas stop being buzzwords and become part of the way the school teaches.

After a second round of professional development with the full faculty, the cohort begins serving as guides and mentors to other educators. They help colleagues experiment, prototype, reflect, and take action in their own classrooms.

That is when the entrepreneurial mindset begins moving from an initiative to a culture.

Because the goal is not for teachers and students to simply know the language of growth mindset, grit, failure, and opportunity seeking. The goal is for them to live it—to approach challenges differently, take thoughtful risks, solve meaningful problems, and continually look for opportunities to make something better.

Entrepreneurs, after all, are biased toward action.

Schools across the country are already using this model to move the entrepreneurial mindset beyond a single class and into the entire K–12 experience.

If your school is ready to do the same, I’d love to connect.

Introducing Wesleyan Christian Academy’s cohort of entrepreneurial mindset teachers.

There is an important distinction we have to make when we talk about student-run businesses: Students need time to work in the business but they also need time to work on the business.

That distinction changes everything.

When schools launch a café, spirit store, concession business, or other student-run venture, it is natural to focus on operations. Someone has to serve customers, stock inventory, run the register, clean equipment, and make sure the business actually functions.

That work matters. In fact, I love the idea of second-year entrepreneurship students having a class period built directly into their schedule where their “classroom” is the business itself. Instead of simply talking about customer service, inventory, leadership, or problem solving, they experience those things in real time.

But if all students ever do is complete tasks and keep the operation moving, we may have created a good student job program without creating an entrepreneurship program.

The danger is that we begin to view entrepreneurship students as workers who can simply be plugged into whatever needs to be done around campus. We need help in the school store? Use the entrepreneurship students. We need someone at concessions? Send them over.

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with students doing those things. The problem is the mindset behind it.

Our students are not simply workers; they are developing managers, leaders, and stewards.

We want them to begin thinking with an ownership mindset that says, I am responsible for making this better. An employee mindset asks, “What do I need to do?” while an ownership mindset asks, “What does this business need?”

Why are sales down? Where are we losing money? What are customers telling us? What process keeps breaking? What should we try next? How can we improve the experience? These questions require students to step away from the daily operation long enough to think, reflect, evaluate, and improve.

That is what it means to work on the business.

It happens through intentional team meetings, curriculum, financial review, problem solving, and reflection. Students should not simply learn how to run the business today. They should learn how to leave it better than they found it.

I love the Japanese idea of Kaizen: continuous improvement.

That mindset also creates a deeper sense of stewardship. Students inherit something from the group before them, or they help create something for the first time. Either way, their responsibility is not simply to keep it alive: their responsibility is to improve it.

They build better systems, they test new ideas, they make mistakes, they learn from those mistakes, and they train younger students. And eventually, they hand the business to the next group in better shape than when they received it.

That is why I believe that one year of entrepreneurship, while valuable, is not enough. Students need time to learn the entrepreneurial mindset, time to practice it, and eventually time to lead. A multi-year entrepreneurship program creates that progression. Students move from learning entrepreneurship to actually leading within an entrepreneurial environment.

And when that happens, the student-run business becomes much more than a café or store. It becomes a laboratory for leadership.

Yes, students need time to work in the business. But the real transformation happens when we give them the responsibility to work on it.

If your school is ready to move entrepreneurship beyond a single class and build a multi-year program where students grow into genuine leadership and ownership, I’d love to connect.

Sodalicious, at Grace Prep Academy, returns for the second year.

“Can we have them do the sweater activity?”

I was on a call with my friend Susan Crosier, head of school at Grace Preparatory Academy in Texas, discussing the upcoming professional development we were planning for her entire faculty and staff.

As I walked through the agenda and shared a few ideas, Susan asked if we could use one of the activities from the entrepreneurship educator training I host every June.

“People love the sweater activity!”

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Of course we could do the sweater activity. What better way to introduce people, head-on, to the entrepreneurial mindset than to have them dive straight into prototyping and building a minimum viable product?

The sweater activity is one of the flagship activities from the entrepreneurship curriculum I use with schools around the world.

We begin by establishing the problem—and remember, the goal is to fall in love with the problem, not the solution.

In this instance, the problem is my dear Aunt Marsha, whose crippling arthritis in her hands makes it nearly impossible for her to button her favorite sweater.

And why is this such a big deal?

Because her favorite sweater is also her “lucky sweater,” and heaven forbid anyone keep Aunt Marsha from wearing her lucky sweater.

Thus, the opportunity: Can we create, in a limited amount of time and with a limited number of supplies, a prototype of a tool that can help Marsha button her sweater?

With that challenge and a few clear constraints, the activity begins.

Groups of three or four leap into action. They grab sample sweaters and begin working with pipe cleaners, cardboard, rubber bands, paper clips, tape, and other basic supplies. Their goal is to create a working prototype that will allow Marsha to function as normally and independently as possible despite her condition.

Soon, time is up, and the groups have to move from building to marketing.

What will they call their product? Who is their ideal customer? What sets their tool apart? How will they market and sell it?

Then the real fun begins. Group after group gets up and “sells” its product to the crowd.

While the activity itself is a great way to introduce design thinking and the entrepreneurial mindset, the greater benefit comes from two powerful takeaways: the need for empathy and the beauty of collaboration.

As we identify with Marsha—often by attempting to model what it might feel like to have crippling arthritis in our own hands—we begin to see the world through someone else’s experience.

And as we work on a team, we make another remarkable discovery: Other people exist, and they may even have some pretty good ideas.

It took very little convincing for Susan to talk me into doing the activity with all 80 members of her team.

Although this required her team to make a last-minute trip to the thrift store—and finding sweaters in July in Dallas, Texas, is an interesting mission—it all worked out in the end.

Teaching entrepreneurship through an elective course is great.

But teaching the entrepreneurial mindset to your entire faculty and staff is a game changer.

When educators themselves understand empathy, collaboration, design thinking, prototyping, and the willingness to test an imperfect idea, those principles begin to shape far more than a single classroom. They begin to shape the culture of the entire school.

It’s going to be a great year for Grace Prep.

If your school is interested in exploring what it could look like to develop the entrepreneurial mindset across your faculty and staff, I’d love to connect.

Educators at Grace Prep Building Prototypes

There is certainly a spectrum when it comes to reading about money and financial management. On one end, we have Dave Ramsey and the conservative approach to getting out of debt and living within one’s means. On the other hand, we have Robert Kiyosaki, who advocates leveraging debt to build assets.

I’ve always found the best approach to be somewhere in the middle of these two leading voices, but I still enjoy reading what each of them puts out. Recently, I’ve been re-reading some Robert Kiyosaki—specifically his work on Cashflow Quadrant, where he advocates for readers to step out of the “employee” quadrant and into the business owner and/or investor quadrant.

The book itself contains some great concepts, but I was especially drawn to his thoughts on failure.

Early in the book, he states, “so many ‘A’ students get stuck in ‘analysis paralysis,’ studying every little detail, but failing to do anything.” He goes on to explain that this “analysis paralysis” is “caused by our educational system punishing students for making mistakes” and argues that ‘A’ students “simply made the fewest mistakes.”

Truer words would be hard to find.

Our educational system is designed to keep students in line, following a rubric and a detailed map to a destination which, unfortunately, no longer brings the promise it once did. Students learn to search for the correct answer, avoid unnecessary risk, and protect their grades. Then we send them into a world where the path is unclear, the rubric is missing, and progress often depends on their willingness to act before they have every answer.

If we are not encouraging our students to make mistakes and to experience failure, we are not actually preparing them for the real world.

Kiyosaki goes on to say, “The reason so many people fail to achieve success is because they fail to fail enough times.”

That statement alone should be enough to warrant every school around the nation starting an entrepreneurship program and outright encouraging students to fail. To fail over and over and over—and then to fail again—until they understand the primary role that failure plays on the path to success.

Success is a poor teacher. We learn very little from it. Failure, on the other hand, is a wonderful teacher. Although the lesson is often painful, it can be highly instrumental in shaping our journey toward success.

John Maxwell touches on this in his work, Failing Forward. Toward the beginning of the book, Maxwell argues, “many people are training for success when they should be training for failure.”

Imagine that: training for failure.

If schools were to embrace this revolutionary concept, we would do a world of good for our students. No longer would students enter the world unprepared for the volatility and uncertainty that grow daily. Instead, they would go armed with a mindset of resilience, knowing that inevitable failure is not the end of the journey but a building block on the route to success.

That is one of the great powers of entrepreneurship education.

Your entrepreneurship program is essentially a failure laboratory. It gives students a place to take risks, test ideas, make mistakes, receive feedback, adjust, and try again while the stakes are still relatively low. It is in this laboratory that learning comes alive—and where students develop the resilience they will need long after they leave the classroom.

The goal is not to teach students to enjoy failure. The goal is to teach them not to fear it.

Because the students who eventually succeed may not be the ones who made the fewest mistakes; they may simply be the ones who were willing to fail enough times.

Interested in building this kind of learning environment for your students? Reach out to learn how Seed Tree Group can help your school develop an entrepreneurship program where students learn to take risks, create value, and fail forward.

he paper airplane prototyping lesson is a great lesson on failure.

People need to hear something seven times to hear it once. In schools, however, we often act as though saying something once in an opening faculty meeting, placing it once in a strategic plan, or printing it once on a poster means the culture has absorbed it–but it has not.

Culture is not created by announcement but rather through repeated language with shared definitions. We say what matters over and over again until the language begins to shape how people think, how they speak, how they make decisions, and ultimately how they live.

Language creates culture.

This is why synonyms do not cut it. If one teacher says resilience, another says perseverance, another says toughness, and another says follow-through, they may all be pointing toward the same general idea. But students do not necessarily hear one clear message. They hear scattered vocabulary. The meaning may overlap, but the culture does not compound–consistency compounds.

At Seed Tree Group, we talk often about the entrepreneurial mindset, and we define that mindset through four specific attributes: growth mindset, grit, redefining failure, and opportunity seeking. 

Those words are not random: they were chosen because they carry meaning and create a shared framework. Growth mindset teaches students that they are not stuck where they are. Grit teaches them that meaningful goals require sustained effort over time. Redefining failure teaches them that mistakes are not the end of the road but part of the path toward wisdom. Opportunity seeking teaches them to look at problems not as obstacles to avoid but as invitations to create.

Take the word prototype. In a traditional school culture, a rough draft may feel incomplete, messy, or not good enough. But in an entrepreneurial culture, that same rough draft can be understood as a prototype: an early version designed to be tested, improved, and strengthened. That one word changes the posture of the student. It tells them this is not final, and that is the point.

Or take the word opportunity. In many classrooms, students are quick to identify what is wrong. The instructions are confusing. The group project is frustrating. The default response is often complaint, but when students are trained to see problems as opportunities, the conversation changes. The problem is no longer merely something to gripe about but instead becomes something to investigate, solve, improve, or build from. That is the entrepreneurial mindset at work.

The beginning of a school year is the perfect time to ask a simple but important question: what words do we want shaping our culture this year? Not twenty words. Not a wall full of abstract virtues. Just a handful of specific words that can become part of the shared language of the school.

Because if we want students to become people who solve problems, take faithful risks, create value, and move toward challenges with courage, we need to give them the language that makes that kind of life possible.

If your school is ready to build a culture shaped by the entrepreneurial mindset, Seed Tree Group would love to help you take the next step.

With Jeff Williams at Trinity Christian Academy, studying the language that shapes culture.

In fact, it is growing, thriving, and changing lives in schools across the nation and Canada. More than 50 SeedTree Group schools are now actively building entrepreneurship programs that equip students with real-world skills, durable mindsets, and a deeper understanding of how they can create value for the good of others.

And now, SeedTree Group has launched something brand new to help schools grow even stronger: the SeedTree Dashboard.

This dashboard is more than a place to access resources. It is becoming the central hub for Christian schools implementing entrepreneurship education in real time.

Through the dashboard, SeedTree schools now have a place to connect with one another, share ideas, ask questions, and learn from what is working in other schools. With built-in community features and chat, schools no longer have to build their programs in isolation. They can grow alongside other like-minded educators who are doing the same work and asking the same questions.

The dashboard will also serve as the home base for our monthly mastermind calls. These calls bring SeedTree schools together to talk honestly about what is working, what is challenging, and what we are learning along the way. The goal is simple: we grow better together. When one school discovers a great idea, a helpful structure, or a better way to launch a student-run business, everyone benefits. All boats rise.

In addition to the community hub, the dashboard now houses the full SeedTree curriculum library. Over the past several years, this curriculum has grown into a robust collection of resources for schools looking to launch or strengthen entrepreneurship education. It includes multiple years of high school entrepreneurship curriculum, financial literacy, middle school entrepreneurship resources, and much more.

We have also developed an AI coaching tool designed to support schools as they build and grow their programs. This tool acts as a practical assistant and coach, helping educators think through next steps, strengthen implementation, and continue moving their programs forward.

All of this matters because entrepreneurship education is not simply about teaching students to start businesses.

It is about forming students who are prepared to engage the world with courage, creativity, wisdom, and purpose. It is about helping students develop the kind of transformed mindset Paul describes in Romans 12:2 — learning to think differently, see opportunities, solve problems, take risks, and create for the good of others.

This is where education is going.

Students need real-world skills for an ever-changing world. They need opportunities to lead, build, communicate, collaborate, fail, adapt, and try again. They need schools willing to move beyond passive learning and into meaningful, transformative experiences that prepare them to thrive and flourish.

That is why now is the time.

If your school has been considering entrepreneurship education, wants to strengthen an existing program, or is ready to join a cohort of Christian schools pursuing this work together, it is not too late to jump in for next school year.

SeedTree Group can help you launch, grow, and supercharge your entrepreneurship program.

The movement is growing. The need is clear. The opportunity is now.

SeedTree Teachers Working on Rapid Prototyping During the Summer Training.

This coming school year, more than 50 schools across the United States and Canada will partner with Seed Tree Group to launch new entrepreneurship programs, strengthen existing programs, and equip students with the entrepreneurial mindset.

At its core, this work is about helping students become the kind of people who see problems, take initiative, create value, and step into the world with courage, creativity, and purpose.

Last week, 35 educators from 22 Seed Tree schools gathered in Cincinnati, Ohio, for a three-day in-person intensive training. Teachers, program leaders, and administrators came together to go deep into the entrepreneurial mindset, explore best practices for building student-run businesses from the ground up, and develop strategies for teaching financial literacy, leadership, communication, and other durable skills students need for life.

The training focused heavily on four core attributes of the entrepreneurial mindset: growth mindset, grit, redefining failure, and opportunity seeking. These attributes are foundational because they help students move from passive participation to active creation. They teach students not simply to wait for opportunity, but to recognize it, pursue it, and build something meaningful from it.

The group also received training on the brand-new Seed Tree dashboard, including expanded curriculum resources and an AI coaching tool designed to help supercharge program growth, support implementation, and give teachers access to practical ideas and strategies throughout the school year.

One recurring theme throughout the week was this: Don’t fall in love with the solution. Fall in love with the problem.

And the problem is clear: across the country, schools are facing a growing crisis of student disengagement. Too many students are asking why their work matters. Too many are struggling to connect classroom learning with real-world purpose. Too many are waiting to be told what to do instead of being invited to create, lead, and contribute.

That is why this work matters.

The teachers and leaders in this cohort are stepping into that problem with conviction. They are not simply adding another program to the school calendar. They are building environments where students can practice courage, ownership, collaboration, resilience, and value creation in real time.

As my friend Alex Judd says, impact comes “when you refuse to stay in the same place but commit to the same path.” That is exactly what these educators are doing. They are refusing to stay in the same place. They are committing to the path of meaningful, real-world learning. And they are preparing to help students do the same.

We are honored to walk alongside this incredible group of schools in 2026–2027 and cannot wait to see the businesses launched, the programs strengthened, the teachers equipped, and the students transformed through this work.

The 2026-2027 cohort of Seed Tree schools!

Across the country, we continue to see growing interest from Christian schools that want to better understand what Christ-centered entrepreneurship can look like in action.

Because of that increased demand, we are excited to share that this year, instead of hosting one Entrepreneurship Symposium, we will be hosting two.

The Entrepreneurship Symposium is one of the best ways for your team to get energized, inspired, and equipped as you imagine what a thriving entrepreneurship program could look like at your school. Rather than simply talking about entrepreneurship in theory, these events are hosted at schools that are actively building and growing programs, giving you the chance to see real examples, ask practical questions, and begin envisioning next steps for your own community.

As always, we highly recommend sending a team of at least three people from your school. The best conversations often happen when multiple leaders, teachers, and decision-makers are able to experience the event together and return home with a shared vision.

This year’s symposiums will be hosted at two incredible schools:

Greater Atlanta Christian School
Atlanta, Georgia
November 12-13, 2026

Santa Fe Christian Schools
San Diego, California
March 11-12, 2027

Mark your calendars now and begin thinking about who from your school should attend.

If you would like more information or want to make sure your school secures a spot early, simply reply to this email and I would be glad to connect with you.

We are excited for what is ahead and grateful to continue walking alongside schools that are committed to helping students develop an entrepreneurial mindset for the good of others.

Attendees from the 2026 Entrepreneurship Symposium at Gilbert Christian High School.

One of the questions people often ask when they hear about a student-run business is, “So what happens to the money?”

It’s a great question, and honestly, it’s one of my favorite parts of the whole experience. When we help schools launch student-run businesses, we are not trying to create a pretend version of business for students. We want it to feel as true to life as possible. That means students begin to understand profit and loss. They track KPIs. They look at the cost of goods sold. 

The money makes it real. It gives them something to measure, something to debate, something to celebrate, and sometimes something to fix. When students see that one product has a better margin than another, or that waste is eating into profit, or that a small change in pricing can change the entire business, they are no longer learning entrepreneurship as a concept. They are living it.

But the best part is what happens after the profit is made.

In a healthy student-run business, profit usually moves in three directions. First, students learn to pay back the capital it took to launch. Many schools provide an interest-free loan so students can get started, and part of the students’ responsibility is to understand that capital and work toward paying it back. 

Second, students learn to reinvest. Most student-run businesses begin as a minimum viable product but eventually, students realize they need better equipment, stronger marketing, better packaging, improved systems, or new products. Reinvestment teaches them that profit is not just something to pull out of a business but rather what allows the business to grow into what it was meant to become.

But the third bucket is the one that often creates the deepest impact: a portion of the profit is set aside to give away.

At North Cobb Christian School, I had the chance to watch this happen with the students running Higher Grounds, their on-campus coffee shop. They did not randomly pick a cause at the end of the year. They spent time researching different charities, organizations, and ministries. They considered where their money could make a difference, and then they chose a local ministry they wanted to support with 10% of the profits from their year of operating the business.

Other schools have used their profits to support global missions, local ministries, community partners, and organizations serving people in developing nations. The details look different from school to school, but the lesson is the same: profit is not the enemy of purpose. In fact, profit can make purpose possible.

That is one of the most important lessons a student-run business can teach. We want students to understand that profit is good, not because it gives us permission to be selfish, but because it gives us the opportunity to be generous. When students decide ahead of time that a portion of their profit will be used for the good of others, they begin to see business through the lens of stewardship.

They learn that ownership comes with responsibility, that work can create value, and that business can be a force for good in the world. And when that lesson takes root, the business becomes much more than a coffee shop, a school store, or a product line. It becomes a laboratory for formation.

That is where the money goes. And more importantly, that is what the money teaches.

Students at North Cobb Christian School giving a meaningful contribution out of their profit to a local ministry.

Last week, I had breakfast with a former student named Connor Sheehy.

Connor was part of the first group of students who meaningfully launched the Leaning Eagle Coffee Bar at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy. The coffee bar originally began in 2013 as a rolling cart, which was really our first prototype. It was scrappy, imperfect, and experimental. In many ways, it was our minimum viable product before we knew how often we would eventually use that language with students.

But in the fall of 2015, everything changed. The coffee bar moved into its permanent location in Miracle Commons, the central gathering space of the high school. What had once been a rolling cart became a full-fledged, permanent coffee shop. And if you walk into Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy today, all these years later, you will still see that coffee shop operating in the same location.

To help lead the process, I chose twelve seniors to oversee real business operations, work together as a team, solve problems as they emerged, and try to turn an idea into something that would last.

Connor was one of those students.

Now he is 28 years old, fully into adult life, and far enough removed from high school to see the experience with a kind of clarity that students rarely have in the moment. As we talked over breakfast, I asked him what he remembered most from that year and what, if anything, had stayed with him.

His answer was fascinating–he said that one of the biggest lessons he carried from the experience was the realization that you are not going to be great at everything the first time you try it. In fact, the things that matter most are often the things that feel difficult, unfamiliar, and uncomfortable in the beginning.

He then talked about the importance of being unafraid to fail. He talked about the need to take risks. He talked about the reality that life often rewards the people who are willing to step into hard things before they feel fully ready.

That hit me because this is exactly what entrepreneurship education should do.

The best entrepreneurship programs are not merely about helping students start businesses. They are about helping students become the kind of people who can move toward hard things instead of away from them.

They teach students that comfort and growth do not coexist.

When students are given real responsibility, they are pushed out of the safe and predictable spaces where everything is already structured for them. They have to collaborate. They have to communicate. They have to solve problems that do not have obvious answers. They have to receive feedback, adjust, try again, and keep moving.

Growth happens when students are trusted with real work.

Connor is proof of that. Ten years later, he was not reciting vocabulary from a class. He was describing a way of thinking that had shaped how he approached life. He remembered being stretched. He remembered not knowing exactly what he was doing. He remembered learning that he could step into something hard and grow through it.

That is the long-term power of entrepreneurship education.

We do not always get to see the full impact in the moment. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it takes a breakfast with a former student who is now 28 years old to remind us that the work mattered more than we realized.

But when students are given the chance to build, lead, risk, fail, and grow, they carry those lessons with them.

And if we want students to be ready for the future, we have to stop designing educational experiences that keep them comfortable.

Let’s go!

Ten years later, Connor reminded me why entrepreneurship education matters.

One of the clearest patterns I have seen in schools across the country is this: the schools gaining the most momentum are not the ones treating entrepreneurship as a single class, a single teacher, or a single student-run business.

They are the schools beginning to see the entrepreneurial mindset as something that can shape the entire culture of learning.

That matters because the entrepreneurial mindset is not just about starting businesses. It is about helping students think differently. It teaches students to approach challenges with a growth mindset. It helps them develop grit when the work gets hard. It gives them a healthier view of failure as something to learn from rather than something to avoid. And it trains them to look for opportunities where others may only see obstacles.

This is why I am excited to be at North Cobb Christian School in Atlanta on June 3–4 for The Entrepreneurial Classroom, a professional learning experience for Christian educators.

Most of the time, I come directly to a school and provide this type of training for the faculty. But this event is different. North Cobb Christian School is opening its doors and inviting educators from other schools to join us for a day and a half of practical training focused on building the entrepreneurial mindset in the classroom.

The training will take place:

Wednesday, June 3
8:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Breakfast and coffee provided (lunch on your own)

Thursday, June 4
8:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Breakfast and coffee provided (dismiss by lunch)

This experience is designed for K–12 teachers and administrators who want to help students move from passive learners to active thinkers, creators, and contributors. We will focus on practical classroom strategies connected to entrepreneurial mindset development, growth mindset and “not yet” thinking, grit and perseverance, healthy risk-taking, reframing failure, habit formation, collaboration, and student-run business incubation.

But underneath all of that is a deeper purpose.

For Christian educators, this work connects directly to the kind of transformation Paul describes in Romans 12:2. We are not simply trying to help students complete assignments. We are helping them renew the way they think so they can better understand their gifts, solve real problems, create value, and serve others well.

Students need more than information. They need to become proactive problem solvers. They need to communicate clearly. They need to collaborate with others. They need to persevere when they hit a wall. And they need to see themselves as capable of creating solutions in a world that desperately needs thoughtful, faithful, courageous leaders.

That is the heart of the entrepreneurial mindset.

This training will also give educators a chance to hear what is happening in schools around the nation that are embracing this work and building programs that give students real ownership, real responsibility, and real opportunities to grow.

If your school has an entrepreneurship program, is thinking about starting one, or simply wants to strengthen the way students engage with learning, I would love for you to join us.

You can register here: bit.ly/register_nccs

Or reach out to me directly at Stephen@SeedTreeGroup.com with any questions.

I hope to see you at North Cobb Christian School in June.

More details about this professional learning experience.

What’s the point? That’s the question I think every school should be asking before launching an entrepreneurship class, building a student-run business, or adding another program to the schedule.

What’s the point of teaching entrepreneurship? What’s the point of helping students build businesses? What’s the point of teaching the entrepreneurial mindset?

And the answer is bigger than simply having a business program.

Our students are entering a world that is changing at a staggering pace. And I do not simply mean the world has changed from twenty years ago. I mean the world has changed dramatically in the last three years. Artificial intelligence, shifting career pathways, economic uncertainty, cultural instability, and constant technological disruption are reshaping the future our students are preparing to enter.

In that kind of world, the students who flourish will not simply be the ones who learned how to play the traditional school game well. They will be the students who can think differently, who can face uncertainty without shutting down, who can see problems as opportunities, adapt when the plan changes, work with others, communicate clearly, solve real problems, and keep going when something does not work the first time.

In other words, entrepreneurship education is not just about entrepreneurship; it is about durable skills for life.

When students build a business, they are not only learning how to sell a product or track revenue. They are learning how to notice problems, listen to customers, test ideas, manage responsibility, work through frustration, make decisions, and adjust when reality does not match the plan.

They can learn to look for patterns, to ask better questions, and to move toward problems instead of away from them. Ultimately they can learn that failure is not the end of the story, but part of the process of growth.

At Seed Tree Group, we define that mindset through four core attributes: growth mindset, grit, redefining failure, and opportunity seeking. These are not abstract ideas. They become real when students are placed in environments where they have to practice them.

The line gets long. The customer is unhappy. The inventory is wrong. The marketing does not work. The team disagrees. The revenue is lower than expected. The idea that looked great on paper suddenly needs to be adjusted. And in those moments, the learning becomes real.

That is why this work is so transformative when schools take it seriously. It does not just create a class students enjoy. It can increase engagement, strengthen academics, build confidence, reveal gifts, and awaken a deeper sense of purpose.

The goal is that every student would begin to see themselves differently. That they would discover they are capable of building, solving, leading, creating, adapting, and contributing. That they would begin to understand that the problems around them are not just obstacles to complain about, but opportunities to engage.

So when schools think about entrepreneurship education, I would encourage them not to think first about a class, a club, or even a student-run business. Instead, think about the kind of graduate who will walk across the stage not just with knowledge, but with courage, resilience, creativity, communication skills, problem-solving ability, and a deeper sense of purpose.

If your school is ready to explore entrepreneurship education as more than a class, I would love to help you think through what it could look like as we build something that lasts.

Entrepreneurship students during one of the program's engaging networking events.

When I first began building the entrepreneurship program at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, I was doing most of it alone.

There was no national network of entrepreneurship teachers I could call. No shared playbook, no monthly group of educators trying to solve the same problems, no community of schools experimenting with student-run businesses, mindset formation, curriculum design, and program growth.

So I figured it out as I went. I wrote curriculum. I built systems. I tested ideas. I made mistakes. I revised the model. I learned by doing, but much of that learning happened in isolation.

And that is one of the reasons our June training has become so important.

Each summer, educators from Seed Tree schools across the country come together for three days of deep training, practical planning, and meaningful connection. Yes, we spend time on curriculum, classroom implementation, student-run businesses, coaching students, and the Christ-centered entrepreneurial mindset. Those pieces matter deeply.

But one of the most powerful parts of the training is what happens when teachers realize they are not building alone but are instead stepping into a network.

Seed Tree programming is now being used by schools in more than 21 states, and every one of those schools becomes part of a much larger learning community. A teacher who thought she was simply launching one class begins to see how that class could become a program. A school that was planning one business begins to imagine a pathway. A leader who felt the weight of building something new begins to realize there are others walking the same road.

And it matters because entrepreneurship education should not be built in a silo. After the June training, monthly mastermind calls continue the collaboration and keep the learning grounded in real implementation

In one school, students are launching a coffee business. In another, they are running a spiritwear store. In another, they are building a food concept, managing inventory, tracking revenue, refining operations, or preparing to pitch school leadership for an interest-free loan.

These schools become laboratories.

The insights from those laboratories strengthen the entire network. What one teacher learns through trial and error helps another school move faster. What one student-run business discovers becomes wisdom the next school can build on.

Seed Tree provides the framework, curriculum, coaching, and structure. But the real power comes when educators take that model into their own schools, test it, adapt it, and bring what they learn back to the community.

That is why the June training is not just an event. It is an entry point into a network.

If your school is exploring entrepreneurship education, strengthening an existing business program, or building a student-run business pathway, I would love to talk with you about the June training and the broader Seed Tree program.

Let’s build something that lasts.

Our 2025 June training cohort of rockstar teachers.

Sometimes entrepreneurship starts with a pitch competition, a polished business plan, or a big idea that sounds impressive from the beginning.

And sometimes it starts with lunch.

That is what happened at Little Rock Christian Academy this year when students in the entrepreneurship course began moving through the opportunity-seeking phase of the class. In November, they were learning to pay attention to the problems and frustrations around them, not as things to complain about, but as possible invitations to build something useful. One of the opportunities they noticed was simple: students wanted better lunch options.

From there, the idea began to take shape. The students researched what was possible, studied the timing of the school day, thought through equipment needs, considered what kind of food they could serve well, and eventually landed on a smash burger business. That meant purchasing a large Blackstone, building an ordering system, figuring out prep and cleanup, managing inventory, setting prices, and turning a student idea into an actual lunch service.

The result became the Warrior Grill.

Their grand opening was a success, but like most real businesses, the learning did not stop once the doors opened. During one of their early launches, the grill lost heat, orders backed up, students were waiting, and the team had to manage customer frustration in real time. There were delays, interpersonal tensions, operational problems, and all the uncomfortable pressure that comes when people are counting on you to deliver. In other words, it became real.

That is what makes the student-run business model so powerful. Students are not just learning about entrepreneurship from a distance. They are experiencing what happens when the system breaks, the line gets long, the grill cools down, the customers get impatient, and the team has to decide whether they will make excuses or make adjustments.

By their third lunch service, they had made major improvements. They began prepping earlier, changed the order flow so students were waiting in line before ordering instead of crowding around after ordering, simplified the process when a smaller Blackstone was unavailable, and reduced the longest wait time to about four minutes. On that day, they served 122 burgers, generated approximately $1,100 in revenue, and showed just how much learning had already taken place.

That is not just a burger story. That is a systems story.

It is also a financial literacy story. After only a few services, the Warrior Grill had already paid back its startup debt and moved into profitability. The students were looking at receipts, inventory, cost of goods, margins, revenue, and profit, not because those words were on a vocabulary list, but because the business required them to understand what was happening.

They were asking better questions because the work demanded better questions. 

That is why opportunity seeking matters.

We often tell students to be creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial, but we do not always teach them how to notice. We do not always train them to pay attention to friction, listen for repeated complaints, observe what people need, and ask what could be better. Yet some of the best ideas begin right there, close to home, hiding in plain sight.

And that’s when they got the call asking if they could serve not 100, not 200, but 500 burgers at the annual yearbook distribution day–and they said yes.

That is the power of entrepreneurship education.

If your school is ready to help students build this kind of mindset through real-world entrepreneurship and student-run business, I would love to help you think through what that could look like.

Little Rock Christian Academy and the Warrior Grill.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Entrepreneurship Certificate graduation ceremony at Grand Rapids Christian Schools, and as I sat there listening to the stories and watching nine seniors receive their certificates, a clear realization settled in:

This is what it looks like when entrepreneurship moves beyond a class and becomes a program.

Nine graduating seniors earned the Certificate of Entrepreneurship, representing over six semesters of work in the program. These students did not just take a course or participate in a project. They walked through a full sequence of formation, beginning with the foundations of entrepreneurship and continuing through customer discovery, marketing, leadership, sales and revenue, and the building of real ventures.

And now, they are ready to go.

What makes this especially powerful is how the program has been built over time. Under the leadership of Kevin Van Harn, Grand Rapids Christian Schools did not try to do everything at once. They started with a simple, manageable idea: a vending machine business. From there, they expanded into additional ventures like the Logo Loft, a spiritwear business, Gone Boarding with surfboards and skateboards, and adventure-based programming.

Now, the result is a program with over 70 students enrolled for next year, multiple student-run businesses operating at once, and a clear pathway for students to move from introduction to mastery. This is no longer experimental: it is embedded. It is one thing to launch a class. It is another thing to build a business. But what we are seeing more and more in schools adopting the Seed Tree program is something deeper: a full-fledged entrepreneurship program that creates continuity, progression, and real outcomes for students.

The Certificate of Entrepreneurship is a reflection of that. Yes, it goes on the transcript, but more importantly, it represents something that students will carry with them long after graduation. It reflects mastery in the entrepreneurial mindset, including growth mindset, grit, redefining failure, and opportunity seeking. 

One year ago, we celebrated a similar milestone at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, where one-third of the graduating class earned the Certificate of Entrepreneurship. Now, we are seeing other schools reach that same level of maturity, where programs are not just launching, but sustaining and producing lasting impact.

If you are thinking about entrepreneurship in your school, the goal is not just to create a class or even a single business. The goal is to build a program that can grow over time, develop students in a meaningful way, and ultimately create outcomes like this.

These nine students are stepping into their next chapter with a mindset and a set of experiences that will shape how they approach opportunities for the rest of their lives.

And this is just the beginning.

Hanging out with the 9 seniors receiving the certificate of entrepreneurship at Grand Rapids Christian Schools.

There is a part of the entrepreneurship journey that does not get talked about enough, and yet it may be one of the most important parts of the entire process.

Right now, Seed Tree schools all around the nation are wrapping up the year with their first student-run businesses and students are not just finishing the year–they are operationalizing what they built so it can continue beyond them. They are creating training videos, documenting systems, and thinking through all the small decisions that make a business actually function day to day. In other words, they are building a succession plan.

And this is where the laboratory comes alive. It is one thing to have a student come up with an idea, build a slide deck, and imagine what could be. But if the experience ends there, students can leave with an incomplete picture and never quite feel the weight of execution. They never fully wrestle with what it takes to move from concept to operation, from operation to growth, and from growth to sustainability.

Succession planning changes that.

When students have to prepare the business for another group to run next year, they are forced to understand it at a much deeper level. They have to ask better questions. What actually makes this work? What needs to happen first every day? What systems are essential and which ones are just nice ideas? This kind of thinking pushes students into ownership.

In a real business, it is not enough to build something that works while you are there. The real challenge is building something that can keep working, that can be improved by others, and sustained over time. That is what our students are learning right now in real time as they work to build something that lasts.

This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in student-run businesses as a model for learning. The classroom can teach concepts, but a real venture that must operate, grow, and eventually be passed on teaches something deeper. Students discover that success is not just found in launching something exciting, but in doing the hard, thoughtful work of making it sustainable for the people who come next.

So as this school year comes to a close, I want to encourage school leaders and teachers to recognize what is happening in this season. This is one of the richest learning moments in the entire process. Students are moving all the way from ideation to creation to growth and now into succession. That full arc is rare in education, and it is one of the things that makes this model so transformative.

The businesses may be student-run, but the lessons are very real. And right now, all around the nation, students are learning what it means not just to build something, but to build something worth passing on.

Students are learning what it means not just to build something, but to build something worth passing on.

I was recently facilitating a workshop with a room full of board members and administrators, and as the conversation unfolded, a clear realization began to emerge:

The teachers were aligned. The administrators were aligned. The board was aligned. There was real agreement around what students need in order to flourish in the world they are stepping into, and there was no real debate about the fact that we are no longer preparing students for a world that is predictable, linear, and stable. We are preparing them for a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and in that kind of world, the ability to handle failure is not optional: it is essential.

The issue was not whether failure has value as a learning tool. Everyone in the room understood that it does. They understood that students need opportunities to struggle, adjust, recover, and try again. 

The missing link was the parents. That was the aha moment.

Many of the parents in our K-12 private schools have been shaped by an educational model where failure has felt dangerous. A bad grade can hurt GPA or a struggle in the classroom can feel like a threat to the future. So when schools begin talking about the importance of risk, iteration, challenge, and even failure, parents often resist.

That is why this conversation matters so much, especially in the private school world.

If schools are serious about preparing students for the future, then parents cannot be left outside that conversation. They need help understanding that failure, in the right environment, is not a threat to their child’s future. It is part of how that future is built.

This is one of the reasons entrepreneurship programming can be such a powerful part of a school’s formation model.

In entrepreneurship, students are doing real work which involves testing ideas, solving problems, making decisions, and trying to create something that actually works. And in that process, they often experience failure.

But they do this without the fallout.

Students can feel the frustration of a missed opportunity, the disappointment of something not working, and the challenge of regrouping and trying again, all within a structure designed for growth rather than punishment. They are learning lessons that matter, but not in a way that damages GPA, closes college doors, or defines them by one bad result.

In that sense, entrepreneurship gives students something many schools desperately need to create more often: a safety net for failure.

It is still real, but it does not crush.

And that matters because our students do not need a life in which nothing goes wrong. They need formation that prepares them for when things do. They need opportunities to develop what Nassim Taleb would call an “anti-fragile mindset,” one in which challenge does not simply test them, but strengthens them.

When parents begin to understand the why behind this, they often become allies much faster than schools expect. Once they see that this is not about being careless with their child’s future, but about preparing their child for a world that will absolutely require courage, adaptability, and resilience, the conversation begins to shift. The goal is no longer to avoid all failure. The goal becomes helping students experience the kind of failure that teaches, forms, and strengthens them.

That was the real revelation in the room for me.

Everyone was aligned on what students needed. The challenge was not the teachers, the board, or the administrators. The challenge was helping parents see clearly what educators already know: in the right environment, failure is not something to fear. It is one of the most powerful tools we have for growth.

And when parents understand that, they do not just tolerate the model, they begin to champion it.

After a parent workshop, I had a chance to connect with a parent who is all in on helping students learn through failure.