The Business Guinea Pigs – Volume 3: Rocky Becomes the Boss!

Revenue and profit aren’t the same thing. Revenue is all the money that comes in. Profit is what’s left at the end, once the costs are paid. At the summer party, lots of people buy lemonade, and the revenue is huge. But the cups are filled to the brim, and the sign says “free refills.” So the same lemon goes across the table three times for nothing. Christian sums it up: Our revenue is huge, it’s just that our profit is almost gone.

By getting the costs under control. Mr. Grey says the most expensive mistake a young boss can make is forgetting that revenue is not profit. The fix in the book is very practical: fill the cups properly, drop the free refills, and move the table off the hay bale and onto the ground. After that, a small profit is left, and it gets split up: part goes into the reserve, part into the next stand, and a little bit into the guinea pigs’ cash box.

Mr. Grey explains: A nice name isn’t a company yet. A kid who sells cookies for one day has a stand. A company sells or offers something again and again, planned, regularly, for lots of people. Christian adds: For that you need materials, prices, responsibility and a reason.

Mr. Grey lists it. First, the idea itself: What are you offering, and why do people need it? At a hot summer party, there’s real demand for cold lemonade. Second, the target group: Who exactly is the offer for? Kids who are playing and sweating, parents who want a break. And when it comes to the name, Daria has the best tip: It has to appeal to the customers, not just to Rocky.

Before the first customer pays a single cent, the stand already needs lemons, sugar, cups, a sign, a table, a cooler and change. That money at the start is called startup capital. You have to put it up ahead of time. Some things, like a good cooler, cost money but help more things work out later. That’s an investment. Rocky’s fog machine isn’t one. The guinea pigs’ rule: do the math first, then act.

It depends, and not just on money but on time, too. Squeezing your own lemonade is cheaper but takes a while. Ready-made lemonade is faster, costs more and doesn’t taste as special. A homemade sign is cheap and looks like the kids made it. Mr. Grey: There’s no answer that’s right forever. You have to think it through again every time.

The book deliberately plays it safe here. For a single small kids’ stand on one afternoon, it’s often enough that adults are around and the organizer knows about it. In Germany, anyone who wants to earn money regularly often has to register a business, so it’s clear who’s responsible. At ten, you don’t set something like that up on your own. You need adults who are in on it. Mr. Grey says: A form is sometimes a friend, not an enemy.

When lemonade sloshes out of an overfilled cup onto a kid’s picture book, Christian explains: If something gets damaged because of a company, someone has to answer for it. That’s called liability. Mr. Grey adds: Risks belong to the boss, not to the table. With some kinds of companies, liability is limited, and the GmbH, a kind of limited company in Germany, is one of them. Rocky wants one right away. Mojito says no: You don’t start a GmbH because it sounds bigger. You start one when you know why you need it.

Not the loudest one, and not the one who got there first. Mr. Grey: A boss is the one who takes responsibility. Who makes the call when nobody else dares to, and owns it when something goes wrong. Being the boss doesn’t mean everyone serves you. It means you serve the thing you’re building. Rocky learns it the hard way and says it himself at the end: Being the boss is harder than getting applause.