Tadyn, 9, and his mum Jo-Ann Flood at one of his market stalls. Photo / news.com.au
Tadyn, 9, and his mum Jo-Ann Flood at one of his market stalls. Photo / news.com.au
• This article originally appeared on news.com.au in November.
His parents wouldn't buy him an Apple watch, but Tadyn Flood was determined.
So the nine-year-old Melbourne schoolboy went out and found a way to make enough cash to buy himself a new gadget every week.
Every Thursday night after he finished his dreaded homework, Tadyn makes scented candles to sell at weekend markets for $10 to $15 each. He's now turning over $300 a week (that's $15,000 a year) for just a few hours' work, proving that age is no barrier to success.
Mum Jo-Ann Flood said Tadyn's entrepreneurial streak had taken the family by surprise; "His dad's a postie and I'm a change manager with Jetstar," she said. "We're just spurring him on."
When he proposed saving up for one himself, she said, "I thought he would just do chores around the house."
But he asked for a candle making kit, watched YouTube tutorials to finesse his technique and sold six candles to his grandmother for $5 a pop, reinvesting the takings in a larger batch of supplies.
While she drives him to the market and hangs around to keep an eye on him, "he doesn't like me to help much".
"It probably would have been easier to buy him the watch," she joked.
"I have to be there because the market organisers require it, but I stay out of his way. He gets really cranky when people say 'oh aren't you nice helping your mum?'"
Tadyn is saving up in the hopes of opening a bricks-and-mortar store and giving jobs to homeless people. After learning how it expensive it would be to lease a space at the Chadstone Shopping Centre, he's looking into the possibility of a pop-up store.
'A LIGHTBULB MOMENT'
An unexpected benefit came when the hands-on experience of running a growing concern transformed Tadyn's attitude to learning.
After months of "tears and tantrums" over his school work, he finally understood what his maths teacher had been talking about.
"He bought a box of 1000 wicks and he was working out how much it would cost to make each candle," Flood said.
"All of a sudden the light bulb went off and he said 'I get it now, that's what divide means'. It took something so tangible for it to click."
I have to be there because the market organisers require it, but I stay out of his way. He gets really cranky when people say 'oh aren't you nice helping your mum?
The mini mogul has been known to whip out his bank card on family outings to pay for coffee and milkshakes.
But "he'll sidle up to me later in the night and say 'can you put that back in my account now?'"
Setting up a business at the age of nine had its share of complications; Tadyn was banned from Paypal after trying to set up an underage account.
When he was starting out, he'd deposit the takings in his Dollarmites Club school banking account - but was asked not to do so, as it could pose a security risk.
"Usually kids bring pocket change to school to put in their accounts, not hundreds of dollars," Flood said.
Now he has an ANZ bank account linked to the Apple watch he bought with his first earnings, and he got around the Paypal ban by investing in a Square Reader, a gadget that allows him to take card payments.
