When I was just seven years old, my dad sparked my interest about investing. But, as I began to read about investing, my interest dwindled. Most “investing for kids” books seemed impersonal and unfitting for a kid. Meanwhile, normal investing books covered topics in a way I could not understand. Despite this problem, I learned to invest.
Ever since then, I have been passionate about investing (and not just about the money). At twelve years old, I began my own investing blog. Though the blog did not target kids, my goal was clear: present common value investing concepts in the simplest way possible. Eventually, I shut down the blog. But my experience in discussing investing had just begun.
In 8th grade, a friend asked me to teach him about investing. We started discussing the basics of investing. But discussing it wasn’t enough.
Neither of us enjoyed just discussing it, and he didn’t learn a lot. Before we were about to give up, I had an idea: what if I sketch out the ideas?
Although I’m not an artist (at all), I started to scribble and draw everything I said. The scribbles helped him understand the concepts, and both of us were having more fun.
This is the premise of The Inside Scoop: Kids’ Sweet Journey to Investing Knowledge. It is not interesting enough to just tell kids about investing. Either they will struggle through the material, or they will give up on learning to invest. However, my book teaches kids the basics of investing through a story and doodles (far better than the ones I scribbled). The methods in this book have successfully taught kids about investing and motivated them to begin doing so.
With this idea in mind, I successfully raised money in a Kickstarter campaign to fund the project (the video for the campaign from almost two years ago is in the section below).
Over ten years later as a freshman in college, I still manage my own money. I learned a lot about investing along the way. But when I first wanted to invest, I had no clue what to do.
In investing, the most important thing is time. I wish I had this book at that time ten years ago.