A kids’ business fair is coming to San Francisco

Finally, a kids’ business fair is coming to San Francisco!

We’ve taken part in plenty of markets over the years, but we’d never heard of one in the city for young entrepreneurs.

So we were really excited to hear about the San Francisco Children’s Business Fair.

We’ll have a booth there on October 11.

We asked Nena, one of the organizers, a few questions about the fair.

What made you want to bring the Children’s Business Fair to San Francisco?

My kid and I had been to a few of these fairs down on the Peninsula, and we kept noticing there was nothing like it in the city. We love San Francisco, and I’d organized things for kids here before (on a much smaller scale), so at some point it just became: why not bring the Children’s Business Fair into the city?

And San Francisco has always prided itself on being a city of builders and risk-takers. We talk constantly about entrepreneurship here — but almost always as something adults do. It struck me that we don’t often give kids a real chance to try it themselves, not as a school project, but with actual customers and actual money.

What are you most excited to see happen that day?

Honestly, I am excited about everything — it’s so hard to pick! But mostly I’m excited to see kids’ faces light up when they make a sale, or have a really good conversation with a customer. Watching a kid’s confidence grow over the course of a morning, or seeing a shy kid suddenly come out of their shell and get chatty, is what lights me up.

What kinds of businesses or ideas would you especially love to see more kids apply with?

We have an incredible range of makers: crochet, resin art, 3D printing, clay, jewelry, upcycled Pokémon cards, even a kid who wrote and published his own book. One of my favorites is a kid making things out of used cans and other recycled materials.

That’s actually what I’d love to see more of: eco-friendly businesses, kids building with reusable or recycled materials, finding creative uses for things that would otherwise get thrown away.

For a child who has an idea but is hesitant to apply because they don’t fell “ready enough,” what would you tell them?

No one’s business is ready. Mine isn’t ready either, and I’ve been at this for some time. “Ready” isn’t a thing that happens before you start — it’s something you build by starting and iterating as you go along. That’s not the obstacle to doing this; it is the thing you’re here to learn.

Also, worth saying plainly: nobody at this fair is expecting polish from a nine-year-old. Everyone showing up wants these kids to succeed.

What do you hope kids will take away from participating, beyond just making sales that day?

The confidence that comes from having done something hard in public. Talking to strangers about your own idea, handling it when someone says no, counting your own money at the end and knowing exactly what you earned and why — those lessons outlast whatever they sold that day.

And I hope they leave knowing that the gap between “I have an idea” and “I made this real” is smaller than they thought, especially with a whole community of supporters cheering them on.

---