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The Junior Founders · Years 3 to 6

Little kids.
Real founders.

The junior line of The Foundry: a real entrepreneurship program for primary-school kids, run at home with a parent. Six pen-and-paper missions, no screens. Your child hunts a real problem, interviews real people, invents the fix, pitches you for a real startup loan, builds a real product, and sells it to real customers on Launch Day. The loan gets repaid before a cent of profit is counted. That's the deal founders keep.

// Thirty seconds

The Popsicle was invented by an 11-year-old.

Thirty seconds on what The Junior Founders is, made in the same style as the mission books your child will hold.

// What it is

A real business, at kid scale.

Not pretend
Real money, real consequences
Your child pitches you for a real startup loan, sized by their own written plan. Every dollar in and out lives in a handwritten ledger, and Launch Day takings repay the loan before profit. It's the financial literacy no worksheet can teach.
Pen and paper
Printed mission books, no screens
Six illustrated workbooks and a Founder's Passport that fills with stamps. Each mission is one or two hours at the kitchen table plus real-world hunting, interviewing, building, and selling. A mission every week or two suits most families.
Parents, not teachers
You're the mentor and the investor
The workbooks speak to your child; a short note per mission tells you your job. You listen to pitches, ask honest questions, lend against a plan, and stamp missions when they're truly done. Hands where needed; the decisions stay theirs.
// The journey

Six missions. Six badges. One real business.

The same arc the big kids follow in The Foundry's ten-module senior program, translated for ages 8 to 12, and never dumbed down. Every junior mission names its senior sibling, so a child who loves this has a pathway that runs all the way to Year 12.

01
The Problem Hunt
Hunt five real problems, score them, dig to the root with the 5 Whys, and write a real problem statement.
Problem Hunter
02
The Detective
Interview three to five real people, collect their exact words, and let the evidence decide. The Mum Test, at age eight.
Detective
03
The Inventor
Storm a pile of ideas, judge them with criteria, draw the blueprint, and test a tiny version on one real person.
Inventor
04
The Money Plan
Cost of one, a fair price, the break-even "magic number", then a real pitch to a real investor: you.
Money Planner
05
The Maker
Build it well, name it, brand it, poster it, and plan the launch, with a practice sale before the big day.
Maker
06
Launch Day
Real customers, real money. Count the takings, repay the loan in full, split the profit across four jars, and debrief like a founder.
Real Founder
// How it runs

Founders Clubs.

The Junior Founders runs through small Founders Clubs: a handful of kids, each building their own venture at home with their own family, coming together to compare badges, swap stories from their customer interviews, and line their stalls up side by side for a shared Market Day.

Each founder takes home the full kit: six mission books, the Founder's Passport, and a two-page Parent's Guide that gives you the whole job on one fridge-ready sheet.

We're piloting the first clubs in Adelaide now. If you'd like your child (or your school's junior years) in a future club, register your interest and we'll be in touch as places open.

Register your interest

Questions first? Get in touch. We're happy to talk it through.