I've often wondered if I'm an entrepreneur. As a kid growing up I never really thought about it because I had no idea what an entrepreneur really was. When I look back on the things my best buddy and I did I see that we had a hint of entrepreneurism all the while.

We both happened to be interested in magic and began doing magic shows in my garage in the sixth grade. We would charge a quarter a person and one time might have actually had five or six kids at one show. We eventually ventured into doing birthday parties and added a fun guitar/singing puppet show to the act. I did the puppets and he played guitar and sang. We did shows for our church (picture above) and other interested places.

We also had Kool-Aid stands, raked leaves, pulled weeds, cleaned garages and many of the other kidpreneur type businesses. We even put together a haunted garage every Halloween with a fun maze inside. We didn't charge money for that but it was quite an operation to put together.

As we got older we formed a garage band and became very famous for only playing in the garage. Again, it was not a money making venture but did teach us about buying equipment, organizing schedules and working together.

It was around this time, which was high school, that I began to doodle cartoons. When I went off to college I was doodling enough that I began to do small cartoon and logo projects. I also designed and had my first line of greeting cards printed, which I sold mainly to friends and relatives.

Once I started freelancing I never stopped. Even with full time jobs out of college I always looked for freelance projects on the side. Because of the portfolio and knowledge I was able to gain I eventually turned my freelancing into self-employment.

Self-employment freed me from working 8 to 5 but if I wasn't working money wasn't being created. That's when I turned to the Internet looking to become an entrepreneur.

As of today I am all three. I am self-employed as a freelance cartoonist. I earn half of my income from cartooning, web design, graphic design and a few other side things. I earn the other half as an entrepreneur. I have created a group of web sites that generate money whether I am in my studio or on vacation. I have also created a small greeting card company that sells itself online.

My goal is to eventually drop the freelancing all together because of deadlines, collecting money headaches and dealing with complicated clients. I will then be a 100% entrepreneur running multiple money making web sites and a growing greeting card business that will one day have a large number of employees.

Labels: Curtis Tucker, entrepreneur, make money, Memories