FuturePreneur Part 2 – Krystal Popov on Raising the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs

🎉 FuturePreneur Live Is Coming to Tucson!
Krystal announces a powerful new event at the University of Arizona’s McGuire Center, designed to ignite entrepreneurial spirit in kids aged 7–14—complete with workshops, speakers, and parent sessions.

👨‍👩‍👧 Parents Attend Free—And Learn Too!
This event isn’t just for kids. Families will leave with a deeper bond, new ideas, and a shared language around creativity and confidence.

📦 Behind the Kits: Business-in-a-Box, Reimagined
From mini bakeries to curb-painting services, Krystal explains how each kit teaches budgeting, marketing, pricing, and value creation—with flexibility for any age or time commitment.

🎬 Video Modules & Mentor Guides
Learn how FuturePreneur supports busy parents with easy-to-follow materials and role-model videos that help kids work independently or alongside a mentor.

❤️ Building Bonds, Not Just Businesses
Hear touching stories of how these projects are helping dads connect with their kids, moms rediscover their entrepreneurial spark, and families create lasting memories.

🔁 Breaking the Boom-Bust Cycle
Explore how values—not just wealth—can be passed across generations when families invest in growth together.

✨ Big Dreams Ahead
Krystal shares her vision to one day fill stadiums with futurepreneurs—kids from all walks of life discovering their own potential, together.

🎟️ A Movement in the Making: FuturePreneur Live Comes to Tucson

In this second half of our powerful conversation with Krystal Popov, we shift the spotlight toward a bold, community-driven vision: FuturePreneur Live, an in-person event designed to light a fire in the hearts of young creators and empower families to grow together.

Set for February 15, 2025, and hosted by the University of Arizona’s McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, FuturePreneur Live is a high-energy, full-day experience for families who want transformation. Designed for kids aged 7–14, this unique event blends entrepreneurial education, life skills, and real-world inspiration through hands-on workshops and motivational presentations by entrepreneurs, athletes, authors, and young business owners from around the country.

Speakers include:

• Scott Donnell, author of Value Creation Kid and founder of Fig & Eagle, discussing how families can build value across generations.

• Matt Grevers, Olympic gold medalist and business owner, on turning passion into purpose.

• Greg Nickens, founder of a successful window washing company, sharing how high school hustle became lifelong success.

• Plus local voices, hands-on activities, emotional resilience sessions (including doodle therapy!), and messages from kid entrepreneurs to the kids in the room.

Early bird tickets are just $34 (parents attend free!), and seats are limited to keep the experience personal and powerful. Whether you’re homeschooling, running a business, or simply looking to raise confident kids, this event promises to deliver a day of connection, courage, and creativity that your family will never forget.

🧠 From Idea to Action: The Power of a FuturePreneur Kit

Behind the FuturePreneur movement is a brilliant series of business-in-a-box kits, designed to teach kids the basics of entrepreneurship while having a blast. In this episode, Krystal breaks down the process of how each kit is thoughtfully created to balance business fundamentals with age-appropriate fun.

From a “Mini Pizzeria” to a “Handy Helper” neighborhood service gig, each kit invites kids to:

• Choose a business idea that excites them

• Learn the skills of budgeting, pricing, marketing, and planning

• Practice selling through videos, flyers, cold calls, or community outreach

• Reflect on their experience and explore real-world feedback

FuturePreneur kits are flexible enough to match your family’s pace. Whether it’s a weekend project with grandma or a six-week homeschooling module, each kit comes with a mentor guide to scale the experience based on age, time, and interest. Plus, video modules featuring kid actors guide young learners step-by-step—ideal for busy parents who still want to give their kids meaningful, guided learning.

What makes these kits truly special? They’re built with real-world input from actual entrepreneurs and tailored to teach not just how to make money, but how to create value in a way that’s fun, impactful, and repeatable.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 More Than Business: A Blueprint for Family Connection

What’s unfolding through FuturePreneur goes far beyond youth entrepreneurship, it’s a catalyst for family connection and generational transformation.

In this episode, Krystal shares heartfelt stories of parents and kids bonding over a shared project, especially in households where connection can be hard to come by. From sports-dad-meets-artsy-kid breakthroughs to moms discovering their own untapped creativity, these kits are  building bridges across generations.

And perhaps the most important message? It’s not about raising millionaires. It’s about raising motivated, values-driven young people. Drawing from author Scott Donnell’s work on family legacy, the episode explores how wealth, without character, can dissolve in a generation. But value, purpose, and connection? Those can be passed on.

Whether your family is starting from scratch or already thriving, FuturePreneur offers tools to plant deep roots of creativity, resilience, and collaboration.

🚀 Ready to Join the Movement?

This episode is a powerful reminder that the future is something we build, together. Whether you’re looking to ignite your child’s curiosity, strengthen your family bond, or simply take one small step toward a more entrepreneurial life, FuturePreneur has a path for you.

🎁 Buy a business-in-a-box kit at https://FuturePreneur.com
🗓️ Reserve your family’s spot for the upcoming live event at https://FuturePreneurLive.com

🎤 Your kids will learn. You’ll connect. And together, you’ll create something unforgettable.

Welcome back to life Along the Street Car. Today’s episode first aired on Downtown Radio 99.1 FM, streaming worldwide at Downtown radio.org. And we’re excited to bring it to you here as a podcast. Today, we’re continuing our conversation with Crystal pop off the force that was behind the creation of the proper shops, many local co-working spaces, and has launched a new program focused on helping the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Starting as young as age seven. Our focus today is going to be on her product for entrepreneurs and a feature of, her feature at an event coming up helping young entrepreneurs and young creators find a path forward. Welcome back, Crystal Popoff.

And.

so, we have an event coming up where this is our main focus.

Teacher Preneur live or hosting it in Tucson. And similar to a story you told me about how things just came together, I threw up a post because we couldn’t find a venue to host this event for kids. And the University of Arizona center for entrepreneurship, McGuire center for entrepreneurship reached out and said, we’d love to host you the perfect fit for them.

And so we’re hosting this event where we get to immerse kids in this entrepreneurship journey for a full day. We’re very excited about it. And just I need to get into this, but I want to say I want to talk a little bit about what future Preneur is, is doing and then, then move into the event.

But the other thing that you mentioned, I think is so powerful and it’s probably tied into this event, but these kids, they’re, they’re they’re connecting the parents with the kids. They’re sitting down and doing this together. Right. There’s some interaction. And that’s where you’re transferring some of that knowledge that that they have that. So sometimes I think people fully understand that their experiences are so powerful.

And again, not to make this interview all about me, but when we were doing these, these classes for the, for the students, at the end of it, there was a program, you could write an essay or do a video about what you learned, and then we would take the winners or the top. So many. We bring them together and we give them a little dinner and have a celebration of financial literacy.

And they could invite whoever they wanted. And, you know, typically they bring family, friends, whatever. But I was sitting at a table and this was, early on, and there’s a young, a young lady who had, had the classes. And again, these are high school seniors, but she was did spring class. So this is man, she’s about to graduate, go to college.

And it was sitting with her mom and her dad, and mom was telling us, I’m so glad you’re doing this, because I’ve got to tell you, I didn’t learn this as a child. And when I went to college, my first roommate, you know, they they didn’t pay. I didn’t realize I was fully responsible for all the bills and they didn’t pay.

So I got a bad mark on my credit. And and she talks about all these challenges that she had because she didn’t have this, this foundation. Yeah. And her daughter just looks at her and said, mom, you never tell me any of that. Yeah. My mom was almost embarrassed. Like, I didn’t want to share her failures. But all of a sudden this came out.

And that was when the power of our of our conversation was, it’s not about really teaching the kids. It’s about opening up their eyes to some things, but then connecting them back with the parents. Yeah. Who really can influence and have that drive. And that’s what your program is doing, right? Because you’re sitting the parents are sitting with the kids to create this.

Yeah. It’s it’s I think the biggest feedback we get from parents. And by the way, it’s it’s interesting to see where we’re getting bought. But we have like this huge following in Florida. So we have a lot of parents buying in Florida. And I don’t know if it’s in the face. We don’t know how they’re finding us, but they found us and you should figure that out.

So, you know, I’m like, are they? I think it’s a Facebook group that’s like posting about us or someone. So we’re we’re trying to figure that out. But anyway, these people aren’t like we’ve gotten some feedback from this groups in Florida that they’re mostly homeschooling groups, but not all of them. And these parents are saying that they’re not entrepreneurs, and so they don’t know how to they didn’t know how to teach that.

And they learned so much going through it, actually, with their kids going through these little lessons with their kids. So we’ve gotten some of that, and then we’ve gotten some that like the mom said, gosh, my husband’s having trouble connecting with kids at this age, right? Like I’m with them all the time. I’m homeschooling. But then my cousin, my husband comes home and he doesn’t know, like, how to connect with them at this age.

Like, especially if he’s a sports guy and the kids not really sports. Like, how do they connect? And that these kids just create that time where this dad and this their kids like got to bond over the future. Preneur. Okay. And so we love those stories that are coming back out of that as well. But I would I would imagine that you talk about this, this t shirt concept with print on demand.

A parent could look at that and wait a minute, I can do that for sure. Right? That’s the that’s the real trick is you’re you’re helping them educate their kids and and then along the way they might be learning some good, good components too about about how to start their own. Yeah. And we want to bridge that gap because there’s, there are parents out there that are working so hard bless them.

But they, they don’t know how to teach these skills to their kids. And so we’re bridging that gap where the parents can learn with their kids. Well, that’s that’s why I love the name so much for future Preneur because it’s not age specific. It’s it’s about getting into this business. And I know you’re targeting, you know, your products currently towards that younger group, but, the concept for any of us and, and you know, this as, as well as anyone when you’re starting a business, there is so much we don’t know.

Yes. And that fear holds us back. Yeah. And, you know, if there’s a kid along the way that I had to open up a gallery, you know, it may have been helpful for us to to have that kid have a guide. And, you know, and there’s, there’s more resources in the community than than I think we took advantage of, but that’s a whole different or different story.

So you take this, this little concept as an entrepreneur, you create all these, these ideas. And how do you get from idea to product, like are you sitting down and designing them? Do you have a team like what is this process for creating the the kits and how how many of you have, you know, often do they come?

Is it a subscription? Is it what is this? Yeah, we had a subscription, but we realized that the parents didn’t really want that. They just want to buy the kit. You know, my kid is interested in, you know, restaurant business. So they go on, they purchase our mini pizzeria, right? Our my kid wants to do, you know, they want to, do a handy helper around the neighborhood.

Right. So we have we have a handy helper. They can go. Maybe they’re taking out trash cans for their elderly neighbors and getting paid five bucks a week or whatever it is. So we’ve a handy helper kit. So really, the parents go on with the kid, look at the different types of businesses we offer. What about 12 or 13 now?

And I think, well, hold that for now, because I think we have a good mix and different types of businesses, whether it’s creating product or providing service to your to your neighborhood or your community. And then they sit down and usually we try to let them brainstorm the idea, what is the product that you want to create?

We give them examples. Or what is the service you want to do? Do you want to pick up dog poop? Right? Do you want to paint? You know, addresses on the curb, like, what is your skill set that you want to offer? And we help them brainstorm that. And then once they have an idea, we actually walk them through an a really fun way on.

Okay, now you have this idea. Now let’s describe it further. Now let’s price it out. What is this? What is this going to cost? What should you charge the customer? Or if it’s a product based business, let’s research how much it’s going to cost of raw goods to make your product. And then let’s do a markup. So we teach them all of that in a really fun way in this business plan.

And then everyone, every, every kit does a sales or marketing training. Some of it maybe, you know, one of them may be creating a video of what you’ve created and what to say in your video. You know, why did you create this? Why do you want to create? Why do you want to make the money? You know, it might be I’m saving up for my, class trip to Washington, DC, whatever that is that you want to create the money for.

We talk about the power of your why right, and how to speak that into a video. So some of the business plans, the marketing side will be making a flier and going and handing it out in areas you know, or having your parents take it to work. Some will be called sales. So like, the bakery will talk.

Okay. You know what you want to make, but how do you who do you call? Let’s make a list of people that might want your baked goods. And let’s call them and let’s do preorders so we don’t make too much or too little. Right? So every kit teaches something different. But in the basics it’s from idea. And we try to give them some guidance but help them, build their idea personally.

Then we do some budgeting or sales, pricing out your product and things like that. And then it’s marketing and sales and then, feedback and review. So really the process that I’ve taken and everything. So we look at a business or we got feedback from kids, what business would you like to see. And then I actually take it an outline.

And if I don’t know much about that industry, I will reach out to someone and say, hey, can I get your input on this? If you were starting a pizzeria or you were starting, you know, a dog walking business, what would you do first? And just to make sure that I’m hitting the points as if I’ve never started a business like that, I do the outline.

Then we find the fun activities that go with the outline for the kids, and then we structure it. And I have a great gal, Kyle, that does all the graphics for it. We bring in kid actors and actresses to come. We do have video modules that help walk through the the business plan. So if parents are really busy and they don’t have time to sit with their kids to do this, we do have video modules that walk through it.

But we do hope that the parents will also be involved. And then, yeah. So and, and we’re very specific and intentional on each business that we want to teach them a new skill. We have one business plan that teaches what is the difference between an employee and a business partner. It’s our pizzeria. You have to.

You can’t run a restaurant by yourself. So are you going to pay your sibling $5 an hour, or are you going to split the profits with your, you know, mom because they’ve helped you open this pizzeria? So what’s the difference between business partner and employee? So we go into really details like that, but in a, in a fun way, where they actually write an offer letter to their sibling.

And we do like to work this pizzeria with me and, yeah, so, so super fun at this age group of 7 to 14, are there are there differing levels of instruction based upon the age group or is it is it somewhat generic? And it’s. Yeah, it’s interesting how we’ve only been we’ve been shipping since January this year.

So it’s interesting how it’s involved in just a little amount of time. We used to have level one, two and three, and we found that, that most people don’t know what level to order. And so we ended up doing level three. So they picked the business. They’re going to get one level level three. But we along with it they get a mentor guide that’s like you can make this as many hours or as little as possible.

So this is a weekend project. You’re with grandma and grandpa and you want to open your bakery or something. This weekend. Here’s the few things you should leave out right? Do this section, this section, this section. You’ll have a blast. But you can do it in a weekend. If you’re a homeschool mom and you want this to be a six week long project, and you want them to actually go out and gain customers and make good money, add this section, this section, this section.

So what we’ve done is more just put a mentor guide with our booklet. So we give them at all. And then with our mentor guide it kind of says leave these parts out or add these parts depending on the age. And oh yeah and time if you can do the weekend project and then a few months later expand that and, you know, just continue to add on to it and yeah, build on that on that foundation.

Yeah. Yeah. So that’s evolved a little bit in the last ten months. And yeah, people our customers are really loving it. They have a brilliant idea for you. Yeah. So what you should do is get together like a, a group of speakers that that talk about related subjects and maybe do a big presentation, bring a bunch of kids together, get a lot of energy and bring parents together and talk about all that stuff.

You should do that I did, I know, I know, what would you call that we call future Preneur live. Oh, okay. So happening to February 15th in Tucson, Arizona, the University of Arizona Eller Center and and so what is the I looked briefly at the website. Okay. So I understand there’s different speakers. Yep. That are presenting on some of written some books geared towards entrepreneurship in this group.

So there’s a fairly large community helping, kind of drive that next generation of, you know, it’s incredible. And I know we don’t have our full speaker lineup like, there are three kind of spots that I want to fill. That I feel like that subject isn’t being touched by the speakers we have. But I’m very happy with the speakers.

We do have, right now. So Scott Donnell wrote, value creation kid, the healthy struggle your kids need to succeed. I think it’s the tagline of that, book. He lives in the Phoenix area. And he also owns a company called Fig and Eagle, which he just launched, which is more helping families create a value creation system in their household.

So how do you run family dinners? How do you create? How do you ensure that your family unit is very strong? And he’s and he’s good at what he does. And he studied so many families. What he’s found is that the generations you, you guys will. I’m sure you know, a family or two that’s done this where one generation came from, nothing built so much value in that family, created wealth.

And then the next generation spent it all and went broke. Right. Or got into drugs or something. So that flip flop of. And then the next generation watched their parents lose it and they started from nothing and blew up. So how do you, instead of flopping every generation or every other generation, how do you pass that value that you’ve figured out in your life to your kids without, you know, it turning the other way?

So he studied like 100 families that have done that have created value generation to generation. And not necessarily money, but just value and put it in this book value creation kit, incredible book. So he’s coming to speak. He’s doing a segment for the kids and he’s doing a segment just for parents. We’ll do a breakout just for parents to really gather this knowledge.

I will tell you, this is worth our ticket. Price is so small. The Earlybird is $34, but and parents are free. So you pay for your kid, you join them for free. And and we did that on purpose. We want every family to not be financially strapped to come to this event and we’ll find sponsors. I just know they’ll they’ll appear, but we’ll find sponsors that will cover the expenses that were that we’re spending on this event.

But, this is so worth it. It’s a Sunday from 10 to 3 with your kid in this environment. We have Olympic gold medalist, Matt Grievous that’s coming to. And now he owns a swim school. So he’s talking about really taking your passion, turning it into entrepreneurship and and what it takes to, like, reach the pinnacle of your passion.

He’s incredible on stage. If you haven’t seen him before, we have another guy, Greg in town, Greg Nickens, that owns a window washing company. He started washing windows straight out of high school, and I mean signs on the street neighborhood. And now he’s got a ton of trucks, employees, one of the biggest window washing companies here in town.

And just a incredibly good family guy. He’s going to talk about, you know, what it took for him. He’s going to really speak to the kids of that, that age of like, what did I do in high school that I think catapulted me to have this, this life that I have. So, so they’re going to getting a great messages.

We’re bringing in, I think, you know, this guy Brandon from Cirrus. He does doodling. Yeah. And he talks about doodling. In life, he’s just sketching. But we’re going to use it in a frame of. If you’re feeling stuck in your childhood, maybe didn’t have a good time with friends this day. How do I get out of that?

And how can I do it through doodling, right? How do I change my frame of mind? And so we’re going to give them life skills. We’re going to give them emotional skills. We’re going to give them financial skills. And really just building this kid up saying, listen, you can create whatever you want. Look at all these kids that have done it.

We also have spotlights on different kid entrepreneurs around the country. We’re going to have personalized videos from these kids to the kids in the room. So we’ve got a lot coming. It’s going to be an incredible day. The kids are going to love it. They’re going to walk away with some and the families will walk away with really just a bond that I think, we can grow from.

So. So where do people get information about about the event, about the product that we’re working to find more? Yes. Future preneur.com, is where all of our boxes are. We do have an events tab on there, but future Preneur Live.com is for our event in February. So, right now everyone’s getting on the waitlist. We have not open ticket sales yet.

We will probably open them on December 15th. We’ll open ticket sales early. Bird will last until January 10th. And then the prices go up. But we’re going to be getting these into schools also in January. First thing when they come back. So if you’re at a charter school or you’re at a school that, is geared towards a little bit towards entrepreneurship, you’ll probably see our fliers come home in their backpack.

So take a look at it. There’s no question this will sell out. I did a small event at the L offices where we had 50 seats, and we had standing room only. Sure, this will sell out. There’s about 200. There’s only 290 seats here. And again, parents can come, for free. So I would imagine there’s probably gonna be about 110 families that will be included in this magical day.

So, yeah, we’re excited. I can’t tell you, I can’t, I know I can’t. I’m so excited. I know I can tell. So, with all of this, you still have the the co-working spaces. We do. We have the proper shops. We know you have the entrepreneurship launch program. Yep. So. And now that you’re doing an event, I just, you know, I assume that you’re at the pinnacle.

So what’s next? I want to expand the events. I’m really passionate about the events. Have you ever been to. I’m sure you have. But to, like, event where you remember being in a room and getting some ideas from people on stage, and, you know, some people are like, you know, think about Tony Robbins. You know, I’ve been to a Tony Robbins event, but I bet thousands of dollars to go there.

But I will tell you, I was surrounded by motivated people. And, you know, I remember being in my engineering job and someone saying, oh, Crystal, drink the Kool-Aid this weekend. And I’m like, yeah, but you’re sitting here depressed in your corporate job. And I went, and now I’m very excited. So I’m always like, drink the Kool-Aid if it’s the right Kool-Aid, man.

Because, I that was a turning point in my life being in these events. And I want to expand the events more for these kids. I want to go bigger. I want to fill the Suns stadium someday with a future Preneur live massive kids event where you have all these kids that they can connect to, other kids that are actually motivated to do something amazing in their life.

And, that’s my goal. Crystal Popoff, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, teacher, community leader, friend, thank you for for being here today. Thank you for having me I loved it. Thank you.

Thanks for watching. As a reminder, this was part two of our interview with Crystal pop off, and if you’d like to listen to the first one, you can certainly head over to our website. Life along the Street car talk to get the, the foundation of what you heard today. Big thanks to our executive producer, James Portis and associate producer Amanda Burns.

I’m Tom Heath. Each week, our theme music is provided by Ryan Hood. You can check us out on social media through Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, YouTube, and many, many others just simply by putting in our handle. Life along the street car. If you want more information about past episodes, videos, information on our book, ways to contact us. Life along the Street car.org has all of that for you.

Until next time, enjoy our fabulous community and stay curious to send.

And.