The Business of Learning

It started with a group of bored 5th graders.

After three years of fighting dragons and looting dungeons, our after-school RPG group asked the question every long-running campaign eventually faces: "What else sounds cool?"

Starting a business, duh.

What began as a gladiator arena that pivoted into a concessions brand, then a sports media company, then (don't ask) a water-drilling company, became the seed of EntrepreNewbies — a role-playing game where kids found and run their own fictional company.

How It Works
Each player takes on an executive role — CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, or CTO — with their own skills, dice, and decision-making power. Together, the group:

• Brainstorms a business idea and five product lines
• Builds a Business Plan, complete with a logo, slogan, and mission statement
• Assigns Promotion Points and Equity based on how well projects go
• Tracks Revenue, Expenses, and Profit on an Income Statement
• Rolls dice to resolve uncertain outcomes — from landing a celebrity spokesperson to surviving a PR crisis
• Navigates Events like Major Recessions and product recalls

It's part business simulation, part improv theater, part dice-chucking chaos. Kids learn about equity, compound growth, marketing, and risk management without ever feeling like they're doing a worksheet.

Why We Built It
Financial literacy and entrepreneurship are hard to teach because they're abstract — until you make them personal, narrative, and a little bit ridiculous. When a 10-year-old has to decide whether to take out a Senior Loan to pay her Chief Technology Officer, she's learning the same trade-offs adults face — just with better jokes and a better mascot (a confident pinstriped potato, naturally).

Try It
EntrepreNewbies Lite is our starter version — a complete, playable ruleset for grades 3–12, ready to run with a handful of dice and some imagination.

The Full Version — with deeper mechanics, 50+ projects and events, and Board of Directors rules — is Kickstarting this Fall/Winter. Join the mailing list below to get notified.