We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Caden Harris a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Caden, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

If I could change one thing about the education system it would be to include more things about financial literacy in the curriculum. Since I was seven years old I’ve made it my mission to teach my peers financial literacy. I’ve spoke at several schools and events. I lead many interactive activities about assets, liabilities, bank accounts, budgets and so much more. My most recent project is my financial literacy bus. I use my bus to visit schools to bring kids into a real life scenario to learn about money. Onboard the bus there’s a mock bank, mock grocery store and a mock stock exchange. Financial Literacy is important to me because it sets the foundation for how we live our lives in the future. The way you handle money determines where you will live, the type of food you eat and the people you can help. We don’t have to wait until we’re 18 to start learning what a loan is, what a credit score is or how to budget money.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Caden Harris, 12 year old entrepreneur and founder of Caden Teaches. At seven years old I would go to business meetings with my Dad. At those meetings they were always talking about financial literacy, at that point I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I took it upon myself to learn about financial literacy and teach it to kids in a way they could understand. I started with a $200 investment from my dad. That investment allowed me to manufacture my first set of financial flashcards. I had 20 sets of flashcards made. I used the profits from that to create an activity book, I used those profits to create a puzzle and I kept doing that until I had a line of financial products to include purchasing my very own bus. When I bought the bus it was a plain bus that belonged to a community center. I had a of vision of turning everything that I dreamed the bus would look like into reality only to find it would cost a lot more than I thought. I completed a $50,000 capital raise to renovate the bus. That was an interesting experience. I created my own proposal and pitched my idea to several business owners. I got a lot of no’s but enough businesses to say yes and agree to help my mission of spreading financial literacy. I found that a lot of times people will get excited about the idea and tell you they will do things, then you never hear from them again. I’m glad I experienced this early, now I know what to expect in business and I know that with each no I’m getting closer to my yes. One of the things that set me apart in my industry is that my business is for kids by a kid. Studies have shown that kids learn better from each other than they do from adults. I know that my business is making impact from the reactions I get from each bus visit. One of the lessons on my bus has each kid choose a career and they typically choose the business owner because they see that’s what I’m doing and they want to do the same thing. Each kid leaves knowing how to budget, they know more about the stock market, how to write a check and so much more. I’m most proud of being able to reach all kids. Just a few short weeks ago I held a financial literacy class for a special needs group onboard the bus. That was very rewarding for me and they learned a lot. I’m happy that I’m able to connect with so many kids, companies and people on a topic that is so important and so needed.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

One of the times I had to pivot in business was during the pandemic. I was use to selling my products at live events and visiting schools. When the pandemic happened they shut everything down. My best option to keep going was shifting to virtual classes and presentations. At that time I was hired to speak to groups online and it’s actually a service that I continue to provide today.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I started to build my brand online by first just showing up often. Many times when people don’t hear from you they forget about you. I make a point to post something everyday. I connect with other brands online so that we can share audiences and I share valuable tips that will make people want to keep coming back to my pages.

Contact Info:

• Website: Cadenteaches.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/cadenteaches?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cadenteaches
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caden-harris-123a5b200
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CadenTeachesFinance