The Money Club: Maiden Voyage

We built The Money Club to answer one question:

What happens when kids learn money by using it?

Last August, we tested the idea for the first time at the UTSU Student Commons at the University of Toronto.

The Money Club is a nonprofit program that teaches financial literacy, design thinking, AI and public speaking through one simple method:

Build something real.

For one week, students moved through a compressed product-development cycle.

They learned the basics of revenue, gross margin and net margin.

Then we gave them a design challenge:

Find the friction where money already flows.

Students interviewed classmates and parents.

They looked for problems people already cared enough about to spend money on.

Then they researched the market.

Who might buy this?

What would they pay?

What would it cost to make?

Could it earn a profit?

Students ranked their ideas, chose the strongest ones, built business cases, sourced products, worked through pricing and created the graphics and sales material needed to launch.

AI was part of the toolkit throughout.

Not as an answer machine, but as a tool for research, ideas, iteration and communication.

Then came the real test.

The Maker Market.

Instead of ending with a presentation and applause, every student received virtual cash and had to decide which products or services they would actually buy.

That changed everything.

Compliments are easy.

Choices are harder.

Students had to explain their offer, defend the price and discover whether someone else saw enough value to buy it.

The winning businesses included a custom 3D-printing service, a boba tea concept with free stickers, and Brothers Cookies.

The stakes were small.

The signal was real.

Since the program ended, I have learned that several students have started small businesses of their own using ideas and methods from The Money Club.

That may be the most encouraging result from the pilot.

The program also taught us a lot.

Some assumptions held.

Others did not.

We learned more about age, independence, teamwork, what students want to build, where they need more structure and where adults should get out of the way.

Those lessons are already shaping next year’s sessions.

That is what a pilot is for.

Learn.
Build.
Test.
Listen.
Improve.

I also owe a large thank you to Sarah Duong, Roy Fodjo and Alexandra Goldberg, who supported program operations; to the parents who trusted us with their kids for the week; and to the students who showed up ready to experiment.

And a very special thank you to our guest presenter Tuxton, co-founder of the YouTube channel Not What You Think.

He opened his session with one question:

Would you rather be a YouTuber earning $50,000 a year — or a chimney cleaner earning $500,000?

From there, the students had to look past the job title and ask better questions about income, demand, competition, skills and what the market actually values.

And that, dear friends, is The Money Club in a nutshell.

Question the obvious answers.

Understand the system underneath the surface.

Then make your own decision.

We started small.

We tested the idea in the real world.

Now we have something better than a hypothesis:

feedback.

And a better system to build next.

Want to see what we actually teach?

The full curriculum and learning modules are here:

the-money-club.org/learn/

And for the UX designers out there: take a look at the Dynamic Reader I designed to support the lessons. It turns the curriculum into a more focused, interactive reading experience for students.