The Acton Children’s Business Fair inspires children to discover their inner entrepreneurs. The largest entrepreneurship event for kids in North America, this one-day market allows children to showcase their very own businesses.

Start with our resources page. Read inspiring stories about other young entrepreneurs and play games to hone your business skills.

Applications must be submitted online. Please submit one application for each business. Children working as a group should submit one application that includes each child’s information—no more than 3 participants per business.

The application asks kids to think through some simple but important elements of their business:

What product or service do you plan to sell?
What price will you charge for each product/service? How much will each product/service cost you?
How will you pay for your startup costs? If someone is helping you with your startup costs, how will you pay that person back?
How will you advertise/market your business before the fair?
At the end of the fair, how will you determine if your business was a success?

Two greeting card businesses? Not a problem. In general, we will let market forces play out, though we will let later entries know if another applicant has a similar idea so the later entrant can decide what to do.

The fair will be set up in Penn Medicine Park's covered corridor. Each business will be given an 8-foot table. Tablecloths and chairs will not be provided. We are not able to accommodate businesses requiring electricity. Due to health codes, we are not able to host food-based businesses.

This event is designed to give children aged 5-16 the experience of selling a product or service. If a parent is found selling or promoting a child’s product or service, their child’s business will be disqualified from the competition. Parents of younger children may sit in the booth, but the children should be responsible for setting up, customer interaction, and sales.
Parents may help their children fill out the application, but we expect the children to do as much as possible by themselves.
The fair is set up for children to create a business or service, not to be a distributor of an existing product, unaltered, as a reseller or repackager would. Buying raw materials online is OK to create new and exciting products.

Jeff, Laura Sandefer, and a few other families wanted to spark a sense of wonder and entrepreneurship in their children, so they created the first Acton Children’s Business Fair in Austin, Texas, in 2007. That year, there were seven entrepreneurs and around 25 attendees. Now, there are over 115 entrepreneurs and 1,500 attendees at the Acton Children's Business Fair in Austin.