Enterprise Week: Start a Business in a Week
In short
Start a Business in a Week is fifteen sessions for ages 12-14, three a day. Teams of 3-4 interview people about a real problem, build and test two versions of a prototype, cost and price it, take pre-orders, make a batch and sell it at a real school market on Friday, then pitch their real results to a panel.
Included in the £49 educator licence. One zip file, about 19.3 MB.
- Time
- 5 days, 3 sessions a day
- Group
- A class in teams of 3-4
- Prep
- Two weeks ahead: market and loan
- Screen
- Optional, with tool spots
Look inside
Real pages from this kit. Have a flick through.
Slides pupils can read from the back row, a guide with every word you need and printables that look great in black and white.
Slide: a loan isn't a cost
A start-up loan, step by step: borrowing and repaying aren't costs, and cash left at the end equals profit.
What pupils make and take home
- A Venture Canvas, filled in with evidence across the week
- Two versions of a product, tested with real customers
- A batch made to match their pre-orders, sold at a real market
- Real results, a repaid loan and a pitch built on them
Why it works in a real classroom
- A real market, run safely: adults hold the loan and all the money
- A selling safely page covering allergens, honest marketing and what happens if a team makes a loss
- A no-trading route with interest slips, for schools that can't sell
- Run it as a week, or spread the fifteen sessions over two or three weeks of lessons
Get the kit
How to download the Enterprise Week
Four quick steps. Everything comes as one zip file with numbered folders, so you always know what to open first.
- 1
Sign in
Use your We Can Be account, or create one free in a minute.
- 2
Unlock with the £49 licence
One payment covers every teacher and leader in your setting, for good.
- 3
Download the zip
One file, about 19.3 MB, with everything in numbered folders.
- 4
Unzip and open folder 01
Windows: right-click, Extract All. Mac or iPad: double-click or tap. Then open 01 Start here.
The whole kit, in one download
Slides, guide and every printable · zip file · 19.3 MB
Included in the £49 educator licence. Sign in first and we'll check your access.
Stuck? Get in touch and we'll sort it.
5 days
The week
Monday
Think and find
Think like an entrepreneur, problems and questions, then teams and a problem.
Tuesday
Customers and ideas
Interviews and a target customer, competitors, ideas and AI, then choose and build version 1.
Wednesday
Test it and price it
Test version 1, build and retest version 2, then costs, price, a cash check and the first materials order.
Thursday
Brand it and market it
Break-even and making, build the brand, then honest marketing and a pre-order window.
Friday
Make it, sell it, pitch it
Make a batch to match the orders, a 40-minute market, then count up, repay the loan, pitch and celebrate.
What's in the zip
Everything you need, in numbered folders
Open folder 01 and it tells you what to print, what to read and what to press. No hunting through files the night before.
01 Start here
- One page: agree the market, print, read, press play
02 Guide
- 30 pages: the week on one page, planning, every session step by step, selling safely, a no-trading route, tech labs, assessment and a source register
03 Slides
- Five daily decks, 100 slides, editable and as PDFs, with the script in the speaker notes
- Teacher sheets: supply list, product menu and market timings to edit
- An editable Venture Canvas
04 Print
- Venture Canvas (A3), worked example and team roles
- Founder story cards and founder mission cards
- Problem hunt, interview, customer profile, 8 ideas and test sheets
- Supply list, materials order and a three-page money sheet
- Brand planner, marketing plan, order book and sales log
- Market run sheet and results sheet
- Pitch planner and score sheet, learning and individual checks
- Something changed cards, certificates and tools with QR codes
- Interest slips for the no-trading route
Real UK founders
Founders pupils will meet
Real people who started with a simple idea, some while they were still at school. Every fact is checked against a published source, and the guide shows you how to invite a local entrepreneur too.
Avye Couloute
Girls Into Coding
Hands-on coding and robotics workshops for girls.
Honor & Cat Black
Maiden Cricket
Cricket kit designed for girls and women.
Victoria Jenkins
Unhidden
An adaptive fashion brand.
Pip Murray
Pip & Nut
Nut butters, first blitzed in her own kitchen.
Cassandra Stavrou
PROPERCORN
PROPERCORN popcorn.
Solveiga Pakštaitė
Mimica
A food label that turns bumpy when food has gone off.
Segun Akinwoleola
The Gym Kitchen
High-protein versions of familiar ready meals.
Fraser Doherty
SuperJam
Jam from his gran's recipes, sweetened with fruit juice.
Ben Francis
Gymshark
Gym clothes, first made in his parents' garage.
Mark Rushmore & Gyve Safavi
SURI
A repairable electric toothbrush with plant-based heads.
Rob Law
Trunki
A children's suitcase they can ride on.
Omari McQueen
Dipalicious
His own vegan dips.
Cross-curricular
Curriculum links, life skills and tools
Curriculum links
- England: PSHE and citizenship (economic wellbeing, money), D&T (designing for a user), English spoken language, maths (costs, profit, break-even)
- Scotland: Developing the Young Workforce and the Career Education Standard
- Wales: Careers and Work-Related Experiences (CWRE)
- Northern Ireland: Learning for Life and Work
- Gatsby Benchmarks 4 and 5, with a business owner who talks with pupils about their work
Life skills it builds (Skills Builder)
Optional tools on a screen
The kit runs on paper. These free tools add a bit of magic on the big screen.
AI · Kit Add-on Studio
Add exactly what your group needs
A warm-up, a themed version, a stretch task or an adaptation for one child. Describe it and the studio writes it to fit the enterprise week, ready to print.
AI · Kit Add-on Studio
Ask for exactly what your group needs
A warm-up, an adaptation, a themed version or an extension. It's drafted inside the kit's rules: teams of 3-4, adults hold any money, the teacher runs any AI tool, low-ink printables, UK English.
Free account: 3 a day. Never include pupils' names.
What you'll get
- Where it fits in the kit, and how long it takes
- Timed steps with words to say
- What to gather, and a low-ink printable if it helps
- Ways to support and stretch, and what success looks like
Print it, or copy it straight into your plan.
More for ages 12-14
The same story, other lengths
Answers
Questions about this kit
Never. You arrange a start-up loan from the school or PTA, and an adult holds it and all the takings. Teams repay the loan from their cash after the market, and the results sheet checks that cash matches profit.
Use the no-trading route in the guide. Teams collect interest slips instead of sales and compare cautious, middle and optimistic scenarios, so the money learning still happens.
Agree the Friday market and a loan with your head teacher two weeks ahead, book people for Tuesday's interviews and Wednesday's tests, and set up a shared supply box. Expect around £10 of materials per team, bought from their orders.
No. Each day is about two and a half hours of activity. Run three enterprise blocks a day, or spread the fifteen sessions across two or three weeks of lessons.
Pricing
Free taster, then £49 once for your setting
Start here
Free
Taster lesson, with a free account
- A complete one-hour lesson, not a cut-down sample
- Slides, a step-by-step guide and every printable
- Founder story cards and a problem hunt
- Exit tickets and a founder mission for every pupil
Educator licence
£49 once
Every teacher and leader in your school, club or group. No subscription.
- Every kit, in every format, for every age group as it's released
- Editable slides, word-for-word guides and every printable
- Unlimited Kit Add-on Studio
- Everything in the £29 plan too: every course, every tool with unlimited AI, the role models and all the resources
- Yours for good, with free updates
Get started
It's included in the £49 educator licence. Join the list and we'll email you the day the hub opens.
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