An eye for business The rise of the junior entrepreneur

Children as young as seven are honing their skills early by running lucrative side hustles. Deborah Cicurel talks to four future titans

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Most adults look back on their childhood earnings and think of pocket money, Christmas gifts or a Saturday job. But these days, children as young as seven are already fluent in entrepreneurship, running side hustles, talking about profits and losses and razor-sharp in their focus on honing sophisticated business skills.

Research from the children's debit card company GoHenry found that two in three young people want to be entrepreneurs when they were older, and one in eight have made more than £1,000 from their side hustle in the past year.

With a world of digital tools at their fingertips, and all the education they could hope for on YouTube and TikTok, it is no surprise that "kidpreneurism" is the future. We spoke to four young people aged 7 to 16 about how and why they launched their own enterprises.

Levi, 10: '3D printing is the way I'll make money'

Obsessed with the business reality TV shows Shark Tank and Dragons' Den, Levi, from Birmingham, began mimicking the deals he saw on television in school at the age of six. He charged friends 50p or £1 in exchange for a drawing of their choice, making about £50 before teachers shut his venture down.

"I tried to sell the drawings on eBay but it didn't work as well," he says. "But there are still a lot of other businesses I've had that have worked out."

He has earned about £600 from buying and selling old Lego and Pokémon cards on eBay, as well as reselling Prime energy drinks, the viral beverage masterminded by the YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul.

"This year, I thought: 'I need more money,'" Levi says. He asked his parents, who are both songwriters, to lend him some money for a 3D printer, using some techniques he learned from Shark Tank.