The 14-year-old boy who turned down $30 million

 

Pre discussion questions

Do you know of any people who made a lot of money when they were very young?

Why do you think the boy in this story refused $30 million dollars?

 

 

Taylor could be a future Bill Gates. The 14-year-old's start-up company is very exciting. He has already turned down a $30 million offer to buy his company.

The high-school student from Alabama invented RecMed, a vending machine that dispenses first aid products.

He started the in 2014. He started it when he was as an year eight student. The idea was a project when he was attending a Young Entrepreneurs Academy class.

"We had to come up with a business idea," said the boy who always gets A grades.

"Every time I'd travel for a baseball tournament in Alabama, I'd see that kids would get hurt and parents couldn't find a band-aid. I wanted to solve that problem."

Taylor says that he first got the idea for a small medical shop from his parents. Both his parents work as doctors. But he said having medical people at a game could not make money.

"We saw that it would cost too much to pay people minimum wage to sit at games for six hours," he said.

The idea then evolved into a vending machine.

Customers can either buy pre-packaged first-aid kits for between $5.99 and $15.95 for simple things like bandaids. For things like rubber gloves and cleaning towels, the prices are from $6 to $20.

The company will make money from selling the vending machines for $5500 each. And they make money from putting supplies into the machines. They may think about putting advertising on the machines to make more money.

He applied and received a patent for the idea. And after that he began receiving business offers. He has received $100,000 in angel investment and has already rejected a S30 million offer to buy his business.

Now he has an order for RecMed's first 100 machines for the Six Flags amusement park. And Taylor hopes to sell them for use in other busy places where kids go such as beaches and stadiums.

This week, he's showing his idea at the TechCrunch Disrupt week in New York.

"They told me that I was the youngest person to ever get accepted to the event," he said. "It felt awesome."

One of Taylor's teachers, Clarinda Jones, said she was proud of the young entrepreneur.

"It has been amazing to see Taylor grow over the past year into this confident and amazing business man," she said.

"Even with all of his success, he is not arrogant. And he is ready to help others. He's just 14. Bill Gates should be worried."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.

 

 

 

start-up company	A	1	To reject, to not accept
turned down	B	2	To change into something new, to develop over some longer time
dispenses	C	3	Someone who starts new businesses, tries new things to make money
to come up with	D	4	To invent, to think of something new,
evolved	E	5	A new business
angel investment	F	6	Amazing, really great, fantastic, wow!
awesome	G	7	People who invest money into new ideas and businesses
entrepreneur	H	8	To give out, to provide

 

A=5, B=1, C=8, D=4, E=2, F=7, G=6, H=3

 

Some example sentences using the new words or phrases from the meaning of how they are used in the reading to help you understand better.

1.     In the 1950s, Hyundai was only a start-up company.

2.     It would be hard to turn down an offer to a university like Harvard or Princeton.

3.     My teacher dispenses too much homework.

4.     If you work in advertising, it is hard to always come up with new ideas.

5.     Darwin began the idea that we humans evolved from monkeys.

6.     His company is worth $100 million dollars, but it all started with some angel investment from someone who trusted his idea.

7.     It would be awesome to be able to travel for six months every year.

8.     Richard Branson is a famous entrepreneur from England. He has started more than 300  companies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some questions using the new words/phrases. Try to use the words/phrases in your answer.

 

1.     Would you like to be a start up company entrepreneur?

2.     Why do you think the boy turned down so much money?

3.     What other dispensing machines would you like to see available?

4.     What is a new idea that someone came up with that you think is awesome?

5.     How do you see your job or study evolving? What is it evolving into?

6.     Why do you think that banks are not normally angel investors?

7.     Describe something that you think is awesome.

8.     Would you like to be an entrepreneur? Why or why not?