Youngster’s rent-a-mouse enterprise
When his mum refused to buy him a mouse – Harry Ewing didn’t hear a no.
Instead, the nine-year-old saw a business opportunity.
The Tu¯ a¯ kau tween is the founder of ‘Adventure Mice’ an enterprise designed to take the hassle out of owning your own pocket-sized pet.
Harry says the idea is a simple one.
For $9.50 per week customers receive two mice sourced from a qualified mouse breeder, a cage, accessories and food.
‘‘For that, you can bring your mouse back anytime you want... and we won’t charge you anything.’’ Once potential pet owners are ready to make the commitment the mice can be purchased for $20 each. Mum Tamra says the initial concept emerged as a solution to a problem.
‘‘Harry had been asking for mice for at least six months, maybe even longer. As a parent, it made me too nervous that I was going to be left looking after an animal and these days I’m too busy for that.
‘‘So I just said no and hoped he would stop asking . . . but in the end, he started to wear me down.’’
But while the conversation may be familiar to many parents – what began as a tug-of-war between mother and son took a turn when Harry made a suggestion.
‘‘We were just having a chat and he kind of came up with this idea.
‘‘What if we could keep the mice for a short period of time?’’
‘‘When we realised nobody does that.
‘‘Well, what if it was us providing that experience?’’
Tamra says she’s surprised the idea hasn’t been tried before.
‘‘As parents we encourage children to take on new experiences but we still expect them to look after a pet on a long term basis which actually for a young child is really hard to do.’’
From this, the duo began brainstorming the future business.
‘‘It was fun designing a business plan with an eight-year-old, how we could do this and that how much we could charge.’’
However, while he’s had some parental help, Tamra says Adventure Mice is squarely Harry’s creation.
The Ramarama School student has done the bulk of the work, cleaning the cages and spending 10 minutes with each mouse twice a day to socialise them for human contact. He’s also spent time creating video and photos for social media.
‘‘He’s always been very entrepreneurial and if he gets an idea he works very hard.’’ But this isn’t Harry’s first time trying his hand at business.
This summer he bred crickets in an attempt to create a unique form of dog treat.
However, that venture was cut short when ants discovered the cricket’s newly hatched eggs, says Harry.
‘‘When they finally had babies a swarm of ants came along and ate them all.
‘‘Hundreds of [crickets] bouncing everywhere but the ants just came along and just wiped them out.’’
But according to Harry, Adventure Mice is a winning commodity, pitching the product, he says his furry fellows make ideal first-time pets.
The business has been running for one month and so far he’s got seven satisfied customers on the books with a number of others expressing interest.
For more information visit the Adventure Mice Facebook page.