How an 8-Year-Old Kid Became an Investor of a SaaS Company

My son is 8 years old, and he is now an investor in an Enterprise Software-as-A-Service (SaaS) company.

Throughout my childhood, school never taught me about what money really was and how to grow wealth. The culture I grew up with avoided talking about money and despised capitalism, even though money is such an important part of day-to-day decisions. Anything associated with money sounded bad, greedy, not intellectual.

In the US, people with a $500,000 annual income can be slaves to their lifestyles. I hope my son can be not only independent and self-motivated, but also have freedom — you can pursue what you love (becoming an artist, a scientist, or Chessmaster), without worrying about how you can afford the lifestyle.

To have both the money you need and the job you want, you have to be creative and flexible.

— Principles, Ray Dalio

To reach financial freedom someday, he needs to know money, make money, save money, and invest money.

Knowing Money

When my son was 4 years old, I introduced the Coin system to him — a virtual currency in my family. This currency maintains a fixed exchange rate with US dollars — two Coins for $1.

I started to offer him little chores such as setting up the dinner table or folding clothes. He collected these virtual Coins and bought toys and snacks, but he could not spend until he reached 10 Coins…