How an Old Coin Bank Inspires My Entrepreneurial Journey The homemade coin catchall (from third grade!) reminds me to look for simple solutions.

When I was in third grade, my teacher assigned our class a project. We all had to take an item from home and repurpose it to fulfill another need. I took an empty container of Planters nuts, washed it out, cut a little slit into the cap, and called it a piggy bank. It wasn't the most ambitious project in the class, but I'm proud of my 8-year-old self. The way I see it, I had a hacker's mentality. I was thinking: How can I get maximum output for the least amount of input?

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Back then, "maximum output" meant getting a good grade for very little work. But 18 years later, this ragtag container still continues to provide.