World’s Cutest Child Entrepreneur Starts Business to Keep Kids Safe Playing Pokemon Go

A little boy named Athen Salcedo was really into the idea of playing Pokemon Go, but he’s been holed up with an injury over the weekend and had to stay home. Also, his parents were worried about the safety aspect of children running around looking for Pokemon after dusk, so Athen–clever kid that he is–suggested kids could wear lights to keep them safer. He designed some and called them “Poke Glo,” and he spent his weekend making them at home.

They’re really cute, too! Anybody could wear a little reflective patch, but Athen made his look like little Pokeballs. (But not too much like Pokeballs. He redesigned them after the first batch so they wouldn’t look too much like Pokeballs, because that might not be OK from a copyright perspective.)

Athen is selling them very cheap, because he says he wants to keep kids safe more than he wants to make money from them. According to his GoFundMe, the mini size badges sell for $.50, the regular ones sell for $1, and the jumbo ones are $2. The wrist bands are $4. In the case of the regular-sized Poke Glo, Athen is actually selling them at below cost. (The mini size costs 46 cents to make, and the regular one costs $1.18 to produce. The jumbo costs $1.85. He’s not making much profit off of these.)

The Poke Glo badges are made of reflective materials so cars can see kids who are out after dark. The badges were originally designed to light up, but it turned out that reflective ones worked just as well and were a lot cheaper and easier to make.

Athen’s parents helped him start a GoFundMe campaign so he can buy materials in bulk, which will make his low costs sustainable so he isn’t losing money on every badge sold. He was originally looking for $500 for materials, but he’s already been pledged more than $1,600. That’s probably good. He’s going to need a lot of materials, because it looks like he’s on track to sell 25,000 of the things this year. Athen and his parents initially thought that he’d need like 500 for the year, at the most, but people really seem to love the idea and the cute little kid who came up with it.

 (Photos via GoFundMe)