LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Hailey Hertzman and Katie Vonder Haar are best friends in life and in business. The Kentucky girls started working together on Lemonade Day in Louisville in April of 2017.
"You can do it with a friend you can do it by yourself. So, Katie and I, since we love doing lemonade stands previously we wanted to do it together. So, we joined and it's throughout the country and we went onto winning the National Lemonade Day title," Hertzman said.
Besides being fun, Lemonade Day teaches kids how to start, own, and operate their very own businesses.
"You have to think about the product you are selling, how much you're going to sell it for, are you actually going to make a profit?" Vonder Haar said.
The 14-year-olds ended up making more than $500.00 from the experience of running their own lemonade stand. They donated more than half to charity. Then, they got the feeling that something more might be possible.
"We learned that we loved running a business together and so Katie and I were like 'Why not start our own business not a lemonade stand but maybe take the fruit theme to this business?' So, we created Ooh La Lemon and we sell cute, fun, colorful, trendy products with a fruit theme to them," Hertzman said.
Hats, socks, and kitchenware are just of the products they sell online and at pop-up events.
"It's just kind of cool to see the look on poeple's faces when it's two young girls running the booth," Vonder Haar said.
But their biggest nod came this fall after putting in months and months of hard work.
"From then we have gotten asked to go to the Emmy's and give our dog collar leash and bowtie set that we custom designed to the nominees for the Emmy's and we flew out there and put them in the Emmy swag bags," Hertzman said.
"We never ever thought we'd end up at the Emmy's like that is crazy I still get chills about it, it's not even processed in my mind yet," Vonder Haar said.
The pair is apparently just begining to hit their stride. They are currently finalists in a competition called The Startup Squad which would allow them be profiled in a book about young girls who are interested in entreprenuership and go on a book signing tour.
"I'm a little nervous there's defintely some tough competition but I'm excited too," Vonder Haar said.
Regardless of the outcome though these two are committed to each other and the mission of Ooh La Lemon.
"It's really cool just to see how far we have come it's amazing," Vonder Haar said.
"We both want to go to college and study business so I don't know really know how long Ooh La Lemon is going to last it could last our whole life or it could last until then but we definitely want to keep trying and keep succeeding," Hertzman said.