Think the lummoxes on Wall Street have taken all the fun out of capitalism?

There might be a better role model out there: Jenna Bethany, owner of the Monument-based business Jazzies by Jenna.

Jenna has a smart, evolving business plan. She’s grown her revenue, found new markets and expanded her product line. She’s committed to using a portion of her revenue to help good causes. And she manages her business while juggling other weighty responsibilities.

Oh, by the way, Jenna is 11 years old.

Paging Mr. Buffett, Mr. Warren Buffet to the white courtesy phone, please. …

Jenna, a sixth-grader at Lewis-Palmer Middle School, plunged into the heady world of business in the fall of 2008, creating a line of hand-knitted neck and wrist cords that soon expanded to include necklace pendants and earrings.

A year later, in September, Jenna was named the winner in the 6- to-11-year-old category in the eighth annual Celebration for Young Entrepreneurs competition in Denver, hosted by the nonprofit Young Americans Center for Financial Education.

An independent panel of businesspeople judged Jenna’s business and marketing plans — and her financial statement — best among her age group.

Jenna had been knitting ribbon and satin yarn to create bracelets and necklace cords since the third grade, mostly for herself and her mom, Shelley.

But last year, a Monument jeweler, Theresa Lenski, saw her creations and invited her to show them at her annual art show, called Artists and Friends.

The trouble was, Jenna had little stock and hadn’t yet learned how to make clasps for her bracelets and pendants. With the show just six weeks away, she took a class on clasps and set to work making 150 pieces for the show.

“I learned in six weeks how much you can learn in six weeks,” said Jenna, nonchalantly throwing off a sentence few 11-year-olds would think of constructing.

While taking the class at The Bead Corner in Monument, owner Elaine Teevens, also noticed there was something special about Jenna and the work she was creating.

Teevens bought some cords from Jenna, put pendants on them and sold all of them at a craft fair last fall.“We’re on to something here,” Teevens said she thought. “It was the first indication people would buy them. They stood on their own.”

Jazzies by Jenna was born.

“Wow, I think I’ll go further,” Jenna remembers saying to herself.

Jenna, coached by Teevens, started adding pendants to her necklace cords, and examples were soon being offered for sale at The Bead Corner.

Like any hard-charging entrepreneur, Jenna has worked to grow her business. Over the past year, Jenna has shown her creations at numerous arts and crafts fairs. She’s expanded her product line to include necklace pendants and matching earrings. Most of her customers are women, but she also has products for girls ages 5-10, called Sweethearts, and for older kids, called Tie Dye. Her products also are on display at Expectations Salon, Spa & Boutique in Monument and will soon be available at a boutique in Palmer Lake.

Jenna’s mom reckons her daughter has created perhaps 700 pieces and has sold more than 600. By early summer, revenue had already reached $5,000, growing to $6,000 by early October.

 Jenna and her mom expect that number to explode this fall, the big selling season for crafts. Jenna’s wares were a big hit at a recent fair sponsored by the Palmer Lake Art Group, bringing in $1,632. Jenna’s mother said organizers reckoned the Jazzies by Jenna booth was the second-highest-selling at the fair. She has five other fairs on her schedule through early December.

“It’s fun. It’s interesting,” Jenna said recently as she and her mom worked on setting up a presentation booth in the basement of their Monument home in preparation for the Palmer Lake show. “It’s actually hard to guess what people will like. You’re always trying to find colors and designs that will pop out.”

Jenna, like any smart businessperson, knows how to use the talents of those around her. Her mom, who sells Mary Kay cosmetics, uses her eye to order materials and helps hone her presentation to target specific buyers. Her father, John, an executive at Focus on the Family, along with his father helped build her display.

Jenna also has tapped into the skills of a local Mary Kay executive and, more recently, the business acumen of a female executive with the Kaiser-Permanente health care organization.

Jenna used some of her $1,000 award from the Celebration for Young Entrepreneurs to hire a professional designer to create a Web site that features her jewelry.

Jenna is also working on a new line of bracelets, pendants and earrings she’s going to call Faith, Hope and Love, with a portion of the proceeds going to help AIDS orphans in Africa. The idea was spurred when she donated revenue from a show last spring at a women’s retreat to benefit AIDS orphans in Durban, South Africa.

It’s all heady stuff, but Jenna seems nonplussed. Besides, she has other interests. Her great love is music, and she practices piano and trumpet every day, and plays volleyball and basketball at the YMCA.

Her mom and dad hope some of the money Jenna is making will help fund her college education. Although she’s five years away from driving, Jenna wants to use some of her well-gotten gains to buy a cute Volkswagen Beetle.

“I do it for fun. It’s another hobby,” Jenna said. “The urge has always been there to sell some of my stuff, so I acted on it.”

One of Jenna’s mentors does the bragging for her. “She’s extremely impressive,” said Teevens of The Bead Corner. “I told her, ‘I don’t know where you’re going to end up in life, but I can’t wait to see what you do.’”

Jenna Bethany, 11, poses with a collection of “Jazzies by Jenna,” the jewelry she makes and sells. Photo by MARK REIS, THE GAZETTE

Mark Reis