Adam Malamed’s penchant for business and earning money started early, with his first venture coming at age 8. The family spent the summer months of 1979 in the wooded bungalow colonies in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York. Malamed begged his parents to head there a day earlier than the rest of the crowd, giving him time to “borrow” a shopping cart from a local grocery store, which he used to cart people’s garbage to the dumpster a half-mile away, which was essential to prevent attracting raccoons and other animals that would pillage the trash, making a disturbance and a mess.

Malamed offered fellow visitors a daily trash-hauling service — using the shopping cart as his mode of transportation — to rid them of the problem and the hassle, while charging each customer 25 or 50 cents per week for the service.

He made $29 that summer, a respectable take for an 8-year-old in 1979 dollars. And, yes, he returned the shopping cart to the grocery store.