A young Toronto entrepreneur has sold more than 750 cookies in three weeks through a home-based business called Sam Cooks, illustrating how accessible digital tools are enabling elementary school-aged children to launch real businesses with the same speed and infrastructure that once required adult expertise.
9-year old Sam Armeland built his entire e-commerce operation in a single night using AI prompts on Webflow and integrated Stripe for payment processing—completing tasks that would have required hiring developers and designers just a few years ago.
“Everyone said they loved them so much, so I made a website,” Sam said, describing how positive feedback on his chocolate chip cookies led him to immediately launch samcooks.ca and start fulfilling orders the next day.
The speed of execution marks a generational shift in youth entrepreneurship. Where previous generations needed craft fairs, garage sales, or roadside lemonade stands to reach customers, today’s young entrepreneurs can build professional online stores through conversational AI prompts and pre-integrated payment systems—tools that have become as familiar to them as smartphones and tablets.
“So I asked AI if it could make a website with like four places, like four things that you can click on that allows you to buy it,” Sam explained. “We made some changes and we tried to make it as close as we wanted, but some things were a tiny bit off that we are looking to upgrade.”
Sam’s path to e-commerce follows earlier entrepreneurial experiments that looked more traditional. He previously ran a lemonade stand, a hot chocolate stand, and even sold pre-made snowballs—ventures that taught basic business concepts but were limited by geography and cash transactions.
“He’s always looking for things to sell,” said Adam Armeland, Sam’s father and President of Kitchen Hub, a Toronto-based digital food hall business. Sam’s snowball business “only made $2,” but those early experiences built the foundation for understanding customers and sales.
The difference with Sam Cooks is the infrastructure. Digital tools eliminated the need for physical locations, cash handling, and face-to-face transactions—allowing Sam to scale from neighbourhood sales to processing orders across Canada. The business received its first Vancouver order recently, though Sam admits “I got to figure that one out” regarding cross-country shipping logistics.
Sam manages the entire operation independently, tracking orders on a physical calendar and handling all baking, packaging, and customer communications. On the busiest day so far, he woke at 6:30 a.m. to bake 132 cookies to fulfill orders.
“The most impressive thing is watching how fast he picked things up and took it on his own,” Armeland said. “Most times the first question that people ask us is, okay, so secretly you’re baking the cookies and he’s just doing the cute promotion thing in the front. Truth be told, he has a calendar sitting right here with all of his orders that he writes on himself.”
Growing Up With Digital Tools
The ease with which Sam navigated website building, payment integration, and online marketing reflects how today’s elementary school students interact with technology as a native language rather than a learned skill. Platforms like Webflow, Shopify, Squarespace, and AI assistants have become as accessible to children as earlier generations found pencils and paper.
“For any parent that’s reading this article, it’s way easier than you think,” Armeland said. “It’s a lot of fun to sit down and figure it out with your kid, because it’s a big problem solving business making activity.”
The technical skills Sam is developing through launching the cookie business have already expanded to other projects. “From this, he is now figuring out how to make his own video games with AI and he is now super comfortable on the computer,” Armeland noted.
This experiential learning provides business education that traditional schooling rarely offers. Sam is acquiring skills in customer service, inventory management, financial literacy, and marketing strategy through real market transactions rather than textbook exercises.
“It gives him the option to do it in the future,” Armeland said. “Even if this business goes wherever it goes, it’s something that he now knows that he can start a website, get and collect payments, do promotions, talk to people and get things out there. A widget’s a widget, whether it’s cookies or something else. He now has the foundation of how to do it.”
Current Operations and Market Strategy
Sam Cooks operates from a residential kitchen in Toronto, offering four product tiers through the website: single cookies, six-packs, 12-packs, and 24-packs. The classic chocolate chip cookies have received consistent positive feedback, with Sam reporting customers frequently call them “one of the best cookies they’ve ever had.”
Product expansion is underway, with an Oreo crumble flavor currently in testing with friends serving as a focus group. Sam has also developed a grassroots marketing approach, promoting the business to friends, teachers, and passersby on the street.
A LinkedIn post by Armeland announcing the venture generated more than 100 reactions and 33 comments, driving significant initial order volume. The business recently launched an Instagram presence at samcooks.ca, with plans to post cookie-making process videos.
Sam’s primary growth goal involves partnering with established Toronto cookie businesses to learn their operations. “That’s his number one goal, is trying to figure out how to partner up with one of the cookie businesses to see how they do it,” Armeland said.
Long-term, Sam has ambitions beyond the current home-based setup. “I want to make it pretty big,” he said, adding that he hopes to eventually “save up for a building that I can get for baking.”
Family Entrepreneurial Heritage
Sam continues a multi-generational business tradition. He’s named after his great-great-grandfather Sam Freed, who founded Freeds of Windsor, a menswear retailer celebrating its 95th anniversary this year. The 50,000-square-foot Windsor store recently honoured three employees for 50-year work anniversaries.
“All of the people on my side of the family get into [entrepreneurship],” Armeland said, noting his first job was working as a janitor at Freeds when he was eight years old—around Sam’s current age.
The contrast between Adam’s entry into business through manual labor in a physical retail environment and Sam’s path through digital tools and e-commerce reflects broader changes in how young people access entrepreneurial opportunities. Where craft fairs and garage sales once served as the primary venues for youth business ventures, no-code platforms and AI tools now enable children to build scalable operations with professional infrastructure.
“School’s number one,” Armeland said. “But after that, he can bake some cookies and feed the world.”
Orders can be placed through samcooks.ca, with delivery currently available throughout the Greater Toronto Area.
Dustin Fuhs is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of 6ix Retail, Toronto’s premier source for retail and hospitality industry news. As the former Editor-in-Chief of Retail Insider, Canada’s most-read retail trade publication, Dustin brings over two decades of expertise spanning retail, marketing, entertainment and hospitality sectors. His experience includes leadership roles with industry giants such as The Walt Disney Company, The Hockey Hall of Fame, Starbucks and Blockbuster.
Recognized as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024 and 2025, Dustin delivers insider perspectives on Toronto’s evolving retail landscape, from emerging brands to established players reshaping the city’s commercial districts.