How one family instilled children with values of hard work, entrepreneurship

Jackson Befus wasn’t thinking about starting a business as he stood beside his father restoring a 36-foot sailboat.

He was focused on getting the paint right.

“I was floored by how skilled he already was,” says his father, Michael Befus, recalling how Jackson carefully prepared and painted the weathered boat. “He worked with patience and precision. I told him painting had paid my way through college and that maybe it could do the same for him.”

Jackson took the advice seriously.

He teamed up with his sister, Evelyn Befus, and launched Go Green College Painters, serving homeowners across West Michigan.

The painting business wasn’t an isolated idea. It grew out of a family culture that encouraged each child to spot a need, build a solution, and take responsibility for the outcome.

Their mother, Lauren Befus built Memory Lane Jane, a business that helps families preserve their life stories. Michael became a pastor at Vineyard North Church after paying his way through college painting houses. Along the way, they encouraged their children to try ideas, learn from mistakes, and discover what they were capable of.

Lemonade stands, neighborhood projects, and other small ventures gave the children room to experiment while the stakes were low.

“I hope that my kids would discover the joy of bringing their own ideas to life and the confidence that comes with facing failure and solving problems on their own,” Michael says. “I hoped that they would come to see work not as an obligation but as an opportunity to follow their passion and add something meaningful to the world.”

Meeting a need

In a region known for its family-owned businesses and entrepreneurial spirit, the Befus home became its own kind of entrepreneurial incubator.

All four siblings, ages 14 to 21, now own businesses serving West Michigan.

Jackson and Evelyn operate Go Green College Painters. Henry Befus, 14, owns Go Green Bin Cleaning, a residential trash-bin cleaning service. Ella Befus, 17, is launching Go Green Home Organizers, helping homeowners organize their homes while also offering house-sitting, plant care and pet care.

Each business is different. Each one grew from the same lesson: Look for a problem that needs solving.

That lesson started years before anyone formed a company.

When Jackson was 12, Michael helped him fill a wagon with canned drinks to sell at neighborhood events. They tracked inventory and pricing with a simple spreadsheet.

The first summer didn’t go as planned. Sales were slow. Most of the drinks stayed in the garage all winter, and Jackson didn’t make enough money to pay his dad back.

Then, he noticed dozens of students waiting outside a neighborhood driving school every day. He recruited a couple of younger neighbors, wheeled the drink wagon to the school, and found a steady stream of customers.

“Our inventory started flying off the shelves,” Jackson says.

Long hours, valuable lessons

The same approach carried into the painting business.

Jackson, a communications major at Michigan State University, handles customer communication, estimates, scheduling and contracts. Evelyn, an industrial design student at Wayne State University, spends much of her time painting homes while also creating custom murals and decorative finishes.

Running the business has taught them that painting is only part of the job.

“We’ve dived into setting up an LLC, getting insurance, tax forms,” Jackson says. “Building a website, doing the SEO optimization for it, and then now we have to do customer relationship management, along with working nine to five every day. We come home and I sit in this office for a couple hours every night, and I’m doing estimates. I’m emailing back clients. It’s a lot of work.”

The long hours don’t bother him.

“We both love painting,” Jackson says. “We kind of get in like a zone, like a flow state.”

Owning a business has also taught Evelyn lessons she didn’t expect.

“I think it’s taught me a lot about being my own boss,” she says. “If a client is unhappy, there’s not someone like a manager who can go deal with that. We’ve had to figure out a solution.”

Learning to accept feedback has been one of the biggest adjustments.

“If someone isn’t, like, ecstatic with my work, I feel like I failed,” she says. “That’s also been something that’s been a bit of a learning curve for me.”

Learned from parents

Watching Jackson and Evelyn build their company inspired Henry to start one of his own.

He launched Go Green Bin Cleaning and discovered that cleaning trash bins wasn’t the hardest part.

Finding customers was.

Henry designed flyers, walked neighborhoods, promoted the business on social media, and earned his first paying customers.

“I’ve learned how to work really fast, do gross jobs, and convince people I don’t know to give me an opportunity,” he says.

Ella decided to join her siblings, but she had her own reasons. She wanted to visit a friend in the Dominican Republic and realized her part-time job wouldn’t pay for the trip.

“Money!” she says. “I’d been dreaming of visiting my friend in the Dominican Republic, and I knew that my minimum wage job wasn’t going to get me there. Neighbors have occasionally hired me to housesit, so I decided to see if I could turn it into a business.”

The siblings all use the Go Green name, a nod to Michigan State University, where Jackson goes to school and where Ella hopes to attend after high school. Henry has been a University of Michigan fan his whole life, but he agreed to use the family brand while still cheering for the Wolverines.

Evelyn and Jackson say they have drawn from their parents’ experiences.

Jackson says he was inspired by watching his mother start Memory Lane Jane.

“I think it probably comes from our mom,” he says. “We’ve seen her start her own business.”

Lauren believes her children learned more than how to run a company.

“My kids have watched me turn a passion for telling stories into a thriving biography business, along with all the pressures, pains, and hard-fought progress it has taken to get here,” she says. “They’ve learned that with enough persistence you can overcome any obstacle and turn your ideas into the adventure of a lifetime.”

Growing up in a pastor’s family also prepared the siblings to communicate with people of all ages.

“We’ve just gained so much from our parents and who they are,” Jackson says. “Growing up in the church and being a pastor’s kid, we’re forced to kind of have adult conversations from a really young age.”

Evelyn says those conversations helped all four siblings build relationships with customers.

“I think both of our parents are really good communicators with each other, with us, and with other people, so that has taught all of us how to communicate well,” she says.

Jackson doesn’t know whether painting houses will become his career. But he believes the experience has already given him something much bigger.

“It’s a really good experiment of finding out who you are,” he says. “Doing something that isn’t incredibly high risk, and at a time where you don’t have a lot of risk in your life, I’d highly recommend it to everyone just to figure out yourself and your future.”

Photos courtesy of Michael Befus.