Creating Our Own Businesses

During the Fall Term, the goal was to create and develop a business idea that we wanted to start someday.  It took me awhile to come up with the business idea that I wanted, but eventually I found it.  This term has taught me that starting a business isn't just about the fun stuff, coming up with the name and logo of the company, but it takes a lot of research to effectively plan out the business.  I learned a lot about what the main goals of a business should be.  

The main goals of a business:

1. Everything should be based on satisfying the customers needs

2. Make sure I have profitable sales (profitable sales > maximum sales)

3. Have a competitive advantage against others in the same area of business (this is what you market off of, market my advantage)

4. Have a specific target market (specific people, wealth, location, etc)

5. Marketing mix (appeals to the different types of targets)

Lazer Rager

While planning our event, we were sure it would be a huge hit. The main part of our event, laser tag, was, everyone who played thoroughly enjoyed it and we had a lot of people sign up. However, the dance didn't go quite as planned. Looking back on it, I see why and if my group decides to do another dance we will be prepared this time around. As people left the dance, I asked them why they were leaving and what most of them said was the gym was too big or because other people were leaving. I realized that I would have to do something in order to get people to stay at the dance. I went into the dance and took the red velvet ropes we had around the margarita stand and started making a makeshift dance floor by roping people in. At first it was working well and no one else was leaving but then we ran into another problem. People were complaining that there was no rap music and so some more people started to leave. I was watching the dance slowly unravel so I repositioned the ropes to make the dance floor even smaller but it was too late, there weren't many people left and they left because they said it was awkward having such a small amount of people there. In a last ditch effort, Mick, Juan and I walked to the student center and tried to bring people back to the dance but the student center was surprisingly pretty empty. I asked someone where everyone was and they told me everyone was in their dorms so I was a little upset. The people in the student center we told to go back did not want to because they knew no one was there. At this point, we walked back to the dance and my group decided to end the dance early. The laser tag was still going on but everyone there had already played once so we decided to end that as well. Kaston continued DJing while we cleaned up which made it bearable. In the end, I believe our event was, in fact, a big hit because our main event was the laser tag, but it did bum me out that people left the dance. I was also a little angry because it was Kaston's first time DJing for a dance and people just walked out on him.

Fishbowl Labs----Field Trip on Oct. 21st

    The entire class went to Washington D.C. on October 21st and visited several businesses including Custom Ink., José Andrés Think Food Group, and AOL Fishbowl Labs. The trip was awesome and we met many enthusiastic entrepreneurs.
    AOL Fishbowl Labs is a vibrant community for startup businesses. Vincent Wong's business MHelp Desk, an App-based field service management, is one of the companies in Fishbowl Labs. It was fun to listen to his entrepreneurial experiences in the pass; he sold chameleons for several years and used the money to buy his first car, a Lamborghini.
    MHelp Desk is an app on people's phones and helps them with different kinds of managements, scheduling, and billing. Vincent and his event coordinator, Jacob Garlick, sell their product through phone. Everyday, they call hundreds of customers who may be interested in MHelp Desk, and say that they really enjoy what they do--dealing with people--and never consider this as working. From the conversations with Jacob, I found that he was really open-minded and had a lot of ideas. Later, Josh Okot, a student in our entrepreneurship class, even got a customer for them through phone.

Donation to Santa's Toy Box

On October 24th, Mercersburg Entrepreneurship class students donated over $300 dollars to Santa's Toy Box (STB), a Rotary charity event that provides toys for needy children.  Having raised funds through an event at Townfest, the students were able to help provide toys for at least 5 families.  This program is part of Mercersburg Academy's winter outreach.  All 9th grade students go to help STB by wrapping gifts that are then delivered to the children by Rotarians.  This personal relationship with the school and the town is meaningful and significant to many individuals.  Giving to this program has made the school and town proud of this group's altruism.  Way to go class!

Custom Ink.

On Monday October 21st our Entrepreneurship class has it’s first field-trip. We went to the DC area to visit three companies. We had insights into the companies facilities and conversations with the owner and employees. These three businesses were Custom Ink., ThinkFoodGroup and M Help Desk. It was a very inspiring opportunity with a lot of learning opportunities. One of the businesses that stood out to me personally was Custom Ink.
    Custom Ink is an online store that allows you to create your own design and print it on a t-shirt, sweatshirt etc. It is based in Virginia and that is where we visited it. Walking into the lobby, we received a warm welcome by Marc Katz and Fred Schaufeld. We then started with a quick tour around Custom Ink. The office was very friendly. Customer’s and Inker’s pictures were framed on the walls. Right away we understood that this company put attention on its key values such as costumer service, quality and fun. These were even printed onto the wall. While walking through the office space, we experienced a nice working atmosphere for the inkers. We arrived at the conference room to get a speech by Mark Katz. He started it of by showing us a video from the previous year, about the development of the business and new projects. After watching the video, he gave us background information of Custom Ink and what helped them to succeed. He informed us about the most difficult time for them, which was from 2008-2009. He considers it to be harder then the start up of the business, because there was much more to loose and the motivation was gone. This was also caused by troubles with Google, because in order for an online site to be successful they need a high ranking by Google. Custom Ink went against the Google rules in the process of getting them on top of the search, which got them banned. This was when Fred contributed to the business, because he saw it’s potential and invested into it. By this investment the company reinvented itself and found a new motivation. They now came out with Inky as their logo and focused on the customer. Fred also helped solving their problem with Google. Now the company is on a good way to grow bigger and bigger. He introduced us to his two new projects, which are also Internet based businesses called Booster and Peach. Him and Fred emphasized to us that it’s important that, if you want to start your own business, you have to love working there. It should not be work but fun. After all questions got asked, he gave us free T-shirts and we all ended up loving it.

The Best School-Wide Event

The first thing that my group knew that we wanted to include in our school-wide event was the opening of the Romeo's food truck. As something that has never been available to Mercersburg Academy before, we knew that it would be able to attract a lot of students. We talked to the Romeo's owner and he was completely on board to support our event and so our next step was figuring out the rest of the details. Our group met with Trini and began to discuss different ideas as to what people would be doing while eating Romeo's food, where they would be, and when it happened. It took a little while to finally decide on an idea, but we all agreed that having our very own Mercersburg teachers perform would be a great way to continue our originality streak, and finally, to top it off, we would have the entire event on the back patio of Irvine, a place that is not commonly used to host events. Our group distributed the tasks that needed to be done (such as talking to Mrs. Rutherford, Mr. Holzwarth, and Ms. LaRue) fairly evenly and everyone took responsibility to make sure that our event runs smoothly. All we have left to do is make announcements at lunch and make sure that everything is finalized. So if you're on campus this Friday night, October 4th, be sure to come to our event from 6-8pm to enjoy the fine cuisine from Romeo's pizzeria and the smooth vocals of two of your favorite teachers, Dave Holzwarth and Katie LaRue.

Deal or No Deal / Let's Make a Deal - Our All School Event

For our event, we're having an all school game show. We have worked with both Dr.Jones and Mrs.Jones and have gotten a spot during a community gathering on a friday morning later in the month, directly before long weekend. In this game show, we will be playing "Deal or No Deal" and "Let's Make a Deal" with the school students involved as contestants and as an audience. With financial support from SAC and Ms.Hoffman we will be able to provide "contestants" with actual cash prizes to help enhance the game's atmosphere but more importantly make the event more suspenseful and enjoyable.
Our goals will be measured in overall atmosphere and how the audience enjoys it. Since this event is a required event, we can not simply measure in attendance because the whole school WILL be there.
We hope people enjoy the event, and maybe some of you can earn some money as well!

Learning Outside the Classroom

With the arrival of the pool tables, as well as the already present ping pong tables, the Simon Student Center has become a place for students to learn things that cannot be taught in the text books or the classroom. The students of Mercersburg are taking full advantage of the competitive environment these recreational tables create. Along with learning how to vie against each other, the students also stay active while bettering their eye-hand coordination through two very skillful activities. These activities create a bond between students that can only be created through active competitiveness in fun filled sports. For some, these two activities are the highlight of their day and they look forward to taking advantage of them at the the end of the day. Moral is everything in a stressful environment and the ping pong and pool tables definitely help out!

Speakers

We had a speaker come in to talk with us, Mr. Schoenberger. He is an entrepreneur, he has worked in several industries in the entrepreneurship field such as the Beer Industry, and Outdoor Sports. It's a huge help being able to have someone with that type of expertise speak with us. I hope we do this more often. I had the pleasure of speaking to another students parents who also happen to be entrepreneurs, the Kistler's parents own an Outdoor Sports shop in West Virginia and gave me prime insight on the entrepreneurship world. "Location, location, location" Mrs. Kistler stressed to me, she explained that no matter how good the product is you won't sell if it's not in the right place. The most cherished  part of having these people speak to me is having them tell me all of there failures so that I can learn from that without having to endure any of my own.

Our School Wide Event

One of the first tasks we were assigned in class was to create a school wide event with our group. My group included Charlotte, Amara, John, Phillip and I. We decided on the first day to use the Powder Puff idea and develop it into a Girls tournament and a Boys tournament flag football event on October 6th. This event will be fun for students and faculty because it allows them to spend a Sunday afternoon being active. Even though not every student will participate in a team, many others will come to watch this event. We wanted to use this date because it was early in the fall term, and the weather would still be nice enough to hold an event outside. Additionally, we wanted to choose a date separate from the ones other groups chose in order avoid competition. There will be teams of 6 with the possibility of substitutes, and they will play for 15 minutes with a running clock. In order to make the event move faster, we decided to split the football field in half and have two teams play on each side. One of the more difficult parts of planning this event, is being aware of the small details that must go into the event. For example, we knew that we had to get flags for the teams but were initially unsure where or how to get them. After talking to Mr. Hendrickson to get the event and use of the field approved, he suggested that we talk to Mr. Collins to get certain items we needed such as flags, the PA system and water jugs. After planning the initial details and rules of the event we needed to announce and promote the tournament as much as possible. In order to do this we plan on using lunch announcements, the firstclass email, talking to people around campus and in the dorms, and by putting up posters in popular areas like the Simon Student Center, Ford Hall and dorms. I believe that as soon as teams are organized, our group will have a successful turnout and it will be an enjoyable event for the students and faculty of Mercersburg. 

How to approach a somewhat, kinda, almost famous guy

I've had an idea for a while to try and bring someone who i personally think would excite the student body for once during a lecture. Instead of some older fellow that no one knows talking about god knows what. Why not bring someone in who students can relate to because he is not turning 60. Arya Toufanian is nearing 21 and has created a job that could potentially become his career. He was 16 when he wrote his fist book, Sex, Drugs, and High school. It was published while he was 16 because the publisher thought it would be a great idea to get a signing on someone so young. Before it was fully published his parents bought the book off of him and had it permanently destroyed. They were not fit to the idea of their name being on a book with such a name. With all the connections Arya had from his book deal he decided to move into the next level of his novel and start a company that focuses on what he believes is the key market for colleges, partying. His company, I'm Shmacked started small filming nightlife at colleges, and now he travels the country on a tour bus getting offers from fraternity's to just show up at their frat houses. I met Arya this summer in D.C where he used to attend school, G.W. with the success of his business he thought it best fit to drop out and see where this movement takes him. I didn't get too personal but he told me money was not a problem. He told me this was the first time he has been in D.C all year. He owns a house in Beverly Hills along with condos in other states. However, Arya is a cool dude, but contacting him, and trying to remind him who I was, was quite difficult. He gave me his number over the summer which was a drop phone because of all the people he meets. I texted him and told him how interested I was in having him come and do something he's never done before, lecture to younger students. Of all the things we talked about that night, luckily that was the one thing i remembered. He responded a couple hours later and remembered me somehow. He told me he was interested in coming to our school because thats an audience he's always wanted, high school students. Once I talk to administration i think theres a good chance this could pull through.

Welcome to the all new Springboard class "Entrepreneurship" at Mercersburg Academy.  This blog is designed to share with you all the fun things we do and achieve this year.  Our focus will be on teaching the aspects of owning and running a business through the creation of business plans and related projects.  The plans we envision will be actionable and fundable by the end of the year and a panel of experts will review them to see how successful they believe these businesses can be.  We will also have events that the class will have to organize, manage, and run.  This will help them better understand all the organization and work that goes into serving others with a product.  In many ways this is like Shark Tank, and The Apprentice rolled into one in a supportive environment.  Since our focus will be student based, Mr. Jacklin and I are excited to see what the students will create!  Students and the teachers will update this blog weekly and as events occur.  Summer reading done!  Now lets create.