In the midst of the Taki and Hollister craze in middle
school, I witnessed people selling and trading silly bands as if they were contraband.
Administration banned silly bands from my school because it was “distracting” and
I saw a need- bracelets. I went to Joann’s, purchased a bracelet making set (with
templates and an array of strings) and posted on Facebook about how people
could customize their own bracelets through the design or colors they chose. The
requests came in. I asked my cousin to help me because we were in the same
grade, each bracelet took around 2-4 hours to make and she had a different group
of friends (which would have expanded my reach). The bracelets were sold at $8-10
depending on how many colors they wanted and the difficulty/intricacy. Within 2
weeks, I made $200 which I split with my cousin, and for the next 4 weeks from
there, we made $50 per week. Though I did not create a new product, I saw a
need and filled that need; in all, we made $400 in 6 weeks ($200 per person) which
was an unfathomable amount of money to a 13 year old.
I enrolled in ENT3003 because the idea of entrepreneurship
has always excited me. My parents were entrepreneurs in Vietnam and seeing them
work from nothing to building a successful textile business, inspires me. I
hope to learn how I can turn my ideas/needs to viable business options, the
biggest problems entrepreneurs face and what I can do to maximize a business
plan.
I think your story about selling bracelets at school really details what it means to be an entrepreneur and its interesting how you knew this at a very young age. Finding a problem and fixing it is the basis for being an entrepreneur, which it seems you already know. Looking at your post, it is well done and capture everything needed from the assignment.
ReplyDeleteBichgiang,
ReplyDeleteYour story about selling bracelets in middle school is awesome. I wish that I would have thought to sell my own bracelets when I was in school, because there was a similar situation with the banning of silly bands. It seems that you have been around entrepreneurship through not only your parents influence, but your very own bracelet selling business. It is really cool that you are so invested in entrepreneurship.