For the last couple of months, our Transitions crew has been working on starting up their own businesses – learning all about the steps to entrepreneurship and how it might be an option for them in the future. The project aimed to empower students to explore entrepreneurship by guiding them through the process of conceptualizing, planning, and launching their own small businesses. Throughout the project, students learned essential entrepreneurial skills such as market research, product development, financial management, marketing, and sales. They engaged in hands-on activities, group discussions, and real-world simulations to gain practical experience and understanding of the entrepreneurial journey. The project culminated in students presenting their business ideas and plans to their peers, fostering creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. By immersing students in the entrepreneurial process, the project inspired innovation, creativity, and an entrepreneurial mindset among participants. Explore their projects below:
Chef Johnny’s Catering Business!
Johnny loves to cook, and we love to taste his creations! So he decided to put those skills to work as the chef for his own catering business. He figured out a way to keep his overhead low at first by using his own kitchen and equipment, but acknowledged this would be a significant expense in the future that he’d have to consider in pricing his services. Johnny’s self-identified strengths included the fact that he would offer a wide variety of menu items, with the opportunity to attract gluten-free customers since there aren’t too many caterers offering those options in this area yet.
Julia’s Daycare
Taking care of little ones comes natural to Julia – always has. Her dreams of having her own daycare were expressed for the attendees through a daycare diorama. Julia was able to make an impressive assessment of her startup costs to figure out how much she’d have to charge for each kiddo in order to make enough money to pay herself and the assistants she would eventually need to hire. She felt the strengths of her proposal were that she has experience with child care, including regularly volunteering with a child care provider in her local area. Opportunities surrounded the fact that there would be a strong customer base, since so many people are moving into the Raleigh area that the demand for childcare is significantly increasing.
Adam’s CarWash
Washing cars can not only be profitable, but it can be FUN, too! Adam’s car wash was very craftfully expressed in a Lego structure which featured every stop in the automatic car wash cycle! With three packages: Simple Scrub, Pro Polishing, and Deluxe, he had a super plan for his business. His business will see opportunities during this season of the year, when the demand for car wash services increases due to high pollen in the air.
Big Branding Biz by Austin Weitkamp
Austin’s Big Branding Biz is a digital marketing service that provides low-cost logo design/prototypes, and social media marketing for businesses looking to digitize themselves in an increasingly digitized marketing environment. His strengths are both creative/conceptual and technical; not only did Austin develop his own BBB logo, he also created logos for both Chef Johnny’s catering business and Adam’s car wash as examples of his talents. The opportunities for Austin’s business truly seem unlimited in this era of increased digitalization!
Way to go, Transitions Crew!!! Your hard work was very well-presented and your audience was both intrigued and very impressed with all that you accomplished during this project! Starting a business is no easy task, yet you guys have made it feel doable for anyone with a dream! Keep up the hard work, and GO FOR IT!!! The sky’s the limit!