My Entrepreneurship Story
Extending all the way back to 6th grade is when I can recall my very first entrepreneurship experience and I did not even realize it at the time. During that year of middle school, chewing gum had yet to be banned from school grounds and was a huge popularity trend. Gum balls, Orbit, bubble gum anything you can imagine was in people's pockets at the time. Expect when you ran out, and that was the only gum your parents bought you for the week. I started to notice an influx of my friends and other students asking me for gum through-out the duration of the day. Having a mom who worked in the hotel business, she was given bulk supplies of gum by her company to prevent bad breathe when speaking to other mangers and clients in person, therefore there was always packs of gum to be found laying around my house. Most of the time the gum would go untouched and continue to build in the kitchen drawer until I was out of gum myself. I came to a revelation the day when someone offered me cold hard cash for the gum in my pocket since they would not receive more till the following week. It came to me that this was an opportunity to capitalize on. Starting the next day, I arrived on campus with a separate bag full of individual packs of gum. Charging $2.50 per pack and $0.25 by the piece. Word spread like wildfire. On my best days I was accumulating up to $20.00 of pure profit. I was also excepting trades of equal value for packs of gum including lunches, chips, candy bars, and even video games. Life was sweet until sadly, my clever retail gum shop had to came to a close when I was called into the principals office. I was lectured that even though the idea was very creative and smart, I could not operate any such business on campus under the code of conduct. My mom was notified shortly after and the unlimited gum supply in our kitchen soon vanished afterword's.
In this class, I am looking to obtain a skill set that will help me apply the same logic I had when I was in middle school to opportunities or "bugs" throughout my professional career. I also would like to learn the necessary steps to start my own business one day if I do happen to come up with the next Google or Starbucks worthy idea.
You were a very clever kid. I enjoyed the story and think you will be a natural at starting your own business. you already did. Being open to trading goods, as well as, being prepared to sell both in bulk and individual sizes. i am curious to know how many pieces were in a whole pack. Were your bulk sales discounted? It is also impressive that you found a source as such a low rate: free!
ReplyDeleteHi Chris! It's really impressive that you had entrepreneurial instincts at such a young age! I had a friend in high school who similarly started selling candy after the school got rid of all the sweets in the vending machines. He made pretty good money & had a lot of fun, and I'm sure you did too! It's a great example of noticing an opportunity from a change in the rules, whether in something small as a gum ban in grade school or something as big as a major change in regulation, and using it to your advantage to create a business.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your entrepreneurship story! I am very impressed that you could naturally feel and find the business opportunity around your environment at an early age. Since I am exchange student, I hope it must have been way more interesting if I had known the bubble gum trend back then. Keep up with your good works and I look forward to your business ideas as the class go on!
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