At Your Fingertips - Grand Opening

Hi Business Owners!

What an exciting time, it is your grand opening week.

Last week you guys had a great pre grand opening sample day. You learned to work your machines and got the system down of who is responsible for what at the two tables. You also had the opportunity to collect market research and hear feedback right away about your product. Great team work you guys, you are all amazing and I'm so proud of you.

This week you will be working your table from 11:55 - 12:25. We talked about how working and setting up during lunch would help you be able to take advantage of the highest traffic times at HsOBX. You will also be working during part of your class hour from 1:30-2.

Ms. Lydia will be your substitute teacher for the next two weeks. Thank you Ms. Lydia!

Most of your supplies are in the closet in the back, your popcorn machines and cooler are all labeled, if you need help locating these things - just ask Ms. Lydia. You will also need to make sure you have some sort of collection box for your money.

If you are running low on any supplies this week please make sure you restock, and to keep track of your expenses as you still have to pay your investors back and pay yourselves. Ms. Lydia has offered to pick up more non dairy butter if you need it.

Just remember to keep in mind the portion sizes we talked about last week, and use your time wisely.

After clean up you will start brainstorming a commercial, just like you did for your fictitious companies earlier this semester. You will not be filming this week (you will be filming the week after 12/8)

Again you want to make sure your commercial includes:

Name of Company

Where to find your product

Why you are an expert

Price

This will probably be harder than the first commercials you have filmed because you will have to work as a bigger group. You will get to film two different commercials the following week.

As discussed during class last week you will be able to sell commercial time slots in Jungle Book, Chess, and maybe the Presidents Class at .25 per minute. During your minute you make a quick talk about "At Your Fingertips" mentioning location, time, and a few words on how wonderful your products are (maybe you can show off your own nails!) These are all classes you are currently enrolled in so you know your target market by name.

As a business you have also purchased advertisement space on the HSOBX blog and yahoo group. Those advertisements will go live Monday morning.

Congratulations At Your Fingertips, you are doing wonderful work!

At Your Fingertips - LUNCH TIME MEETING

Hello Young Entrepreneurs,

Don't forget we are meeting during the last 35 minutes of lunch to set up and get in extra time working on your project. Please meet downstairs in the social hall at 11:35, 11/24.

We have a lot to catch up on since missing our class last week, please make sure you are prepared and have all the supplies your project manager Abigail assigned to you.

Can't wait to see you all soon,

Deva

Young Entrepreneurs

Don't let your age limit you, you are all amazing young people. I fully expect to see your name on one of these lists!

Here is link to BusinessWeek's special report on young entrepreneurs. There are a lot of articles, but during the week if you can find some time to explore it I think you will find some inspiration.

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/special_reports/20091009americas_young_entrepreneurs.htm


Full class write and blog post to follow later this week!

Advertising and Marketing, Lights, Camera, Action!

Week 3 and 4

Last week we finished up the Teen Clubs and listened to individual presentations. We got to see some pretty amazing rooms, you all had some very interesting and innovate features in your rooms. There was some major debating on age limits of customers, but you had a great brainstorming session and settled it with a pro and con list - excellent work.




Today we focused on advertising and marketing. We split into groups and made commericals for fictitious products. The challenge of the assignment was making sure you covered these questions:
- Why do you care about this product?
- Why does the market need your product? Why should we, your potential customers, buy your product?
- How did you become an expert on your product?

You were also asked to think about the "Marketing Mix - The 4 P's"

1. Product: The product or service you are selling. This includes not only the actual object but also the package, brand, and company image.

2. Price: Price is determined by demand for the goods and the cost of the goods.

3. Place: Where can we find this product

4. Promotion: Different elements that help increase the sale of the product, such as advertising and sales.

Rebecca and Abby : Text - Lens
The first web based business!



Richard and Evan - Spray Paint Mud
'Spray it but never do it!'


Emily and Rhiannon: Fruittose
'You'll get more value than you paid for'



Key Terms of the Week:
Advertising - The promotion of a product or service.
Marketing - The means by which a product or service is made know and sold to customers.
Marketing Mix - The 4 P's, listed above
Target Market - The customers who are most likely to buy the product, also called target audience.

Additional Work: None.

The Teen Scene - Lesson 2

Hello Entrepreneurs!

This week we got a start on planning and designing our own Teen Clubs. There were lots of great ideas being thrown around for making an amazing Teen Club during the brainstorming session, but we had to make sure that we were keeping in mind our 'BIG 4'. The design of the room took a bit longer than planned, but that is okay since we collectively decided to spend a bit more time on it and we will continue working on it next week.


Why this project? This project is a hands on way to understand our 'BIG 4'. The 'BIG 4' are the 4 things we must do and understand be be a successful entrepreneur.

The BIG 4

The 'Big 4', as an entrepreneur you must:

1. Fill A Need: know what is needed in your area and know your potential competitors
2. Research: Know your customer and your product (or service). Have expert knowledge of both the customer and the product.
3. Be Creative and Innovative: think outside the box, look for new and different solutions to needs that have been identified
4. Believe in Yourself and Love what you do: Know your likes and passions, skills/abilities, and work to improve them.


Class Chat:

We reviewed our 'BIG 4', this will be talked about so much in this class you will be chanting the list in your dreams. Last week we went over the the 'BIG 4' but this week we went even deeper with understanding why this works and how to apply it to a business, in this case the Teen Club.

Acquiring skills was another point of discussion during this class. How do we get more skill and why is this important? Some of our skills are self taught . We might need to seek out an apprenticeship with an expert, and part of being a great entrepreneur is knowing when you need to improve.

We put brainstorming into action to generate our Teen Club business ideas, it was a great way to make sure all ideas were considered before designing the final Teen Club. You guys were so great and respectful to your class members, I'm so impressed with you all. No idea was looked down upon and you really made sure that if something didn't fit the 'Big 4' the other class member understood why.

The rest of the class was spent on designing the Teen Club, some amazing questions were discussed, such as:

Will we put an age limit on the club? How will that impact the Teen Club?
What setting is our teen club in? Rural, city, urban?
How will we fund our club?
How will we split the income between the owners?
Is the scale correct?
What will we have to cut out due to space limitations?
How can we make sure we are reaching the widest range of teens?

Key Terms of the Week: The words and terms we discussed as a group

Market : A collection of current and/or prospective customers
Apprentice : A person who studies with experts to learn more in a specific field
Market Research: Gathering and evaluating data regarding customers' preferences for products and services
Brainstorming: A method to generate ideas

Additional Work: None!

I Am an Entrepreneur - Lesson 1

Steve Jobs, young entrepreneur started his own company at age 21. Today he is CEO of Apple, Inc.

Class Review, Day 1

What is an entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is a person who starts his or her own business in hope of earning a profit. Profit is income earned after all your expenses are paid.



The 'Big 4', as an entrepreneur you must:

1. Fill A Need: know what is needed in your area and know your potential competitors
2. Research: Know your customer and your product (or service). Have expert knowledge of both the customer and the product.
3. Be Creative and Innovative: think outside the box, look for new and different solutions to needs that have been identified
4. Believe in Yourself and Love what you do: Know your likes and passions, skills/abilities, and work to improve them.

Vocabulary Review

Business: A company or organization that buys or sells products or product services


Customer: A person who purchases a product or service

Entrepreneur: A person who starts his or her own business in hope of earning a profit

Innovative: To create something new, original, or groundbreaking

Product: An item created for sale, like cookies or computers.

Service: Providing something useful, like babysitting or animal care.

Profit: Income earned after all expenses are paid


Class Chat: Today we played a quiz game and learned about famous entrepreneurs and how they got their start. We talked about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey, and Madame CJ Walker, some entrepreneurs were very young when they started their businesses. All of these entrepreneurs decided to pursue their passions and make money doing what they loved the most.

Homework, please have the answers to these questions ready for our next class:
How am I like the entrepreneurs I learned about?

What are my specials skills and areas of expertise? Example "I make amazing cookies" "I am very good at walking my dog"

Pick one entrepreneur you learned about this week and list 5 facts about him/her

Start brainstorming and listing what type of business you will be opening, be sure to list examples of both goods and services