My Entrepreneurship Story

My first experience with entrepreneurship was in middle school. Back in the late 2000's and early 2010's, every kid who played a sport had some sort of athletic accessory they would always wear, myself included. Whether it was a Phiten necklace, Nike Elites, or PowerBalance Bands, the majority of little athletes at my middle school could be seen wearing at least one of these on any given day. Austin Miller, my best friend at the time, and I were like our other friends in sports, wearing all the accessories common at the time. However, we weren't happy about spending $20 on PowerBalance Bands anymore, so we bought some replicas in different colors for a dollar a piece on some knock off Chinese Ebay website. Miraculously, the bands showed up to my house a week later.

After opening the box on a Friday and selecting five knock-off PowerBalance Bands each, we had an epiphany. We could sell these for ten, heck, even fifteen times the price we got them from China. And so, at the ages of eleven, we became the two youngest entrepreneurs the town of Oviedo had ever seen. We borrowed $100 from our parents, promising a 10% return on investment (we didn't use the term ROI at the time, but the idea was the same). We then ordered 100 PowerBalance Bands off the reliable Chinese dark web. In the time they took to deliver, Austin and I planned out our marketing strategy. Since we attended different middle schools, we could cover two markets between us, optimizing our chance for profits.

When the new school week began on Monday, we set out spreading the word about our new business endeavor. We hit the market at the right time, because PowerBalance Bands were a hot commodity amongst our peers. Halfway through my rigorous day of middle school classes, I had 50 people preorder a band. I whipped out my Xenon cellphone and texted Austin. "Bro I sold out already," I typed. He responded fifty minutes later because he didn't want to get his phone taken away in art class, "Me too bro." That day I walked onto the bus feeling pretty damn good.

A long three days later, the bands finally came in. Austin and I picked through the box, seperating our merchandise by color and then cross-referencing it with our lists to make sure we had the right bands for the right people. That Thursday night I stuffed my backpack with my Geometry homework, PowerBalance Bands, and a white envelope to hold tomorrow's profits.

Looking back on it, I probably shouldn't have texted anyone the shipment had arrived. In the courtyard before homeroom people were swarming me when I arrived. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure what I did was illegal. Is advertising/selling stuff on school campuses technically loitering? Eh, who cares, it was 2009 and people weren't as sensitive. Times have changed. Anyways, I exchanged the bands with the people who had preordered for $15. When Austin's Mom brought him over to my house that night, we had a total of $1480 (we each gave one of our friends a "family" discount for $5, for public relations purposes). After paying back our Moms, we had a grand total of $1360, $680 for each of us.

We planned on restocking and making more money, but we were blindsided. Our SWOT analysis did not account for the father of one of the kids on our Pop Warner football team, whom we sold a band to, noticing the opportunity and capitalizing on it. He began ordering and selling his own PowerBalance Bands. With a long school day occupying Austin and I's days, we just didn't have the time to keep up with his business. Screw you, Mr. Cruz. Screw you.