Almost...

The time we have had in this class has been a rollercoaster of emotions. Peter and I were stuck at one point, and we thought we would be failures, but you know what, we proved ourselves wrong. In a sense, we failed to create a very successful business. We were given a budget for our idea of $250 from the school in hopes that we would make all of the money back. We spent $227.10 in grand total on the domain for our website, the website provider, and our first order of shirts. We made back only $140 of the nearly $170 that we spent on ordering the actual t-shirts, which was slightly a let down because we had the capability to earn $360 in total from our first order. It was not that there was a lack of interest, we just had problems distributing the t-shirts to our customers, and that is what really hurt us. The fact that we created a business with an actual interesting product though is quite exciting. From starting our own business, we have learned what it really takes to be successful in this clothing industry, and that can success in this field can be summed down to basically time, money, and a good idea that will sell. We failed to meet some of those things, which ultimately lead to us being not as successful as we planned to be. My advice to future entrepreneurs is to never give up on your idea. We gave up on our original idea, which was to create a clothing company, but we decided to put in the time and effort, and we made one. Successful entrepreneurs are ones who know their idea is good and will never give up on it until they are successful in doing so. Through this class, I as well as Peter have learned that concept of determination in the field of business, and we will use what we have learned in whatever we decide to do with our future careers. We are very grateful that this school has given us the opportunity to open our eyes to what it is really like being an entrepreneur. It has been a great run.

-Duncan and Peter of The Northern Virginia Clothing Company

www.novaclothingcompany.com

Closing Time

This is the last week in Small Business Start Up and we have learned a lot about how to begin our own businesses. Even though we had no customers throughout our venture, we learned that passion and motivation are two important traits to have. We only received our initial $60 grant from the school, but spent no money on operations and as stated earlier, had no customers. Our advice for future entrepreneurs is to make sure to create a business that all of your group members are genuinely invested in and want to see succeed. One of the pitfalls we would recommend new start ups avoiding is having bad chemistry within their team and a lack of cooperation. This was a great experience that taught us a lot about how difficult it is to begin your own business and gave me a lot to consider in my future professional endeavors.

The End of Candy Express

As this semester comes to an end, so does our business. We asked for $100 to start up. With that we used less than half to cover the cost of production, meaning buying the candy and packaging. However, we only received four orders. Our policy is that no one receives delivery until either my partner or I have received payment and we ask that they find us from 7-8 Am the day they would like it delivered. No one paid us even after we did deliver within the same week. Since then, we've received no orders and no money.

The most important thing we've learned through attempting to start a business is in order to have customers you have to create excitement and interest for the product or service. While our idea was a good one, we lacked in customer interest. Also, we needed to find a better way for people to pay us and follow through before we deliver.
Well, we tried. Say goodbye to Candy Express.

Approaching the end

As we near the end of the semester, we realize that we have learned quite a few lessons on the process of pitching managing, and operating a business. As far as managing a business, the skills of time management and communication are universally important. For example, properly managing our time to be able to sell as a team was at first difficult, but as we progressed, we made sure that everyone’s schedule was planned accordingly. Pitching, however, was the most enjoyable and difficult part of our process. Coming up with a proper pitch, along with balancing our budget was a very fun and challenging process. Pitching itself (to faculty administration etc.) was a very nerve racking experience, however simulated (very well) a real life situation.We were able to sell all three shipments of stress balls. Because we sold some at bulk prices, our total profit totaled $7... We did it!   

Us (the yellow one) ----->  

Hungry Huskies comes to an end

In the beginning, Hungry Huskies was launched with $150 we received from our funders, the Flint Hill administration. We bought all inventory for $128 at Costco. Over the three times we sold, we earned about $150 dollars. We learned that when you are running a business within the restrictions of a bigger organization it is hard to operate as you please. As a business we had to make a lot of sacrifices to conform to the rules and restrictions of our school. We had to operate around the schedule of Flint Hill, which drastically limited our operations. It also made our business inconsistent because of surprise town and class meetings. From this, our team learned that in order to be truly successful in the business world you must be independent. If a business is independent they are not limited by another organization's rules and schedule. Another problem we ran into was when trying to launch a service where students could order snacks ahead of time to be delivered to them. We were faced with space restrictions and the logistics of money being left in boxes unattended. Because of this, that part of the business was never able to launch. The best advice we have for future entrepreneurs is to be flexible and not to limit themselves to running in one defined area. The best businesses are those that solve a problem. Our advice is to find a problem that is faced by many because a limited market could limits your business's success. We also would advise future entrepreneurs to be passionate about the message and purpose of their business. If you are passionate about your business you are more likely to work hard for its success. In conclusion, Hungry Huskies is happy with our ending and hopes that future entrepreneurs are able to learn from our failures and success to thrive in the field of business! 

Hungry Huskies hopes that all the future entrepreneurs CHANGE THE WORLD!!!!