EXPOSED: Flint Hill student Tim Rupli...

Joins a small business class at school. He is a multi-sport athlete who plays lacrosse and golf at his high school. As noted by my "about me" section, I dabble in the outdoors, and do have a recurring tendency to wear Hawaiian shirts upwards of three times a week. Tim's favorite brands are Patagonia and Yeti. #sent

5 Tips for Starting a Business

Coming to the end of the process, we at EZ-Box realize much more than we did at the beginning of the process. To help out future entrepreneurs, here are 5 tips to starting your own business.

1) Create a business that will improve people's lives
Your business with have to be something that grabs people's attention. So make sure that people will actually want to buy your product or service, not a fad that's designed to break down or only appeal to a very small crowd.

2) Pick a catchy name
People need to remember your name. If people can't remember your name, then the business won't spread or will be completely forgotten, doomed to be confined to your garage or the corner of a decrepit strip mall. Pick a name that resonates with what your business is supplying so avoid names that might sound catchy and fun, but don't actually have anything to do with your business. Klunch might sound nice, but if your business is making pillows, the name doesn't fit.

3) Know your competition
It doesn't have to be a business that sells the same product as you. As long as there is a substitute for your product or service, there is competition. Once you know your competition, it's up to you to figure out ways to make your business better than the alternative. If people would rather choose something else than your product, then figure out a way to make your product more appealing.

4) Get feedback
No business is flawless. You make think that you have all your bases covered but chances are you don't and there are many flaws with your plan. It's hard to see these flaws from the perspective of the person who created the business, so pitch your idea to your friends, or better yet, a stranger and get their feedback.

5) Know your investors
Chances are that you don't have a couple hundred thousand or million dollars just lying around. Neither do I. So you're going to need to find someone who does. Find someone who could potentially be interested in your product, and once you do find out their likes and dislikes. Find out how you need to pitch to them. If your investor is all straight business then telling him a joke might not work, but giving him hard information about your business might. Vice versa, try lightening the mood if you think that your investor might like it. Do your research about them beforehand.

What do you plan to do?

Currently, our class has only been in class for about 3-4 weeks. During those weeks we have worked on how to create ideas for products that people would need and not want. We created a padlet of multiple business ideas and eventually "shaved" it down to about 16 ideas that we believed could really take off in the business world. We will soon be choosing teams on who we would like to work with. Ideally the people who we work with will have similar ideas to ours and they would be people that we believe could bring different perspectives to make an idea grow.

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