CAYUGA, Ind. — High School students in an entrepreneurship class with consulting business owner, Dustin Britton finished up their final project on Friday with a ‘popup’ event selling a soda.
Britton says there were seven students, juniors and seniors from North Vermilion Junior-Senior High School, as well as three students from the WRCTE program through Ivy Tech. All seven students were able to obtain 16 college credit hours with the course.
“I gave the students the opportunity to launch any type of business they wanted. We give them resources, and they go from there,” Britton said. “ The original idea started as a mug shot, where, after students buy so many drinks, they would get a mug shot that they could post on social media, but then they kind of pivoted and decided they were going to do a one-day pop-up to kind of, you know, get a little bit more of a hype around it.”
Britton said the students sold over 150 drinks, “which is over 50% of the school population. So they did pretty well, actually,” he says.
A few of Britton’s students talked about how the course went, how they came up with their idea after a visit to FOGO De Chao in Indianapolis, and, of course, their favorite parts.
“My favorite part of the FOGO trip was obviously the food, but we pitched our themed week idea, which was a theme/event that would go on for a whole week, and how to increase traffic for the earlier weekdays,” Logan Lewis, a junior, said. “Those two things were one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Being able to pitch my ideas to people of that level was awesome.”
Lewis added he really enjoyed being able to run a small business with his friends. He said, “Our little pop-up drink stand (Mugshots) was the first business I’ve ever run, and I got the opportunity to do it with my friends. It taught me that entrepreneurship is not as easy as it seems but you can never give up.”
Another junior student, Wyatt Lockhart, also talked about his experience at FOGO De Chao.
“It was a unique dining experience, and I liked the way the servers brought different cuts of meat directly to the table,” Lockhart said. He adds that his favorite part of class was the ‘Elevator Pitches’ that Britton had all of his students pick a random object and ‘sell’ it to the teacher or class.
Britton said he noticed a lot of growth through the various themed days he does with the class, like ‘Market Watch Monday’, Ted Talk Tuesday, their TED Talk Elevator Pitch Wednesday, and Failure Friday.
“I make them pitch a random product to different staff members each Wednesday, and at first they were shy, they were timid, they didn’t know what to say, and now at the end of the year I would say they’re probably expert level salesmen, they take all the stuff that we presented, they put it into what they do, and they’ve really grown a lot,” Britton added. “They speak with boldness and with clarity, and I think they’ve done really well. And I think the second thing is, we do Failure Friday, we highlight a business that didn’t work, and we kind of focus on why, and we break down what happened and how it could have been avoided. And at first I really had to guide them through it, but once the year was probably halfway through, you could see like the bells going off in their minds.”
And the lessons learned in the program go beyond the classroom for many students.
“The most rewarding part about starting your own business is the feeling of accomplishment,” Lockhart said. “When you get your first customer, it shows how much work you actually put into it.”
Chris Windland, another junior returning to the class next year, talked about how the class is different than your typical education class.
“In our class, I liked the freedom we were given. Dustin didn’t shut down Ideas, but helped us fine-tune them until they worked,” Windland said. “This class was different because it allowed us to figure out how to do it our own way, and we made money.”
Junior Randall Jeffers added that the class was consistent and straightforward with good mentoring.”
Jeffers enjoyed the small size of the class for more one-on-one attention.
“The hardest part was most definitely the problems that we had to manage,” he said. “The biggest thing that came from these problems was our way to solve them as a class and as a team. Now the most rewarding part was most definitely the feedback we got from people, and the smiles on people’s faces after taking a drink.”
While school is out for the summer, Britton said he is planning on returning to teach future entrepreneurs while maintaining his own business, Britton Co. LLC.