Teens show their entrepreneurial spirits

By Christine SchweickertJuly 9, 2015

Custom Art and Framing
1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
No Easy Bake Oven here!
2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Judge Kent Carter lunges for a cupcake concocted by the owners of Sparkle Treats LLC, whose brutally honest motto was 'Our Taste Will Enlarge Your Waist.' Business owners Mayah Stackhouse, Shamari James and Candace Linguard offered both regular and d... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

While their friends were at the water park or the movies, 15 middle and high school students spent a week developing business plans, forecasting gains and losses, and figuring what portion of profits to donate to charity. On Thursday morning, they presented their plans for judging by a panel of independent experts at the Fort Jackson Youth Center.

Products ranged from custom art and framing, to babysitting, to athletic training. In the end, three girls who promised to transform clients' fingernails from "drab to fab" -- and who, incidentally, had presented each judge with a rhinestone-encrusted emery board -- won first place.

"It was the extra time they put into their presentation" that won the day for B and A (before and after) Nails, said judge Christine Vogele, chief of the Financial Management Division of Family Morale, Welfare and Recreation. Owners of the fantasy business -- Imani Houston, 15; India Dewitt, 13; and Winnie Tataw, 14 -- had fashioned an array of products displaying their business's name and contact information, a clever marketing move.

"I was impressed by their financial presentation," said judge Kent Carter, chief of MWR's Resource Management Division.

Students entered the competition room in threes, shaking hands with the judges, introducing themselves and their products, and outlining what they expected to earn, what gave their companies a leg up on the competition and how they would entice customers.

Most nervously wrung their hands. Some stumbled over unwieldy words, "philanthropy" being the biggest bane. Others spoke forcefully and clearly, maintaining eye contact with the judges.

The judging came at the end of a one-week class with Paul Smith, owner of Best Carolina LLC and an instructor at Newberry College. Workshop students spent one short week learning the principles that Smith normally teaches in five weeks.

Afterward, the winners -- their nerves still shot -- had difficulty articulating what had won them the contest.

"The before and after pictures," one guessed. Or was it the name of the business?

"The prices," asserted another.

Whatever it had been, the judges declared all the companies' presentations successful. As judge Vogele put it:

"Monstarz -- the first one up -- they set the bench(mark), and they set it high."

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