My high school participated in a program called the Student Stock Exchange. This program fosters entrepreneurial thinking for young students. The project consisted of being in a team of seven girls, and we were tasks with creating a company with a real product, come up with a business plan, advertise our company, and finally sell our product to the school community at the SSX fair.
Our business plan had many components. To begin, we had to come up with an idea and essentially create a company. Our team came up with a 50s themed diner, and we'd sell a variety of diner foods at the fair. We began by selling stocks to gain funding to build our booth and buy appliances to make the food. Then, I was put in charge with finding sponsors. Using my professional communication skills, I reached out to a small restaurant owner in my neighbourhood that made products of our interest.
My job in the team was Vice-President and Web Designer. Beyond being a leader in our team, my job also had technical implications. I was in charge with designing our logo (seen above), making our website (which unfortunately no longer exists), creating our social media accounts, managing our emails, and creating our marketing content. A large part of this project was creating an info-mercial to encourage students to come by our booth at the fair. I thought of the idea to make it a bikers vs surfers inspired commercial, where our main menu item would bring them together. I directed and edited the ad seen below.
Furthermore, this experience allowed me to develop my craftsmanship, as we had to design, and build our booth, seen below. Overall this project really pushed me to think outside the box, excersice creative thinking, and problem solving. We faced many issues, both internally as a team, but also with our sponsor. Along with my team, solutions to problems we'd never face needed to be thought of which developed my business thinking.