So, today, the first day, we decided our groups: I'm with Chloe, Jay, Rheanna, and myself of course. We've brainstormed a few ideas: cupcakes, cookies... but eventually we decided to switch to something more practical after getting some advice from Miss Richardson. Because practically every group (in Year 9 at least) is selling food, we would have a much better chance at being successful if we make something other than that. So, taking inspiration from last year and incorporating some of everyone's ideas, we've decided to make keychains! Our options are between: pom poms, perl beads, corkscrew and wire keychains, but I'm really set on making the perl beads. A struggle we're having right now is coming up with the name. We're throwing up Wonderland Keychains, Crazy Keychains, the Keychain Kart - but we also really like the idea of 'The Treasure Chest' as ours. I wonder what we will turn out as! We've decided roles today too. I'm the manager, Rheanna is marketing manager, Chloe is finance manager and Jay is the production manager.
Second update of Business and Enterprise. We're busy doing our market plan - I think we've decided on The Treasure Chest but we need something more. (UPDATE) Chloe's just come up with the idea of The Treasure Trove. We all like it! I guess that's what we're coming at you as from now on. The logo and slogan making has been difficult. Chloe found an online logo maker that we're using to make it a bit easier. The slogan, however, is difficult to decide on.
Anyway, we're still deciding on what keychains to make. I think we're going to stick with pom poms and perl beads because everyone likes them. The idea of doing corkscrew and wire keychains are not really my style. I don't think we need to overcomplicate things and waste our money on products that I don't think will sell well. So far we need yarn and keychain rings and perl beads. However, Rheanna and I both own yarn and Ruby has some perl beads we could use. It seems to be just keychain rings we need. Hmm.
Fourth update. Overnight I came up with the idea of 'What's in your treasure chest' for our slogan but according to Jay it was too suggestive and he requested another one. Now we've decided not to do wire or corkscrew chains. However, we've been lucky enough to be sponsored by my mother's business, Kreative Kiwi Embroidery and Jay's Dad's part-time work TSI Logistics. Miss Simpson has also given us some advice - and so we're going to donate 10% of our profit to the Maui Dolphins. We're in the process of making posters using Canva and Piktochart. It's also been decided that we need some keychain chain (plugging chain, I believe it's called) from Mitre 10 so we've added that to our shopping list.
Fifth update: We have realised that our digital poster has not been completed. So as Miss Richardson is frantically trying to print our posters I'm going to make one.
Okay, finally made it. Check out the Bikini Bottom background and Rocky Horror text. It's like me in an advertisement.
Now we need to work on making our banner for the table. Miss Richardson has graciously been working hard on cutting paper to the right dimensions for every group.
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| Chloe making the perl beads! |
Sixth update: We just came back from some painting of the draft banner. A blue background, white bubble text, some yellow and red paint splattered across it. It's pretty messy but for a first draft I think it's okay. I think we need to improve the text - some letters are lowercase, some are uppercase, and the paint is just kind of... there. I don't like the blue either. Heck, this is turning into a very negative review of our handiwork. I've made some Business Cards to use - simple black and white design that we're going to stick into people's lockers. Miss Richardson had some advice for us, that was to wait until the day before because otherwise people are just going throw them away without a second thought and forget about our stall completely.
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| Our first pom pom! |
Seventh update: The making of the pom poms have commenced! It's pretty difficult for me to be honest. I posted a pom pom tutorial on my blog, check it out here. We got our stuff and we quickly got to work. We got some yarn and plugging chain. With our sponsorships we're going to buy perl beads and keychains (because it turns out we didn't have enough keychains at home and Ruby supposedly doesn't have anymore perl bead templates or beads).
Eighth update: We got our perl bead sets, keyrings, and a bunch of other unnecessary crap! Jay doesn't have the foggiest idea on how to make pom poms so we've assigned him perl bead duty. The kits come with little templates and perl beads that you just stick on and they magically start there. We purchased them from Spotlight and they're pretty neat in my opinion.
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| The cutest couple making perl beads! |
Ninth update: We've spent the last lessons working tirelessly on making pom poms and perl beads. We've purchased some proper perl bead templates so at home we're working on making them (we don't have access to an iron at school and I surely doubt Mum wouldn't appreciate us taking her work equipment)
Tenth update: THE DAY ARRIVES! It's the morning of Business and Enterprise and I got to say, I'm a little disappointed, because when I woke up my awards from Year 7 had fallen off the wall. Either Ruby had a part in this or the universe knows something...
Eleventh update: Finally, we've finished market day! We have spent the entire day setting up, selling, and buying products for a grand total of $100 total income. Minus the $8 we used to buy materials, and 20% to charity and the school, we made a whopping $73 between the four of us. That equals $18.40 each, and we already have made plans to go get bubble tea as a celebration.
But how did the day actually go? Well, we set up in the Learning Commons next to the tiered seating. We had our freshly-painted banner on the table, a chalkboard and some pom pom garland all set up for decoration. On the table we had all of our products spread out: from expensive to affordable. Our first few customers came fast, and the steady stream did not thin throughout the day either. Shout out to Mr Collins for being our first customer. At the end we'd sold most of our
perl bead key chains and pom poms. We ended up lowering prices to sell faster which was an effective strategy, we learned. All of us ended up with something we'd bought at the end too - I ended up with three containers of coconut oil + beeswax + honey scrubs and another lip balm from my best friend's group, but also some items from some lovely people I've never met before either. I also tried the best cookies I've ever had in my life from this amazing stall >>>
Twelfth Update: Today we've spent our time finalising our income/profit/money stuff before we actually receive our money tomorrow from Mr Scott. Overall it's been a good experience- certainly very different from every other market day, but even with a few fights along the way we still managed to end up coming fourth in terms of making money. The awards, if there are any, are still to come and I'm eager to see who gets them. I'm immensely proud of every team who participated this - especially the Year Sevens, because it's their first year but they still did fantastic.
'Til 2019, may market day season come to an end, and bubble tea season begin!
As always Jaime, the way you self manage and reflect on your learning continues to amaze me. I really enjoyed reading through the process you went through in creating your successful business this year. Its nice to see you were able to focus on the positives of the process rather than the negatives. I hope you are doing enterprise studies next year, I'd love to see what you create next!
ReplyDeleteWOW Jaime! I loved the photos and reading your updates. What was your overall favourite part of it?
ReplyDeleteHello orca whale! Thank you for kind feedback :) My favourite part was probably creating the posters, which sounds weird, but I honestly really enjoy graphic design, especially posters. Other than that I also enjoyed creating the pom poms because it was oddly satisfying.
Delete:)