The Jumping Bean Day 4

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Originally uploaded by Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp

Day four of The Jumping Bean mainly focused on the appearance of the store and the press release. To kick off the process, after splitting into groups, students began write paragraphs of the press release. This basically took half of the day, after a delayed start, and much coaxing by Pam and Shireen.

Then, after a short lunch break, some of the teen entrepreneurs started to work off an original equipment list, and comparison-shopped on the web to find what we need and the sizes that the items are going to be. Some other students took another computer and found southern drinks, such as the “Virgin Mint Julep” and
“Good Ol’ Alabama Sweet Tea”. The timing was perfect, because just as the equipment list was being printed, the architect was ready to speak. He helped us measure the store, using a long tape measure; essentially supervising the entire planning process.

To top off all of the day’s activities, we were able to taste the cakeballs from Sage American Bakery! Most of the students thought they were excellent! In my opinion (Donovan) they were quite good. They will surely be a great success!

Day 3 of The Jumping Bean

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Originally uploaded by Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp

Today’s events of The Jumping Bean saga were particularly special. The students ventured out into the field, uptown to 260 Madison Ave, to sit through a presentation by Julia Gaynor, a publicist for Affect Strategy, a public relations firm. In this hour-and-a-half presentation, she talked about how to make the press interested in a story, in our case, our espresso bar. She clearly conveyed what to include in a press release and informed us about a journalist’s deadlines and other technical terms related to the subject matter. We thank Julia Gaynor very much and hope her advice makes or breaks our experience with the press.

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Soon after a short train ride back down to Fulton Street, and a brief lunch break, we practiced an art called “spitballing”, which is a very reliable form of brainstorming. After breaking into groups, we finally met our goal of creating an opening sentence that would hook the mind to our press release. Tomorrow, we are going to write the press release and hopefully send it out in a few days.

Day Two of "The Jumping Bean"

As the sun rose and business people flooded the streets of lower Manhattan, the planning of “The Jumping Bean” continued with ease. Day two started off with group brainstorming for a main sales product. Soon after some creation of ideas, the group stumbled upon a great new idea: cake balls! As opposed to previous sessions, “The Jumping Bean’s” specialty item will be a baked good instead of a drink. Cake balls are balls made of a variety of cakes combined with frosting and dipped in a candy-like liquid, such as fondue or caramel, which are mere examples of the vast league of baked goods we’ve entered.

In addition of contacting many vendors of various items, Pam, the Director contacted our baker, Jen from “This Chick Bakes”, to propose the cake ball idea. We sincerely hope that the baker’s plan works out and our cake balls work out well. Pam also took the students out into the South Street Seaport Pier area to cross-market, or collaborate with other vendors to promote our espresso bar. We inquired from a representative from Circle Line and gather brochures from the many NYC tour buses, such as Gray Line or Coach USA.

The day went on and after splitting into several groups; we started to pull some crucial aspects of our espresso bar together. One group contacted some rubber stamp and paper goods vendors and printers. Another filtered which celebrities we should invite to our opening. Finally, a last group thought of ideas of an apparent theme. We brainstormed those ideas, overlooking many themes of different natures. The theme went from vintage to vintage New York to Mexican to southern to Americana to "South of the Border" to Aztec. After much arguing and suspense the theme of "Jumping Around the World" came to mind, since many people in the area are tourists.

The afternoon flew by and it was 3:30 and "The Jumping Bean" didn't have a tag line. We brainstormed, using the thesaurus and the base word - travel (which is the basis of our theme). After coming up with words such as voyage, globetrotting, and other words not commonly used in everyday speech, the slogan literally floated into the brain of one of the students.

After a long day of work, we are now officially working with "The Jumping Bean - Your destination is just a sip away!"

Day 1 of The Jumping Bean

Today, Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp kicked off a new session with the start of a new espresso bar/bakery in the South Street Seaport vicinity on the corner of Front and Beekman Streets. Upon piling into the drab-walled building at the early time of 9:00, students were off to a spectacular start. By immediately defining crucial terms, such as networking and marketing, the students formulated a plan for advertising and marketing.

After a quick lunch at the South Street Seaport mall, the group welcomed a guest-speaker, Ipshita, who is a professor at Pace University’s Graduate School. With her came one of her former students, whom she spoke and enlightened us with her knowledge. Ipshita’s presentation included a few exercises, which confirmed her explanations about marketing and networking. Then, under Ipshita’s professional supervision, the class broke up into three small groups to brainstorm coffee-related names for the store; all while sampling cookies from a local baker at “This Chick Bakes”.

Finally, as the day died down and the students were getting tired, each small group derived three name choices, which were narrowed down by a democratic voting process. The final three names were “The Battle of the Beans”, “Whipped”, and “The Jumping Bean”. Upon the final vote, “The Jumping Bean” was unanimously voted as the name for our new espresso bar.

Ground Booty: Day 8

Today we finished our business plans! Two speakers came to help us today to write our final and complete business plan. We split into four groups and each wrote a business plan. We than picked the best one which we will give to john, the owner of the frying pan, as grounds for our temporary business. After lunch we split into groups. We are coming down to the wire! The business opens tomorrow! How crazy?!?! One group went to put our post cards in the mailboxes of the buildings across the street, one group made buttons as our lowest giveaway prize, one group researched agua fresca recipes, and one group printed out the tickets for the treasure giveaway. Our shirts come tomorrow and we start business! Aparently News 5 is interviewing us! Its so exciting I can' twait! After the groups finished, we learned how to make our espresso drinks. That is the most important part!

Ground Booty: Day 7

Today we started fast and got down to business. We are all tired, but we are motivated to finish what we started. We set up the projector and began plugging in numbers. We started a moch business plan. We had to take into account insurance, taxes, employees, products, and rent. We did what we could saving the rest for tomorrow. After lunch a professional franchiser came to talk to us about what it takes to make a business go from a small corner store to a large franchise. He was an extremely interestng and fun guy. Once more we split into groups. A large group went to harass every day people to give our elevator pitch and hand out flyers. They say that was really great and fun! Another group looked up licenses and permits needed to start a business. They also looked up starbucks and dunkin donuts barista wages. A third group went to martha stewarts office and actually saw her!!! JEALOUSY! The end of the day was the best! Our espresso machine came! We began to set up our bar to figure out where we wanted to put the machine! It was 5:00 so quickly and we had to call it a day.

Ground Booty: Day 6

Over the weekend we had sent out the press release. At the beginning of the day we got out first real taste of the business. We saw the poster!!! The poster looks great! We actually got 2. One big and one small. We hung up the large poaster on the bow of the ship. It took a while, cutting string and attaching it. After the poster was all set we began talking about the menu. We split into groups for the rest of the day to cover more ground. One group contacted news papers, one caontaced radio shows, and television news. We asked for contacts, and sent our press release. Another group spent the rest of the day finishing the flyers which we needed asap to send them out. We got quotes from different printers and decided on the company that gave us the best deal. We got 1,000 post card for $200. This was a long, but eventful day!

Ground Booty: Day 5

We began our day by getting right down to business. We worked on our press release for pretty much the whole day. JC came to help us figure out how we want to plan and begin writing the piece. Together we created an outline for which the 5 paragraph press release was to be written from. After getting down the key information about what each paragraph was supposed to say, we split into groups and each began writing. 4 groups worked on the 2nd through 5th paragraphs while JC took our original ideas to concot a new first paragraph. During our lunch break JC worked diligently on editing our paragraphs to read as a coherent piece. After ,uch group discussion, we finally finished our press release!!! Isabella Mia Sullivan called Empire Banners and ordered a huge banner with our logo on it. Shireen was able to have it delivered to her house since the company was already in Astoria :) At the end of the day, we discovered a game room at the bottom of the ship where we played ping pong. Aside from accomplishing our biggest task, the press release, we also enhanced our "ping pong skills." : )

Ground Booty Day 4

Today was an eventful and knowledgable day. Our schedule was jam packed with three speakers. John, the owner of the frying pan, spoke to us first about the legal ins and outs of a business. We were informed about employee regulations, payrolls, and taxes. We also spoke about the numerouse different insurances necessary to be a "legal" business. Who would have known that an owner has to pay disability incase a workers severly injure themselves on the job!?!? After John spoke, Michael Hoefier came to talk about the importance of signage. Together we walked around the pier to find good places for our advertisements. We decided on doing a large poster for the bow of the ship. Once we reassembled, Michael told us about his job. He goes around the country, hired by one business, to make sure that the signange in each place is the same. This helps for a customer to know what is part of the business and what isnt. His example was, "How do you know if the valet service is provided by the four seasons? " He told us that fonts and colros help categorize a business by allowing the customers to know what is theirs and what is not. After this lesson we took our unch break. At the end of the day JC, a third professional who helped us with our press release, came by to start work. We sat down together and brainstormed spitball points which must get across in the release. Unfortunately it was 5:00 and not much of the release was finished. Tomorrow we will finally finish and advertise our business!!!

Ground Booty: Day 3

After doing morning work we received a visit from the owners of This Chick Bakes, Jen Houston and Charley Tucker, and were rewarded with moist and delicious cupcakes. The flavors were carrot cake, chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet. Soon after work we took the M23, 5 & 6 trains to Wall Street and went into the Regus office building, with a stop to McDonald's first, of course. There we talked to Julia Gaynor who explained to us the meaning, purpose, and importance of Public Relations. We also learned that when writing a press release we should make it personal to the reporter or business person and to create a mind grabbing first sentence/paragraph. The day ended when we all went on a confusing, yet thrilling subway ride to get home.

Ground Booty Day 2

With an early start at 10 o'clock we boarded the Frying Pan with a plate full of alluring brownies awaiting us from Corner Bakery. The brownies gave us an energetic start to the day. We gained the knowledge of vital skills such as the benefits and disadvantages of whole sale, retail, and the supplier. We learned that for us to buy whole sale and sell retail it would be more beneficial, instead of roasting our own coffee beans. After classroom work we decided on our slogan which in conclusion came to be "x-marks the spot, our coffee is hot." On our venture today through NYC offices we were able to find the office of Martha Stewart and we were given the number to contact her. During one of the many phone calls made we ordered possible baked goods that would separate our bakery/coffee shop from others by ordering from This Chick Bakes, a bakery that sells one of a kind baked goods. During the other phone call made we found out that during our 2 day business expedition we can raise money for the Tristate Bird Relief we can help birds affected by other oil spills, but we are torn between helping fishermen affected by the oil spill and helping the birds affected by the oil spill. This foundation informed us that no type of organization can participate in helping bp clean up the major oil spill. Later on today we learned that we may have the chance to have a shout out done for us on Martha Stewart's radio show.

Ground Booty: Day 1

On Monday, the 18th of July, a dozen camp participants boarded a recently sunken ship named "the Frying Pan" with no real idea of what we were getting into. Our thoughts ran with question, such as "Where am I?", "Am I in the right place?", and "What are these people like?" We then saw Shireen, Jeremy, and Pam, the teachers. They were friendly, helpful, and clearly knew what they were doing. They began by introducing themselves, told us what their jobs are, and taught us about networking and putting our name out there. They than told us our objective for the camp; we were going to open up our own espresso bar on the Pier in which "the Frying Pan" was docked on. We decided to start by scoping out the pier, the boat, and all of the possible locations in which an espresso bar could be built on. We went deep into the bowels of the ship. We went to the rail car inexplicably placed in the middle of the pier. We went to the stage at the end of the pier. All seemed like nice locations for an espresso bar. After, we went deep into the ship, to a small room lined with a comfortable, red, couch, where we watched a power point on marketing. Then, we went back up into daylight to look around the nearby buildings to figure out who our primary consumers are and, more importantly, who our main competition is. We split into two groups; one went to the largest office building in the area. We learned that it was mainly filled with company in the fashion and art industries, and found that the doorman was willing to take our flyers. Our other group found our competition, 'wichhcraft, and took notes on the equipment that they were using, and the layout that they were using. They then went to Beyond 7, where the kind saleswoman allowed us to interview her and also agreed to give out flyers. After scoping out the neighborhood and having lunch of pizza, we went back to the small room inside the boat, where we watched another power point on branding and logos. Armed with our newly found knowledge, we went back up into the daylight and decided upon our name. Through much chaos and confusion, our team voted on "Ground Booty", with a theme of pirates/underwater.

Binder Bag: Finale

The teens are showing a little sign of fatigue- not surprising since we are talking about the business of fashion all day long. I'm sure most of them have never broken down the mechanics of what it takes to start a business. I think one of the reasons most teens find our workshops interesting is because they are being introduced to a topic that they haven't heard before. I believe an entrepreneurial mindset is a necessary life skill and should be taught at their grade level.

What do we need to accomplish on our final day? Even though we have gathered costs, we still haven't crunched numbers to get an actual cost per bag and to see if it matches our price point. We need to make a final decision about where to enter the market; do we put the bag in Urban Outfitters, Macys or Bloomingdales? Or do we start at Barnes and Noble and Target? We are concerned because we were told that if you enter the market at the bottom of your "retail pyramid" you can't move up. Places like Urban will not be interested in buying your product if you've been selling in Target at a lower price point. Once we make a decision we can project income; how many stores will buy our bag? How many bags can we sell to them? And how much money will our designer, Alica Kim need to put her first order into production? Finally, what is the "next step" sales strategy for Alicia.



Thankfully, our first guest of the day is Andrea Katz, a high-end clothing and handbag designer- we hope she can help us with some of these questions! Check out her fashion line, it's very sheik and avant garde. www.akonyc.com

"You should enter the market where you think you should be" was Andreas answer to us when we told her of our struggle to decide on the retailer that would best suit the Binder Bag. Bingo! For some reason this obvious statement lifted our veil of confusion! The top of pyramid was our answer, Urban Outfitters we all screamed! BUT, we all agreed it would only work if Alicia upgraded the fabric to be more on target with trends, better durable texture, and tweeked the design suggested by all the experts.




Gregory presenting the Binder Bag to our guest with our 3 in house models.

Before Andrea could give us any advice she needed to see the bag. Gregory, our not-so-shy student, was easily elected as spokes person and provided the Binder Bag "elevator pitch" many times during the week, while the other students modeled the bags. Their flawless presentation would impress any buyer- great job guys!


Andrea providing us feedback on finishing touches that would make our product stronger

Andrea examined the bag and had many of the same comments as the other experts who critiqued it; use higher quality fabric, outside stitching not professional, fabric designs and colors not current trend, use velcro on inside pocket to prevent pencils from falling out. Andrea also pointed out to us that the seams were too big and would waste money when producing in volume-the excess fabric will add up she warned. All in all she liked the concept.


Finally, we get to meet our designer- Alicia Kim arrives. She is so happy to meet her team of teen entrepreneurs and grateful for all the work they are doing for her. She quietly sits by and listens as Andrea wraps up her time with us by helping us to figure out our costs per unit. She thinks we can get the bag made at a clothing factory for about $10 a bag. We end up at a cost of around $13-15 per bag after we factor in all of our other costs. We think we can make our price point at $45! I talk a little bit about how many boutiques we can sell to in the area, how many they would buy and how much money Alicia needs to make the first order. Andrea leaves us for another meeting and the teens are getting restless with all this number crunching- time for lunch. I hope Andreas fashion line does well, she is an amazing designer and has struggled with the economy like many businesses. We were lucky to have her speak!


We finally get to meet our designer Alicia Kim!


The teens are refreshed from lunch- good, because the rest of the day will be spent writing our business plan. Before Alicia slips out the door, she craftily asks the teens what their favorite colors are. Little do they know that she has offered to custom make a Binder Bag for each of them. I will include a copy of their written business plan. Before she says goodbye we get a photo of her with the team. We wish her luck and hope she sells millions of Binder Bags!

Next and final guest, Kathy Sussell, a serial entrepreneur, who will assist the teens in writing their business plan. Kathy's recent business is called Bravo, life coaching. I think she would make a good coach because she is very calm and seems capable of taking a step back to figure out the correct path a person should take to achieve their goals. Check out her website at www.bravolifecoaching.com.


Typing up our business plan with Kathy


How do you get 8 teenagers to stay focused and still while trying to write a business plan? Not easy, I tried cookies, hot chocolate and giving them each a turn at typing. They bounced and slouched and banged on their cell phones as Kathy tried to pull the answers from them. This is usually the toughest part of the program, maybe we should break it up into sections the next time and write a little bit each day. No matter how you look at it- it's an extreme business experience, the teens had a deadline of one week to launch a product. That is not easy and they should be really proud of their accomplishment, they pushed themselves and finished first! Good job team!

Binder Bag: Day 3

We know our product, market postition and costs to manufacture.
How do we get the Binder Bag sold?


Identifying our market potential


We began our day at 14 Wall Street still struggling with identifying a retailer that best fits our product and where we would have the most chance of selling it at our price point. This was a difficult decision because the Binder Bag is not a handbag, it is meant to be a fashionable, sleek way to carry your book binder. It is not similar to a backpack because you can't carry a lot of stuff. We examined this dilema further by drawing a pyramid on the blackboard and catergorizing potential sellers within the pyramid structure. We concluded that Urban Outfitters was the best place to enter the market- but we heard they don't pay a lot. At some point I guess you just have to get out there to see who is interested in buying.

By late morning we set foot out the door to visit a not-for-profit showroom run by the Garment Industry Development Corp to help boost new designers. We were lucky enough to get an appointment with Andy Wade, Executive Director of the showroom and present the bag to him. He works with new designers in the showroom to help them find sourcing and also gives thems advice on how to launch their fashion line. Andy thought that since the Binder Bag isn't a handbag why get it manufactured in a handbag plant? It's not made of leather, it's not a complicted design, and we could get it manufactured cheaper if we went to a clothing manufacturer or someone who makes medical uniforms or placemats. He commented on the messy stitching surrounding the bag and warned us not to send it to a factory to have a sample made as it exists, because they will make it exactly the same way. This would not be acceptable to a buyer and they would surely pass over your line. He also thought we could cut costs and up the quality of the bag by eliminating the embellishments or hand drawn designs by opting for better fabric. Bing, bang, Andy knows his stuff.


Andy providing us some VERY useful feedback on the Binder Bag


Here we are again, hungry and standing in the middle of the very busy garment district. We decide to head down to the Financial District to grab some food to re-fuel.


We meet back at 14 Wall Street and get a quick lesson on how to identify the RIGHT press contacts. We brainstorm the different media outlets, sections, reporters and editors that might be interested in hearing about what we are doing. We realized that we shouldn't only focus on fashion editors but that business editors might be interested in what a bunch of teenage entrepreneurs are up to. We then break off into groups to tackle a few tasks before the end of the day. As one team takes a crack at writing the press release (So far we only have spitballs), another group begins making a list of press contacts and another team researches the cost of presenting at a trade show. Sadly, after we spent time honing our telephone pitch to the trade shows, they all hung the phone up on us because they were too busy preparing for market week and trades shows. Oops, I guess we would have known that if we were working designers.

Binder Bag: Day 2

Sarah teaching us about brocades at Mood Fabrics

Since we only have 4 days to figure out how to launch a product, we have a busy day ahead of us. We spent yesterday getting to know the Binder Bag, who might buy it, where it belongs in the marketplace, and how much it should cost. Today we need to figure out our resources and the costs of manufacturing. Alicia Kim, our handbag designer has been hand-making the Binder Bag for a few years and is ready to have it manufactured professionally- an intimidating thought for most!

Our first stop for gathering sourcing costs is Moods fabric store, famous for being featured on the TV show, Project Runway. You think, no big deal, find some fabric we like, get a price, and off we go. Of course not! While waiting for a late member of our team, we spent some time petting Mood's dogie mascot, Swatch, until we were greeted by the very entertaining Sarah, an expert in fabric science who offered to share her expertise. This should have been our first clue that this was not going to be an ordinary visit to a fabric store. Sarah traipsed us around Moods to introduce us to all sorts of beautiful fabrics including the fabric hand-me-downs created by designers like Marc Jacobs and Zac Posen. The glitch-you can't sell your product to the public using their fabrics, but you can give them away to all of your friends- this method should only be used if you are not interested in making money for your designs. The highlight of our time spent with Sarah was when she started lighting swatches of fabric on FIRE!

We were so amused that she was actually lighting fabric on fire that we missed her point. In the midst of this educational tour of fabric science, one of our students seemed to be suffering from a stomach flu and threatened to vomit all over the fabric if she didn't high-tail it home. One down. We were so razzle-dazzled by Sarah's presentation that we almost forgot why we were there-to gather costs. We gave Sarah a hearty thank you and spread out to seek the price per yard of our favorite fabrics. We were now late for our next appointment with Barry Martin, a manufacturer of high-end garments.



The beauty of the garment district is that all the resources you need to launch a fashion line are in one big cluster. Thankfully, we only needed to travel one block to visit Barry Martin's manufacturing plant. Barry was a little disappointed when we arrived late and was confused when we mentioned something about igniting fabric. Even though we learned that Barry mostly produces high-end clothing for companies like Coach, we gained valuable experience by talking the talk with him and by getting an inside look at an actual plant. It turns out that Barry's cost estimates for manufacturing the Binder Bag was too high for our price point, but cheap for him since he is used to manufacturing $3000 dresses and handbags. Regardless, he was very generous with his time and proudly showed off the alligator skins he had hanging around.


Barry and Diego inspecting the bag to give us our first estimate


It's now a little after 12:00 and everyone is famished. We don't have time for a leisurely lunch because a local newspaper reporter is scheduled to speak to us at 1:30 about how to write a press release. Once again we scramble for take-out food and hop on the express train to 14 Wall Street.

We arrive to our Donald Trump style conference room on the 20th floor. A little background on our office space; Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp recently won a contest held by Regus Offices that awarded them an office space for one year based on their promising entrepreneur program.

Huddled around a humongous conference table, we listen to Terese Loeb Kreuzer, editor for the Battery Park City Broadsheet, and founder and editor-in-chief of the Travel Arts Syndicate, talk about points to consider when writing a press release. We "spitball" important facts we think should be included. We all agree that we should play up the angle of eight teens launching a business so that we can stand out from the hordes of designers clamouring for attention too. The exercise of writing a press release proves to be an effective method in getting us to understand our product further. We spend the rest of the afternoon hammering it out- it's not so easy.

Binder Bag: Day 1

What better place to start learning about the business of fashion but the garment district? Our team of 8 ambitious teenagers began their journey in the design studio of Jodi Arnold, an established fashion designer. We all gathered around Jodi in her huge loft space as she introduced us to the odds and ends of what it takes to run a fashion line- we quickly learned that it is much more than sketching dresses all day! Nearby her production manager was making adjustments to a dress on a fit model while someone else was updating the clothing racks surrounding us.

In between answering questions from her staff, Jodi spoke to us about everything from sourcing, sample making, production and getting the product out there. We learned that we needed to approach people who buy for stores if we wanted to get our product out to the public. Jodi told us that she started out by knocking door to door at small boutiques, presented at trades shows and finally made it to showrooms in major cities.


Jodi explains to us what a "look book" is.

Before Jodi disappeared for her next meeting, she offered us the opportunity to wander through her huge loft to meet her staff. The studio was buzzing with activity; first we met the PR team and they told us of the challenges they face trying to get noticed by fashion editors - besides thinking creatively, they suggested a lot of networking. Roxanne, the production manager took time out to tell us how she is in charge of making sure Jodi's designs get made and placed in stores across the world. She follows the process from NYC to China, sometimes to India and back to the USA- wow, that is some responsibility. Next we met a design assistant who was making changes to a beaded design that will be embroidered in India, a pattern maker was adjusting a silk screen print that needed to be placed just the right way on a pattern and sample makers were busy in the back sewing new samples to be sent to their factory in China. Thank you Jodi for welcoming us into your studio, we learned a lot- and it's not even noon time.

http://www.jodiarnoldnyc.com/

As we were heading to the train that would take us to our conference room at 14 Wall Street we noticed a Fashion Kiosk, we decided to stop in and see what they could tell us about launching a fashion line. There are many ways to find resources and information about the business you want to start, you just need to be resourceful. We asked the girl sitting in the kiosk if she knew of any handbag manufacturers in the area and she quickly printed out a list for us. That was easy.

Somewhere between eating lunch and meeting a former merchandiser from Nike, we finally met the product we were gathered to launch. So, what is this mysterious product we are so eagerly trying to put into production you ask? The Binder Bag! Binder bag is a sleeve that disguises your nerdy binder as a fashionable handbag!

Okay, now we have a product, what next? According to our guest speaker from Nike, we need to do some research about our target market and competion and find out what our price point is. (How much will people pay for the Binder Bag?). We also need to identify retailers that fit our style and might be interested in buying our product. We learned about product positioning and why choosing the right "shopping experience" is important to attract customers. We talked a lot about marketing during the week.

Not wasting any time we hit the blustery, snowy streets of Soho to do some market research. We ducked in an out of stores on Broadway to check out the handbag selections trying to pinpoint our competition, niche and to identify our pricepoint. First stop, Scoop;too expensive, not our competion. Bloomingdales;too many designer bags;not too high-end for the Binder Bag. We were surprised to hear the sales lady say that the college students didn't have a problem buying $150 designer totes- go figure. Let's take it down a notch, how about Forever21? No, they didn't have much of a selection and too cheap. We couldn't find our niche; we're not really a handbag,where do we fit in? Last stop, Urban Outfitters; the team felt we shared the same style and price points, but we were not sure if the fabric quality of the Binder Bag was up to snuff for Urban. As we stood around a table of clothes, tired from a long day, wet and cold from trudging around, we decided to pick this conversation up tomorrow.





doing our first round of market research! identifying our competition

Teens Learn New Business Model That Teaches Manufacturing!

This winter, Teen Entrpreneur Boot Camp will bring together twelve teens to work alongside up and coming designers to help launch their products or fashion designs. In the past, teens have learned to open a new retail business; this new business model is a lesson in wholesale and manufacturing.


The teens have one week to find a factory, figure out cost of production, and develop a sales and marketing strategy. For our first workshop, the teens will collaborate alongside Alicia Kim, a Queens native, to help her launch Binder Bag; a fashion-savvy way to carry your binder!


Our first session has begun, so stay tuned for daily updates about their progress.