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.