Change From $10

Mike Brown got-R-done and made $5000. The odds were stacked in favour of an ice cream sandwich business. Josh Domingues developed a coupon book. Melanie Peters made her own product and accessed social media to sell it.

People have parlayed paperclips into everything from Coleman camp stoves to recording contracts, but try starting a profitable business with only $10---now that’s a different story.

When faced with this challenge in one of Dr. Ellen Farrell’s Entrepreneurship classes, business students Mike Brown and Mark Mayhew pooled their resources and invested $20 in Get-R-Done. The simple gutter cleaning service took off when Brown and Mayhew offered their customers an innovative gutter insert that eliminates the need for frequent cleanings. So far, the pair have seen $5000 in revenues and the possibility of a distribution agreement with the company that makes the gutter insert.

“Who knows where this small project could lead?” asks Dr. Farrell. “These are two talented young men and it’s very empowering for them to recognize that their futures could very well be in their own hands.”

Fourth year students Jake MacDonald and Nick Merrigas also teamed up for Dr. Farrell’s assignment and made a $453 profit selling ice cream sandwiches that they made from scratch. “They had a fantastic product,” says Dr. Farrell. ”I thought they would do a large batch and sell them individually; instead they developed a customer list and sold six in a pack for $15.”

Josh Domingues approached the assignment on his own, going door to door to solicit restaurant participation. He used his $10 to print 3000 copies of “Halifax Freebies”, a coupon book he developed to target first and second year students.

“Printing a coupon book is easy,” says Dr. Farrell. “The hard part is lining up advertisers in advance and explaining the value of giving a discount and paying up front.” She says that in advertising you get nine rejections for every acceptance. “Josh was able to maintain his motivation throughout,” she adds. “I give him kudos for staying with it.”

Bachelor of Commerce student Caitlin Ulrich used her $10 to print the first batch of order forms for a Halifax home delivery service for bread from Masstown Market in Truro. “Masstown Market provided me with free samples,” says Ulrich. “I took them door to door and customers paid when they ordered so there was no risk and no investment.” On Saturday mornings Ulrich drove to Truro, picked up her orders and delivered them to 67 customers before noon. “I only had one complaint,” she laughs. “One customer cancelled for two weeks because she was gaining too much weight.”

“A lot of people try to figure out what they can do with what they have,” says Dr. Farrell. “Caitlin decided to be an intermediary. She didn’t make anything; she was a distributor. And she did a great job. Once she outgrew her father’s minivan she hitched a trailer to the back and kept growing.”

Like MacDonald and Merrigas, Accounting major Melanie Peters made a product, marketed it and sold it herself. Sales venues for her feather jewelry business, Feather Trends, included campus selling events, craft fairs and social media sites such as Facebook. “She made very good money and covered all the elements,” says Dr. Farrell. “To begin with, she is very talented, and she made a pretty, well-priced product.”

In the 10 years that she has given this assignment, Ellen Farrell has seen a host of business plans come to fruition. “One team started a green bin cleaning service,” she recalls. “They knocked on doors the evening before garbage day and offered to clean the homeowners' green bins. The next day, when the bins were empty, the students returned in a rented truck and took the bins to a self-serve car wash. Those guys made a killing.”

Dr. Farrell finds it energizing to watch her students use their ingenuity to supplement limited resources and eventually make a profit. “It’s fascinating to see how much can be done with hard work and initiative,” she says. “In the world of entrepreneurship, you have to be able to create value that others are willing to pay for. Every year, I have students who do just that."

This page last modified Wednesday, 21-Dec-2011 11:51:18 AST