HS Students Learn Business From Duke
Monday, Dec 17, 2007 - 05:49 PM Updated: 08:09 AM
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DURHAM, N.C. -- The American dream of owning your own business and being your own boss starts early at Riverside High School in Durham.
Juniors and seniors in the small business class developed a start-up business with help from students from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
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Both Riverside and Hillside High Schools partnered with Duke University for the program called the student teaching entrepreneurship program, or “STEP” for short.
Riverside students Neil Fowler and Sage Washington used their practical work experience in grocery stores to develop a business plan for their very own store called Washington’s Stop ‘N Shop.
"We want to give business to our city, give people jobs and stuff and make it locally owned," Washington said.
The young entrepreneur’s business plan included defining the customer, finding the business location, and pricing competitively.
"On name brand, every day products we can take a loss on these because we're buying stuff from local farmers," the students explained.
They received weekly guidance from Duke MBA students.
Kaycee Shoemaker coordinated the program from Riverside.
"I really hope they are coming out with an idea of how business works and have an interest in doing business, just the knowledge this is something they can do," said Shoemaker.
Businessmen always like incentives -- so the students competed for cash.
Shoemaker said the Stop ‘N Shop tied for first place out of 10 teams.
"They were very well prepared and thought out," Shoemaker said. "The two students Sage and Neil were very charismatic,"
The other winners launched a tourism business called “Ecuaturismo.”
Dani Vasco's four-member team created adventure tours along the Napo River in Ecuador.
"We have accurate information because my family was born in Ecuador and is in this line of work right now," Vasco said. "We know how much to pay a cook or a tour guide,” Vasco said.
Ecuaturismo's bottom line looked good, the team explained with pride.
"$80 times 10 people times 10 days times 20 tours equals 160,000 gross profit per year subtract our total expenses and we've got 87,000 net income," the team said.
The judge from Duke agreed. They liked this business plan backed by research, complete with its own website.
"They had looked at towns in Ecuador and also compared it to tourism in Peru and other areas," Shoemaker said.
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