Josh Snider’s entrepreneurship class has set out to give students real-life experiences without the substantial risks that accompany owning and operating a business.
The class is a third-level course at Gilmer High School and open to upperclassmen who have completed “introduction to business and technology” and “the legal environment of business.”
Snider previously taught mathematics. He moved to the business department two years ago when a position became available and discussed some of the benefits of the courses.
“I feel like business is giving kids some day-to-day real-life skills that time doesn’t always allow for in other content areas,” Snider said. “This is a great benefit that kids are learning about finance as far as a budget, management and marketing and how to structure a business.
“Ultimately, I’m just getting them to think differently than how they’re going to become an employee, but instead, that they have a new idea in their mind and not just ‘where am I going to college, what is my career going to be?’ It gets them to start thinking about what they’re going to ‘start.’”
Some students have started their own small business selling items such as bracelets and necklaces, as well as running a lawn care service.
Snider seeks to teach students through those experiences. He hopes that real-world experience on a smaller level will help students navigate the choppy waters of significant investments.
“The key difference in this class, is we want kids to fail at a small scale to then be successful on the grand scale,” he said. “Of course, we don’t want them to fail the class, but I want them to know it’s OK to fail when trying out business ideas right now at 15 to 18 years old.
“I’d rather them fail at a $20, $50 or $100 risk. That way, they learn how to calculate their costs and calculate their risks better so when it becomes a $10,000 or $100,000, they’ve learned how to fail early to hopefully be successful on a bigger scale.”
Snider has put his plan into motion as the class operates the GHS store. While the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed some of their progress, the store is open two days per week during lunch.
Students selected designs and logos for apparel at the start of the school year for products that included T-shirts, long-sleeve shirts and hoodies, which are currently available to students and staff.
They also sell items such as phone chargers and tumblers. Future plans include products from the construction, metal fabrication and agriculture departments. The entrepreneurship students will serve as the contact point to get those products to consumers outside of the school setting.
“The biggest thing with me in the school store is we’re learning and limiting risk right now by not holding a significant amount of stock,” Snider said.
“We sell what we have and then reorder what we need. It keeps us as a middle man distributor and designer so we’re not holding a ton of inventory if something happened again with COVID or an item didn’t sell as well as we wanted it to or there was a lack of interest in something.”
The class conducted a senior presale at the start of the year that made products available to members of the GHS class of 2021. Students engaged face-to-face sales to get their products to consumers.
“Snider’s class has really changed how I view business and what goes on behind the scenes in the marketing department,” said junior Carson Purvis. “Our class has analyzed the school in roundabout ways in order to find out our target market. After finding our target market, we figured out the best way to sell them (setting the price, how much inventory to buy, etc.).
“I now view business with the mindset of ‘It’s not the best product that gets sold, it’s the best marketed product that gets sold.’”
Snider’s class has plans to sell a Christmas shirt in the coming weeks. Proceeds from those sales will go to toward providing gifts for elementary school students in the county. Students have also reached out to local businesses, and five have already pledged a $200 donation to further expand what they can provide to those in need.
The process has given students the opportunity to make cold calls and expand their sales repertoire.
“I’ve learned many things I did not know before,” said senior Natalie West. “I’ve learned how to start and manage my own business, and this class has helped me come out of my shell. I have had to present many times, make phone calls with people I have never talked to and talk to business people.”
Next up for the class is a “hustle project.” A local business dotated $100 to the class so each student starts with $10. They will purchase an item from a local thrift store and up cycle the product in order to make a profit.
Students will continue to do this until the end of the semester to see who can gain the most profit from their initial item.
“The students think this is exciting, and they’re getting to come up with their own ideas,” Snider said. “They did a phenomenal job of presenting their own business ideas to our CTAE advisory committee, as well as talking about the school store. There has been some positives come out of this class as far as learning some responsibility, handling money, ordering, scheduling, marketing and face-to-face sales.
“They seem to really enjoy the class as third level students who have really bought into entrepreneurship. Ultimately, we want kids to have the skill set that if they choose to start their own business they’re able to do that.”