By Penny Zhan
This year, Luwan’s grade 11 students learned how to be young entrepreneurs as part of an entrepreneurship unit for Mr. Berg’s ELL class. They conducted their own market research, wrote down their own business plans, made their own marketing materials, created prototypes / designs and pitched it all to mock investors, outlining the uniqueness of their particular product or service.
On December 9th, this journey finally came to an end. According to Mr. Berg, the primary goal of this project was “to give students a chance to do something that will be useful in real life” which includes “research, presentation, organization and team work skills.” He believes that these are skills that students will likely use regardless of what job they have in the future.
However, there were some bumps along this difficult journey. For example, when the students were pitching their business, the mock investors asked some challenging and unexpected questions. For example, Benjamin’s team faced the following question from Elyn: “Why should I invest in your business considering the obviously high risk?” Sharon’s group faced similar difficulties. For example, they were asked what would stop others from just copying their idea. Their answer wasn’t strong enough to satisfy the “Sharks”.
Nonetheless, this project still had some good effects. Approximately 85% of the students in this class were actually inspired by this “Shark Tank” project, and their interest in entrepreneurship has increased. Sharon said that although she won’t choose Business as a major in university, she will still try to be an entrepreneur if she finds a chance.
Another influence also came from this experience. Unpredictable and tough obstacles came one after another. When they were researching details about their business they had to call people in the real world who are already a part of the relevant industry. “In this case”, Sharon said, “it’s hard to communicate with them professionally as we are only students.” In addition, the students didn’t have a solid background in the industry they were researching. As a result, they had difficulty dealing with the problems they encountered. This elicited deep thoughts from the students regarding the difficulties of the business world.
“The world is not as easy as I thought,” said George. “Our business has strong competitors and requires a huge loan to start. It makes me think of my parents. Their work environment isn’t any easier than ours.” Jerry Li, his partner in this project, added, “I think we should be less rebellious at home as our parents have already gone through very difficult work days.”
In summary, this project is a small experience before the students’ enter into society. They might not be entrepreneurs in the future, but at least they tried in high school and got a little taste of the bitter sweet flavor of entrepreneurship.