Willow Glen Resident
Education
Students present a plan, and they mean business
Rotary Clubs host retreat for juniors
By Michele Leung
Wireless hairdryers and cordless televisions may seem more like what the Jetsons would use, but budding entrepreneurs are showing that with the right business idea, the future may not be so far off.
Eight local high school juniors who participated in the Enterprise Leadership Conference won first place with their business plan for Un-leash, a product they came up with that provides wireless electricity.
The conference is an annual three-day retreat in March in Pacific Grove for high school juniors with an interest in business. The event is sponsored by the Rotary Clubs of San Jose and Los Gatos and the Los Gatos Morning Rotary Club. For placing first, their prize was to put on an encore presentation of their business plan for the Rotary Club of San Jose.
"These are the youth that have initiative and want to do something special in life," said Margo Sidener, co-chairwoman of the committee that organized the conference. "We try to have students understand various things involved in running a business, what it takes to have a product and distribute it."
The organizers also stressed business ethics and giving back to the community.
Students who attend the conference are placed on teams and have three days to come up with a business plan for a new product they think up. They become the backbone of a startup company and have to address marketing, finances and human resources. The majority of the participants are intentionally put into groups with students they don't know, but working toward a common goal with strangers can be a bonding experience.
"I came out with 70 friends," said John Forbes of Los Gatos High School, who was on the winning team.
John wants to work for himself and make his own decisions. "I want to pursue my passion," he said. "I understand what it takes to make a startup."
John's role in the simulated startup company that makes Un-leash was to be in charge of human resources.
"I learned that when you're working with a lot of people, everyone needs to be positive," he said. "There will be problems and quarrels. It was a high-pressure situation."
The students said it was a lot of hard work with little sleep. Son Chau of San Jose's Willow Glen High School said because there were strict rules about turning off the lights at midnight and keeping the girls and guys separated after lights-out, the Un-leash team had to get creative.
"We were so desperate," he said. "We went into the bathroom. There were three guys in the tub. The girls were in a separate room."
Son likened the business challenge to a game of survival of the fittest. "The reason why we worked so hard is because business is so competitive," he said. "We had to adapt to the competition."
The organizers supplied the teams with laptops and materials to create posters for their presentations, which Rotary members and business professionals evaluated. A group that proposed a lotion that can raise body temperature where it is applied came in second, and the third-place group suggested a device that transcribes played musical notes into written notes.
The Un-leash team members said until they went on stage, they were still deciding on how to walk up and what to say in their presentation. It wasn't the smoothest performance of all the groups, they said, but their enthusiasm for what they were selling paid off.
"I loved being on stage and presenting," said Ashley Tovar, also of Willow Glen. "I didn't want to leave."
April Borges of Lincoln High School in San Jose was ecstatic to hear her team won. She had thought Un-leash wouldn't place at all. "When they called us and our idea, it was out there," she said.
Now, she has her sights set on business management, following in her father's footsteps.
Ashley, too, found attending the conference confirmed her interest in business, and now she has an eye toward the fashion industry.
"Now I know I want to do marketing," she said. "This is going to help me in the future."
