My name is Kayleigh and I attend Stanlick School in Jefferson Twp. I really enjoyed coming up with the idea, making my product and then selling it in the marketplace! I thought a long time about a product that might fill a need in the market. I decided to create my earbud holders because I was constantly losing my own earbuds and when I did find them, they were all tangled up! I thought my product would solve this problem for my friends and me.
I chose this particular design because girls and boys both like tacos! At first I wanted to make two designs, one for boys and one for girls. But my mom and I thought that producing and marketing two designs would be less efficient, and we thought more girls than boys might buy them.
We did have a few trouble-spots along the way. Originally I planned on using extra-strength fabric glue to hold everything together. That worked, except for the snaps that closed the earbud holder. I finally decided we needed to sew the snaps on and hide the stitching. That worked perfectly, but took more time.
I was also debating whether to make just one product or offer a variety of tech accessories like iPad and iPhone holders. In the end I made several different products to have a more complete set of offerings for my shop. Unfortunately, the other products had a higher price point, were not as cute and didn’t have the same story behind them as my earbud holders. I learned a valuable lesson – you have to have a story in order to really sell your product!
It was so exciting to be selling my product at the Marketplace. I was nervous doing my first sales pitch, but I got the hang of it quickly! We sold out of earbuds within 20 minutes!
Unfortunately, I did not make much profit because I lost money on the other products that didn’t have a story (iPad/iPhone cases). But I learned so much about creating a business! I’m really glad I joined TREP$!
