My name is Emily and I am in 5th grade at Unity Charter School. When I first heard of TREP$ in my school, I was so excited to make my own product and sell it! The first idea I had for TREP$ was to make slime or origami animals. But then I went to the store and bought some bouncy clay just to play with, and that gave me an idea. That idea was to make homemade bouncy balls.
I knew I wanted to make bouncy balls but I had a few ideas for it. Like if the people buying should make their own bouncy balls at the table or give them clay in a bag to go home and make their own creation. This was one of the hardest parts of making my product, but then my mom helped me sort things out and we chose to just sell our own bouncy balls.
The next thing we had to do was figure out a name. At first I could not figure out a name that fits in with bouncy balls. The first name that I had made up was smallz ballz, which now at this point seems like a terrible name. Choosing the name was also a really hard part of the process. But then I thought of the name Reusa-balls. I was not so sure about that name at first, but I was kind of into it. So I eventually said yes to that name. I named the bouncy ball that because they last for a long time and they are reusable.
The next thing I had to do was figure out something to package it in. At first I was thinking about putting them in tiny snack bags, then I went to the dollar store to get some. But then I thought about a better and unique idea that would make my product stand out. That idea was packaging the bouncy balls in Easter eggs, I thought of that because we had a little over one hundred eggs from our past Easter egg hunts. It seemed fun and festive because they were all different colors and there was a surprise in ball in each one. Also because I would be reusing the Easter eggs.
The next thing we had to do was figure out how we were going to make the bouncy balls, like what colors will I combine, should we put anything on it and what size should they be. I had a hard time figuring that out but then I found some of that out. We decided to put all different sizes in each egg so that it would be a surprise also I thought it would be really hard to make all of the balls the same size. There were four colors in the containers pink, purple, green and orange. So just like the size of the ball we were going to make all the colors random. And to make my product stand out more I added pink and orange glitter to most of the bouncy balls.
After I was done deciding on the stuff for my product, I had to decide on the decorations and a sign. I made the sign and my mom helped me after that we took a hang-up decoration from the store and it had all the letters we needed. Then we got some balloons that we blew up at the TREP$ Marketplace.
One last thing that I had to do was figure out the price and since the bouncy balls were tiny and not very expensive to make I made them one dollar each. So people won’t have to think twice about buying them because it’s so inexpensive.
Next to make sure my product was good I test-marketed with my friends and teachers at my school. I told them “Say you just bought this for a dollar, are you happy with it and do you like it?” most of my friends and teachers said yes. I think would do TREP$ again, but something I think I would do better next time is having deals like three balls for two dollars. Also making something more people would like to buy or something is that even more fun to play with.
I learned how to manage money and give change to people and have better social skills. Even if you did not earn a lot of money I think it was a really great and fun experience. What I plan to do with the money I earned is donating it to the Denville police department because they keep my hometown safe.
Note: Emily participated in the TREP$ entrepreneurship education program as enrichment, right at school. This extracurricular activity is a PBL (project based learning) experience that helps kids gain an entrepreneurial mindset, financial literacy and life skills to prepare them for and improve their futures.
