When I started TREP$, I knew I wanted to do something that was interactive. My mom and I talked about possible ideas and she reminded me about a stand at one of our favorite festivals called the Lunar Faire. The stand is called the Spell Jar Bar. At the spell jar bar, people can choose items such as crystals, herbs, and flowers to create their own custom spell jar. I have always liked the idea of good luck charms, so I came up with a similar idea to have customers create their own good luck charm. At my table, I had stations set up- one with crystals, one with inspirational word charms, one with different charms and one with different colored lanyards to attach them to. I helped customers choose one item from each station to make their own good luck charm that they could hang on their backpack, purse, or in their car.
I loved doing the marketplace because I enjoyed interacting with people. It felt good helping customers choose the pieces for their good luck charm. Seeing everyone be so excited over my idea made me very happy. My table was so busy, that my sister had to help customers as well. It was unexpected, but I ended up hiring my sister as my employee. She also really enjoyed helping customers and is looking forward to doing TREP$ next year. I enjoyed being able to have little conversations with my customers while I was helping them. We talked about how they were enjoying the marketplace and shared some ideas about what charms they should choose. It felt good to encourage them to pick charms they liked and showing them what we had available.
I learned a lot about business during the marketplace. I learned that business can be fun and that a lot of the customers I met were very kind and open minded. I learned that it is possible to make money doing something that is fun and that I enjoy. I think I interacted with customers very well and was really good at helping them choose their charms. I also feel I was good at making change and handling the money. I would like to improve my business by coming up with some more ideas to make it fresh and interesting. I am taking some time off to think of what else I could do to make my business better, but I may restart this business when I am older.
I am proud of what I accomplished and that I made enough money to pay my sister as well as myself. I am looking forward to helping my sister when she does the TREP$ marketplace next year. I would like to encourage everyone reading this who has a fun idea to try turning it into a business!
In summary, I really enjoyed all of the TREP$ Workshops and the Marketplace. It was a super fun and encouraging journey. I encourage every kid to try out TREP$ because it is a really fun, important, and memorable experience.
