After listening to guest speakers and co-founders of Flagpole Megan Balch and Jaime Barker, 17-year-old Mariona feels more determined than ever that she, too, can start her own business.
I’m really interested in innovation and entrepreneurship and in starting my own business someday, so I found Megan and Jaime’s presentation really helpful. I came here to EXPLO to get ideas and become engaged in business and this definitely accomplished that. I’ve always struggled with advertising and marketing and the speakers covered that really well. I am more clear on what people do to become successful and I can try and follow their steps now.
I was surprised that Flagpole only has six full-time employees, and that Megan and Jaime themselves handle most day-to-day issues and operations. It’s a really intimate and personal business that I wasn’t expecting. It was surprising that they were just small town girls like me — that they studied, went to college, moved to New York City, and worked hard. They’re not much different than many of us and they’ve gotten so far — I was really inspired by that. This made me realize you don’t have to have a really big business to be successful; that’s a model I’d like to follow.
I’m always thinking about new innovations and product ideas. I actually tried to start my own business already; my friends and I came up with an idea for an app that lets students resell their old textbooks to the younger students at the end of the year. I’ve already started a plan to get investors and especially in getting people to help design the app itself. That idea is just in the beginning stages, but my long-term goal is to start my own business, or maybe do it with a friend like the women from Flagpole did.
Sabrina Polin