Enterprising Students

By Emily Race

While many students patron thrift stores for inexpensive, unique fashions, most shop to supply their own wardrobes. However, Andrew Rosenberg and Phil Patrie didn’t when they purchased about 250 tee shirts to sell on campus. The two went to 12 different Goodwills and Salvation Army stores all over Anderson, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne. They then washed the shirts and priced them between $2 and $5. Rosenberg and Patrie set up tables in the below-ground patio in Decker Hall for the day-long sale. “I didn’t expect to make much money,” confesses Patrie. “I had hoped to break even and net good shirts for myself.” By the end of the day, however, the entrepreneurs had sold almost 200 shirts, making about $200 in profits. “We were overwhelmed with the response,” says Rosenberg. “We had almost recouped our expenses within the first couple of hours.” Now they enjoy seeing students wearing shirts that they picked out.

Amy Myers didn’t set out to create a new product, but she did. “I had never seen a muff before. I’m from Florida; I didn’t even know what a muff was,” Myers explains. When she tried duplicating what she saw on TV for a gift, she inadvertently invented something new. While old-fashioned muffs are like furry sleeves with satin lining, Myers’ “cozy muffs” have two pockets inside and fur lining, separating the hands while keeping them warmer. When cozy muffs attracted admiring customers, Myers made more to sell.

Now, her business Spontaneity Designs has a manufacturer in Thailand, and Myers is working on a deal with a large retailer. “After I take it to retailers, my goal is to go to the NFL,” Myers explains. She hopes to obtain licenses to sell cozy muffs with NFL and NCAA logos for winter sports fans. For now, however, she is establishing the cozy muff as a product in time for the next Christmas shopping season. She is optimistic about its appeal because in addition to its vintage charm and the warmth it provides, Myers’ product also has Scriptural application: “Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.”

Edassa McCurdy and Anthony Bykovsky-Mahisa didn’t have time for off-campus jobs, but they both needed more money than the maximum hours for on-campus jobs yielded, so they started NeedInk. Students often complain about being out of ink for their printers and the expense of new cartridges. “But then there’s an alternative to that,” Bykovsky-Mahisa says, “and that’s what we decided to do.” Now, he and McCurdy pick up an empty cartridge, refill it, and return it to the student within a day, charging $15 for black-and-white cartridges and $17 for color cartridges. This is half of the average price of new cartridges; some students save seventy percent. Bykovsky-Mahisa and McCurdy are thinking about expanding their business after graduation, but right now NeedInk simply provides them with a convenient job that helps others. “We’re still in school,” states Bykovsky-Mahisa, “and we want to be students, too, but this is fun.”