3A My Entrepreneurship Experience

I've been surrounded by entrepreneurship my entire life. Both of my parents are entrepreneurs, especially my dad (definitely think he's considered a serial entrepreneur). My dad especially owns a variety of different things ranging from contraction companies to bars/restaurants/ and night clubs and even has a few patented items. He has been self-employed essentially my entire life, has had really successful businesses and ideas and some really not. I believe my parents being entrepreneurs is what led me to be (kind of) one. At a young age I was always doing things to make money, but I wanted to stand out. Where kids did lemonade stands, I made my own special juice, I call it that it was basically Gatorade, and went out to the trail where people in my neighborhood jogged and sold it to them. I sold t-shirts, bracelets, and when those silly bands things were popular & banned in my school I would sneak them in and sell them to people. 

There was a game everyone played when I was in 4th grade called Poptropica, and when people got stuck on a level, I would charge $10 and complete it for them- just looking up how to do it on YouTube if I didn't already know. Then in high school I joined the Young Entrepreneurship Association, who worked with the Sarasota chamber of commerce and helped me start up my own non-profit organization. This was a great experience because it was like an 8 week long course where you learn the ins and outs of setting up a business. They had speakers come in every week to discuss different aspects of starting a business or creating products. I had to create and entire business plan and pitch the idea to a panel of investors. They also worked with local entrepreneurs who came in and each individual student got a mentor specifically selected based on what their business idea was. My mentor was the lady who ran the boys and girls club and it was so incredibly helpful, especially starting a non-profit she helped with setting up all the taxing and filing things. 

All of this, with my love for the show Shark Tank, has made entrepreneurship something I'm really fascinated with. Before starting college, I didn't think there was a class for it, as my experiences with it never really involved someone being taught how to be an entrepreneur, so that's why I took this class. I've been exposed to a lot of entrepreneurship in my life, and I thought it would be really interesting and hopefully beneficial to take this course. My goal here I guess is just to learn about entrepreneurship and what to do in order to be successful at it.