Growing up, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in life. I hustled around the neighborhood as a kid selling chocolate bars, trading and selling Pokemon cards, as well as action figures and card games. I dog-sat, housesat, mowed lawns, landscaped, sold candy in school, bought and sold shoes, and worked the system on those little school fund raisers where you can earn prizes or money. This didn’t stop by the time I got into high school. At one point, I bought wholesale accessories from Ali-Baba to sell to my friends at school. By the time I was a senior, teachers were starting to get mad at me for having my phone out in class to trade penny stocks. I just felt my time was better spent learning real world curriculum instead of learning many things I would never use.
But to back up a little bit, when I was 16 years old, some friends and I went through a business class that began to teach us entrepreneurial processes. I came up with a great idea for an athletic shoe company. I figured that if we could make a track & field shoe that had a removable sole, track athletes would’t have the need to buy and change into different kinds of track shoes. This launched us into a year long process of R & D, patent research, 3D models, and meeting with engineers and lawyers. We did a couple of pitches to local sharks about the idea (and received a bit of funding) and did everything we could to launch this company. However, when we got to the final prototyping, we needed too much capital to continue for our product.
Then, when I was 17 years old, I tried and failed to launch an e-commerce business. I had gotten my DBA and written up a long business plan, but I failed to see some complications in the e-commerce industry. I knew I could make something special, though, so I re-evaluated what I was doing and pivoted. I ended up building a social and personalized shopping platform/service called “Blu-Buy” to make shopping easier by helping consumers save time while purchasing online.
By this time, I realized that the traditional educational model wasn’t ideal for me, and I struggled with the idea of four years of college cuuriculum. Luckily, I happened to be at a Foundation of Economic Education conference in St.Louis, when one of the speakers was promoting a program called Praxis. I started looking very seriously at this option instead of college and kept it in mind. When the time came to figure out my next steps, I applied to Praxis and got accepted. Now, I am starting an incredible entrepreneurial experience that will help shape my future. This is how I am stepping aside from the common way of doing things. This is how I’m Breaking the Mold.