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‘We’ll look for kids who don’t party’ — Shark Tank project gets students focused
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · January 12, 2017
“Consider yourselves like the sharks on Shark Tank,” business instructor Michelle Carter told her guest judges at the back of the West Branch High School classroom.
She then invited to the front junior Cade Aspelmeier and senior Nick Madsen to make their pitch: Asking investors to fund a rental home business geared toward college students.
The Aspelmeier-Madsen duo talked about how they first looked at buying cheaper, run-down homes and fixing them up, but that meant waiting longer before generating revenue. They also had to consider the expense of hiring contractors, which squeezed profits.
“We initially thought we’d buy fixer-uppers,” Aspelmeier told the class, “but we’d need more people to fix them up. So we decided to buy ready-to-go houses instead.”
They next looked at buying smaller homes in better condition needing little to no repair with prices ranging between $100,000 and $200,000.
Carter said allowing students the choice of business to pursue worked so well the first year it encouraged her to continue the exercise.
“Every concept learned and practiced in class was applied to the business plan of their choice,” she said. “I have had 100 percent completion of student work in this class for two years in a row!”
That choice made the project more interesting to the students, but also to her.
“All of the businesses are interesting in their own right because they reflect a genuine interest on behalf of the student,” she said.
Getting back to the budding entrepreneurs, Madsen said he and Aspelmeier want homes close to the University of Iowa campus and would be selective about who rents.
“We’ll look for kids who don’t party,” he said. “We don’t want them to trash the homes.”
They planned to ask banks for $800,000 to start their business.
Shark Tank judge and STEM Project-Based Learning Coach Kelsey Strope wanted clarification on rental details. Judge and school librarian Jennifer Olson asked about whether rent would cover utilities (No).
Carter said she changed the Shark Tank format this year after earning her certification in University of Iowa’s Jacobson Institute to become a Biz Innovator.
“I used a great deal of the same curriculum” that UI uses with its entrepreneurship students, she said. “Their focus is on solving a problem with your business while being flexible and willing to pivot along the way.”
Solving problems is one of the requirements of the project of Entrepreneurship Class, one of the high school’s dual credit courses — earning both high school and college credits.
The juniors and seniors are eligible to take an entrepreneurship exam that, if passed, gives them three college credits at UI. Carter said those are “business elective” credits for students who pursue business degrees, or “general elective” credits for those studying other fields.
And, taking the class through WBHS, the school district picks up the $150 cost for any student who passes the exam.
‘It might be as simple as lawnmowing in their community,” Carter said. “However, they have to do enough customer discovery to prove that the community has a need for lawn-mowing services.”
Students can also pursue complex businesses, she said.
“But if at any point they think their original concept can’t be carried out, they must pivot and change their idea,” the instructor said.
The amount of work and the amount of input the students have to come up with their own business draws a crowd — parents sometimes attend class to see their students’ presentations.
“The parents were excited to be directly invited to their high school student’s classroom since that doesn’t happen as often as it does in the younger grades,” Carter said. “I think their students’ own excitement and pride about having completed a semester-long project motivated them to come.”
Carter hosted the Shark Tank presentations in December at the close of the semester, just before her resignation took affect — she is following her husband out of state as he takes a new job. However, Carter believes Shark Tank will continue as she understand the incoming Entrepreneurship teacher also has Biz Innovator training.
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