By Heather Lusk
A group of nine students from Zionsville Community High School had the opportunity to pick the brains of several entrepreneurs at zWORKS for a special lunch and learn March 11.
These students are among 60 who are part of a ZCHS class taught by Johnathan Grismore. In the midst of creating business plans for their course, many students took the opportunity to learn what an entrepreneur might face when starting a business.
zWORKS, the co-working space on Zionsville’s Cedar Street, is home base for more than a dozen startup businesses.
The students asked the entrepreneurs questions about receiving assistance for financial projections, how to overcome competition and how to know when to continue with their idea or abandon it.
“We’ve got all this experience of what to do and what not to do,” said zWORKS Co-founder Dan Moyers. “Anything we can do to promote entrepreneurship at any level.”
“I think this will help figuring out how to actually implement (my business plan),” said senior Michelle Stallman of the discussion. “It was really informative.”
“People get into startups for two reasons – one is to fix a problem and the other is to make a lot of money,” said Jon Gillman, owner of Clear Software. “If you get into it to make a lot of money, you will probably fail. If you get into it to fix a problem, you will probably succeed.”
The teens were also reminded that they don’t need to find an original product but could instead find a way to improve an existing one.
“The first person to market has monumental educational costs,” said Ken Minturn, owner of Kinji. “If you can use (other’s experiences) right, it can be a huge benefit.”
At the end of the discussion Moyers suggested that this dialogue take place on a quarterly basis.
“This has been an incredible experience,” he said.