YEA! Program Holds Investor Panel

YEA! students await their turn to present their business plan to investors.

Warren County High School Young Entrepreneurs Academy students gathered in the WCHS media center Tuesday morning to pitch their business ideas to a panel of investors.  Joining the students and investors was a large audience of parents, community members and students for the special occasion.

Investor, Dan Crumpton, questions a
student entrepreneur.

 The day marked the culmination of months of hard work preparing monthly and yearly cost analysis, sales projections, marketing plans, competition analysis, and plans for the future.  Students had six minutes to pitch their ideas to investors in the hopes of receiving the needed funds to get their business off the ground.  Investors then had the opportunity to ask questions of each entrepreneur.

The investor panel included business people from the Warren County community and included Dan Crumpton, Tommy Phelps, and Allen Shapiro.  Each investor volunteered to invest their own money into the student businesses.  Carl Haywood of the Warrenton Clipper served as the emcee for the event and Michael Huebener provided technical support.

Student businesses included Flight T.V., an internet broadcasting company that is focused on high school sports.  Flight T.V. is owned and operated by Ed'Ricus Williams and Tianca Evans.  Tyjah's TLC is owned by Tyjah Hill and is a business that provides child care at special events.  Higher Emphasis is a decorating service owned by Aquala Pritchard.  Cortez Wentz and Tobias Wentz also presented the business plan for their company, Exposure.  Exposure produces highlight films for high school athletes.  Matthews Peters presented his business plan for Image-N-Nation, a business that sells orginal artwork.  The final presentors of the day were Quantesha Boykin and Deborah Spence pitching their plan for Dupree's Cleaning Services.

The investors were also given the task of choosing one business to represent Warren County at a national gathering of student entrepreneurs.  Tyjah Hill was chosen to receive an all expense paid trip to the University of Rochester and will present her business plan at the yearly Saunders Scholars Bright Ideas Business Plan Competition.  At the competition, students will compete for scholarship money as well as the opportunity to present their business at Imagine RIT:  Festival of Innovation.

WCHS teacher, Scott Swann

The program closed with both Mrs. O.B. McCorkle and Mr. Scott Swann thanking everyone involved for their participation.  Mr. Swann especially thanked the Chamber of Commerce and community.  Swann stated, "Last year during an advisory board meeting, I expressed a desire to get the community more involved in the Entrepreneurship class.  Little did I know how much Mrs. McCorkle would get involved."  The YEA! program is a partnership between chambers of commerce and schools across the country.  "There is no way this program could have experienced this level of success without the involvement of the community," added Swann.

Students will now begin work implementing their business plans.  Each student went to work during class the next day to develop lists of potential suppliers and customers.  They also began work on plans to contact potential customers.