Investing in Young Entrepreneurs
How Platte County High School ignited its students’ entrepreneurial dreams.
In the Platte County School District, you don’t need to wait until you have years of experience to try building your own business.
At Platte County High School, students EmmaLyn Burnett, Lucy McClain and Katherine Morgan won the inaugural PCHS Aspiring Entrepreneurs competition. Each demonstrated exceptional innovation, philanthropy and creativity in their plans for their own business enterprises.
Plus, the three winners each received $10,000 to invest in the businesses they started.
This competition did not consider grades or test scores. Instead, qualities like hard work, generosity, focusing on the future and creative problem solving took precedence.
“We had a donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, approach the superintendent about starting this,” said Brian Noller, director of strategic partnerships for Platte County School District. “He had a dream and a passion to do this. It was things like hustle, determination, working hard and being creative that got him through, and these intangibles led to his success.”
As it happens, those traits are part of PCHS’ portrait of a graduate, which identifies the skills the school tries to teach each student to prepare them to succeed after graduation.
“There’s a buzz about those skills,” Noller said. “As a result, we’re creating some cool pathways through integrating them in our curriculum.”
Fifteen students applied for the competition, and Burnett, McClain and Morgan were among 10 students who advanced to the next round. Then the competition selected five finalists, and each of them received $1,000 to develop their entrepreneurial concepts into actual, viable, start-up businesses and then present their progress to a panel of judges from the community.
Throughout the process, all the students worked with advisors from their chosen industry, as well as with interested community members, teachers and each other. After presenting their proposals, they worked with the same group to sharpen them for the next round, all while taking the first steps to execute their business plans.
Originally, the plan was to select only two students for the $10,000 prizes, but in the end, the proposals were so strong, the anonymous benefactor added a third prize.
“The fact that they were willing to write another $10,000 check just tells you they have faith in our students,” said Mikyla Murphy, PCHS post-secondary advisor, who helped administer the program. “This is huge for anyone. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, but even bigger is the skills they developed from doing this, the people they got to meet, and that they were allowed to see things from a real-world perspective.
“This really encouraged everyone who participated that this is a path they could take to be successful,” Murphy continued. “Sometimes we get stuck in a rut and think that there’s only one way of meeting our goals, when in fact there are a lot of different ways of getting there.”
Wonder Twins Welding
EmmaLyn Burnett came up with the winning idea for Wonder Twins Welding because she thought it would be a good side hustle to do with her twin brother, Ian, who learned to weld at the Northland Career Center.
“I was originally supposed to do this with my twin brother, but he lost interest,” Burnett said. “He didn’t see the vision of it.”
But despite only having basic welding instruction under her belt, she was sure she could get Wonder Twins Welding up and running.
“I’m a little delusional,” Burnett said. “I think I can do anything.”
When most people think about welding they think of things like metal joints or bridges. When Burnett thinks about welding, it’s hand-made jewelry, napkin rings or metal roses. Her inspiration comes from all over.
“I usually see stuff and think I can figure out a way to make it with a welder,” Burnett said. “It normally works out.”
Wonder Twins Welding isn’t the first thing Burnett decided to try that worked out. A couple of years ago she decided to join the PCHS wrestling team at mid-season.
“I randomly woke up one day and I thought, ‘I want to wrestle,’” she said. “After my first practice, I fell in love.”
As of this writing, Burnett is ranked third in the state in the women’s 125-pound weight class. Burnett plans to use part of the profits from Wonder Twins Welding in the future to sponsor a women’s weight class.
Burnett is currently reviewing offers from schools to wrestle but knows her participation in Aspiring Entrepreneurs will help when she starts college.
“You do learn a lot,” she said. “All I did was gain experience and knowledge. With all the work I put in, I learned a lot. It was a good experience.”
And when she found out she was one of the three people to win $10,000?
“I was ecstatic,” Burnett said. “I was also in disbelief.”
Yours Truly
Lucy McClain found inspiration for her winning business in her wardrobe.
McClain started Yours Truly, a company that will manufacture bras for younger women with large bust sizes. For years, McClain and her mother have struggled to find stylish and comfortable bras.
“If you go to places like Victoria’s Secret, their sizes only go up to DD,” McClain said. “I wear an H cup, and even adult stores don’t cover that.”
Usually, young women with large bust sizes will only find bras in their size at department stores, where the styles are aimed at older women.
“There’s a severe lack of choices in the market,” McClain said. “And that’s where Yours Truly comes in.”
McClain approached her project like a chief executive officer. She hired Wisconsin designer Natalie Gruentzel after seeing her work and connecting with her on Instagram. They are currently in the third phase of a prototype. “Once we get our MVP (most valuable product) we will send patterns to a factory in Guadalajara, Mexico,” said McClain.
The factory, operated by Christian Media International (CMI), will do all the production and shipping. All profit they make from Yours Truly and others who use CMI goes to operating orphanages in Guadalajara and other cities in Mexico.
Yours Truly will start as an e-commerce business, and if all goes well, perhaps it will move into mainstream retailers. “It would be cool if it got to that point, but for right now I’m concentrating on our website and launch.”
While McClain admits that beauty and fashion standards change, she believes Yours Truly will be able to keep up with the market. She always believed that, and that’s why she took the opportunity to enter the Aspiring Entrepreneurs program.
“I thought I had a really good chance,” McClain said. “I had a great team behind me to be mentors and guide me. I knew I had a leg up with that. I think the one thing that stood out from others was that it was more humanitarian-based. Everything about Yours Truly is based on helping people, especially young women.
“I was confident, but sitting down in Mr. Knoller’s office and being told you won $10,000 for something you’re so passionate about was definitely a shock,” she continued. “I’m beyond excited.”
Junior Cutie’s House of Beauty
Katherine Morgan started on the path to her winning business very early in life.
“Ever since I was little, I would run into the bathroom, because that’s where my mom’s makeup was,” Morgan remembers. “I would lock myself in the bathroom for hours just playing with it.”
Morgan, who splits her time daily between PCHS and the Academy of Hair Design and Beauty in Smithville, has dreamed for a long time of opening a salon. In fact, she came up with the name when she was still young.
“My sister and I would answer the phone with ‘House of Beauty, this is Cutie, how may I help you?’” she said. “Since I was the younger sister, I just became Junior Cutie.”
Morgan supports the PCHS drama department with hair and makeup for productions like “The Addams Family” and “The Servant of Two Masters,” and she was in charge of hair for “The Little Mermaid.” She won a Blue Star drama award for Outstanding Hair and Makeup Design, besting 53 other schools in the Kansas City region.
“It was kind of nerve-wracking,” Morgan said. “Hearing your school’s name announced was, ‘wow!’”
Murphy encouraged her to enter the Aspiring Entrepreneurs program.
“Ms. Murphy was asking what I wanted to do after high school when she told me about the entrepreneurs program and told me I should apply,” Morgan said. “I did not expect to win. I thought it would be a good experience.”
After seeing her presentation, one of the Aspiring Entrepreneurs judges arranged for Morgan to shadow the makeup artists with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. That led her to work on makeup for the independent film “The Last Parable.”
The dream of opening her salon remains. And it goes beyond hair and makeup. Morgan wants to develop her own line of beauty products: Junior Cutie’s Secret Beauty.
“My parents really pushed me to pursue my goals and dreams and to do what I want to do,” Morgan said. “My mom wasn’t happy that I messed around with her makeup, but she probably doesn’t mind as much now.”