Students learn startups fragile
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
After more than 20 years of teaching, Carol Ann Dickson was tired of watching University of Hawai'i students come up with business plans that had little chance of succeeding and almost no hope of becoming reality.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
So she decided she would teach a class in business startups in the fall only if the students actually started a business.
University of Hawai'i students Nathan Miranda, a senior, and Darcy Young, a junior, have carried on a project for Carol Ann Dickson's business startup class, Balloon Professor, a business that sells balloons filled with gifts.
Suddenly, Balloon Professor was born.
Over the course of a semester, four UH students sold balloons, made ballon bouquets and filled balloons with teddy bears and anthuriums for prices ranging from $1 to $25.
They sold them at UH for Boss' Day and at graduation. They made mistakes, struggled and eventually generated a few hundred dollars in sales while learning that running a startup business takes more hours than they had imagined.
This semester, only two of the original four students remain.
Nathan Miranda, 23, a liberal studies senior, and Darcy Young, a 28-year-old junior in applied apparel product design and merchandising, believe their business is breaking even. They and Dickson — "Dr. D" — hope a new group of students will keep the business going in the fall.
"It's an opportunity you don't come across every day," Miranda said. "It's a good thing for kids to do, to actually get in there and run a business yourself."
Both Miranda and Young hope to run businesses some day. Young wants to design and sell dresses. Miranda's not sure what he'll focus on. But both are certain they'll be ahead because of their experience with Balloon Professor.
The idea originated with Dickson, who had a fondness for balloons over flowers as gifts. "They're happy and they last longer than flowers," she said.
She told the students they could devise their own businesses, but they liked her idea because it seemed to have low overhead and potentially high profits. She invested about $3,000 to buy balloons, ribbons and two tanks of compressed helium.
A business professor who teaches merchandising, Dickson joked that the investment was made for selfish reasons. "I do that to get kids interested in business, and in particular being entrepreneurs," she said. "If I do a good job, my golden years will be golden: These are the people that are contributing to my Social Security."
The students invested $200 of their money, then sat back and waited for the proceeds to roll in.
Then reality hit.
They hoped to get 20 orders for their first big event, Boss' Day in October. They made three sales.
At winter graduation, they set up a sales table outside the wrong exit at the Stan Sheriff Center, missing hundreds of potential customers. Instead of ringing up huge sales, they sold $90 worth of mostly single balloons.
"I knew something had to be done," Miranda said. "We needed better planning."
They got help at the UH Campus Center breaking down their costs. Miranda and Young said they had no idea, for instance, that the typical balloon costs about 6 cents but consumes 40 cents worth of helium.
They put up fliers around campus advertising their business. Miranda, then a resident adviser in the UH dorms, pushed balloons for dorm parties.
On Valentine's Day, they filled one of Dickson's offices with inflated balloons and waited for customers to pour in.
"We got a few customers," Young said, "but the balloons were basically sitting here."
So they gathered up bunches of balloons and took them to customers, bringing in $700 at the end of the day to cover nearly $300 worth of balloons, ribbons and helium.
"We could finally pay our bills," Young said.
Now they're planning for Secretary's Day on April 23 and thinking about expanding to high-school proms and birthday parties. They'd like to sell huge balloon arches for UH events.
"Before I start my own business, I'm definitely going to do more research on how much things are going to cost before I start spending money," Miranda said. "I also need a better marketing plan — know who I'm selling to and what the best way to sell to them would be."
Young also learned a few lessons.
"Now, when I think of balloons," she said, "I don't think of fun. I think of hard work."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
