08/ 01/ 2008
For the more than 400 winners of this year’s NFIB Young Entrepreneur Awards, high school is about more than chemistry tests and prom dates. These impressive young people launched businesses, developed products and services, and found innovative ways to market themselves--all while maintaining good grades.
For the sixth year in a row, the NFIB Young Entrepreneur Foundation is pleased to recognize their accomplishments by awarding $1,000 in tuition assistance to the university, college, community college or vocational/technical institute of their choice. This year marked the highest number of entries so far, and the number of awards has grown, too, thanks to sponsors like Visa, The McKelvey Foundation, Sam’s Club and individual NFIB members.
Receiving a $10,000 award, Peter Crabtree of Kingston, Wash., is the 2008 NFIB/Visa Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Four finalists received $5,000 awards. Keep reading to learn more about Crabtree and YEF’s finalists. Look for the other winners in Washington, D.C., and your state in your MyVoice newsletter, included in this issue. To see a complete list of winners, go to www.NFIB.com/yef.
NFIB/Visa Young Entrepreneur of the Year
Peter Crabtree
CBC Chocolates
After a brief introduction to fine chocolates in a culinary arts class at his high school, Peter Crabtree was hooked. Not only did he love the challenge of creating (and tasting) new flavors, he knew he had discovered a sweet way to fund his college education. "With the rising costs, I decided that in order to fund my education, I’d need a more innovative strategy than savings alone," he says. So in 2005, Crabtree and two friends launched Kingston, Wash.-based CBC Chocolates.
At first, they sold their candies at a local farmers’ market, test-marketing new flavors and constantly tweaking recipes. By the end of the summer, his two friends were tired of the chocolate-making business, so Crabtree purchased their shares of the equipment they’d bought together.
Striking out on his own, he decided to capitalize on their successful summer at the farmers’ market and negotiated a deal with a local grocery store to carry his products. A few years of steady wholesale orders allowed him to open a dedicated storefront in 2007 called Café Sospeso.
Surviving in the chocolate industry isn’t as sweet as it sounds, Crabtree says. Innovation is crucial. "There are a lot of chocolate producers, and most of them have products that are largely indistinguishable from one another," he says. "To be successful in this market, I knew the chocolates I produced had to be unique."
Crabtree differentiates himself by incorporating regional flavors into his candies, using locally produced wine and scotch as key ingredients. "By producing such unique products, we were able to find our niche," he says.
When Crabtree opened the cafe, he decided to branch out from chocolate and also offer coffee and espresso drinks. The new menu items meant investments in additional equipment, but Crabtree thinks the move was a good one because it brings in more traffic and complements his signature product.
He also has concentrated efforts on his retail Web site, but admits advertising can be expensive. Still, he’s shipped orders to Texas and New York and hopes to expand online even more.
Crabtree plans to study business at Seattle University this fall, but his passion for chocolate isn’t subsiding. He wants to continue to expand his product line as well as open three more cafes within the next two years.
Regional winners
Jim Cerenzie
XcellSports.com
Jim Cerenzie never imagined the eBay account he opened when he was 12 years old would be the start of a business that would one day fund his college education. He started by selling used items around the house, and when he ran out of things to sell, he decided to look for new inventory. After hours of online research, Cerenzie found a wholesale sporting goods company selling new bats for a reduced rate because they were the previous year’s model. Cerenzie bought 10 and turned a quick profit on the bats--and his business, Spanish Fork, Utah-based XcellSports.com, was born. In the past five years, he’s sold more than 25,000 new older-model sports items for a profit of around $90,000.
"I own two newer cars, a trailer, a dirt bike, three computers and have an extensive stock portfolio," he says. "All of these have been purchased with the profits from my business and are not gifts from my parents like most of my friends’ possessions."
His future plans: Cerenzie is thinking globally, which is why he plans to study international business at California State University, Long Beach. After college, he hopes to expand his business to become an international sporting goods distribution company.
Jacob Lindemann
360 Board Shop
Two years ago, the city of Manitowoc, Wis., was abuzz with news that a new skateboarding park was being built. An enthusiast himself, Jacob Lindemann was excited about the possibilities--but he also noticed a big opportunity.
"I realized there wasn’t a skateboard shop within 35 miles of the park in any direction," Lindemann says. So he decided to open 360 Board Shop just two miles from the park entrance--and in less than two years the skateboarder-turned-entrepreneur has tripled his sales.
Superior customer service has been the key to his growth. His shop carries more than 150 skate decks and 60 different sets of wheels--a larger inventory than most. And Lindemann offers to meet customers at the store after-hours if their boards break and they want to buy another one. To gain more exposure, Lindemann teaches skateboard camps and helps the local park with fundraising. "Spreading the word is sometimes the best way to advertise," he says.
His future plans: Lindemann feels like he’s found his passion. He plans to study business and entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In the future, he hopes to own a chain of skateboard shops and expand into snowboarding retail as well.
Eric Knudson
Serve It Up
Eric Knudson used to teach tennis lessons at a local country club that charged members $70 an hour. But when the Maryland teenager noticed the expensive hourly rates meant only certain people could afford the game, he decided to find a way to bring tennis to the masses.
Working with a friend, Knudson founded Boyds, Md.-based Serve It Up, providing affordable lessons at local public courts to adults and children in the Montgomery Country, Md., and Washington, D.C., areas.
"We offer a unique approach to tennis that clients don’t find at their local club," Knudson says. "Our approach is that a new student should play to learn rather than learn to play. Our philosophy emphasizes fun and social interaction to keep kids and adults interested in the game."
Knudson keeps overhead low by hiring other teenagers as instructors. He currently has 20 coaches--one is even a member of the Olympics team for Belgium.
For the first two years of business, Knudson and his partner reinvested 80 percent of their profits. This disciplined strategy, along with bootstrap moves like building his own Web site, helped the team grow the business to where it is today. More than 700 clients have passed through Serve It Up’s system.
His future plans: Knudson plans to manage his business from afar when he moves to California to attend Stanford University this fall. To minimize errors and save time, he’s moved the business’ financial infrastructure online, using PayPal to manage payments from clients and to employees.
John Kirkpatrick
ZeroPricetags
Most people think scam when they see those "Free iPod!" ads pop up on Web sites--but not John Kirkpatrick. Instead, the 18-year-old saw a way to fund his college education. A year-and-a-half ago, Kirkpatrick launched ZeroPricetags, an incentive marketing firm that helps large corporations find customer leads online.
Companies like Blockbuster, Netflix and Video Professor pay advertisers to locate potential leads, offering samples, trials and other promotions. Kirkpatrick developed an online system to manage this process, and his role as the middleman has earned him $650,000 in revenue since starting his business.
One of the biggest challenges in his field is detecting and avoiding fraudulent customers. Advertisers only want names of those legitimately interested in their products or services. "This is one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome because scam artists and identity thieves can come to sites from all angles," Kirkpatrick says. Once he had to hire a fraud detection specialist to stop a group of Vietnamese users who were posing as U.S. users in order to steal identities and credit cards from the Web site.
His future plans: Kirkpatrick wants to maintain his site when he starts as a freshman at Wake Forest University in North Carolina next fall. But he knows a college curriculum will demand more time, so he’s already training an assistant to help him run the site.
This article is from the August/September 2008 issue of MyBusiness.
