Montreal, August 14 ­- Imagine you are a seventeen-year-old boy, your biggest concern being the newest Super Smash Bros. game which had just been released earlier that winter, when suddenly, you are tasked with selling stocks, handling food, and running a business making thousands in revenue… with no experience whatsoever. This is the situation I found myself in during my final year of high school. As part of my economics class, we all participated in a “Student Stock Exchange,” a 2-month program designed to simulate a real business environment by selling a product of the students’ choosing. After reminiscing with a friend recently, I reflected on my experience and realized how much of a foundation was set during this time for my eventual business education. 

The SSX Concept

The Student Stock Exchange Competition initiative began at my high school in coordination with our economics department to give students a taste of what running and operating a business is like. Its goal was to offer students a chance to experience money management, client relations, and a high-stakes business environment. While the students would not be allowed to keep any of the money they made, the money would be donated to a charity of their choosing, and their performance in the competition would directly correlate to their grades. The highest earners would enter a pitch-style competition in front of judges to see who would be proclaimed the winner of the event. Over two months, students were to design a product, which was more often than not something food-related, market the product, and ultimately sell it in April. To obtain funding, students had a chance to sell “stocks” to other students and would have to construct a booth by hand to sell the product in our school’s gym. It isn’t uncommon for this competition to consume the lives of the students participating, with many students sneakily working on their projects in other classes!

Our “Company”

My group, comprised of my classmates and friends, decided to create a company that would sell “blizzard-style” ice cream, similar to Dairy Queen. We were deliberating between ice cream, and sandwiches, and offering a selection of dried meats. However, our market research, which consisted of conducting interviews and surveys across the student body, showed the largest demand for ice cream. We quickly began brainstorming flavours and combinations based on further market research, which resulted in us selecting the classic Oreo, M&Ms, and Skor.

For our booth, we decided to design a classic ice cream cart. Our team got together on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and while eating one of the largest Harvey’s feasts the city of Montreal had ever seen, we constructed our booth with a donated cooler in the middle to store all of our ice cream.

The name took a while. Coming up with a clever and catchy name that encapsulates a product and mission, as any fledgling entrepreneur knows, is really hard. One of our group members recommended the name “Iced Empire,” which is what we would ultimately go with. Why this name specifically? Well, the deadline to choose a name was a few minutes away and we still hadn’t come up with anything else. We also thought it was rather catchy, all things considered.

Developing a Product

Our testing phase was a bit complicated. We knew what we wanted to produce and had a vision of what the final product would look like, but, falling into the classic entrepreneur pit-trap, we didn’t know how. This led to many sessions in my friend’s kitchen where we would test a variety of combinations of different ingredients: cacao powder, potato starch, salt, and corn syrup. After experiencing many successes and failures alike, we landed on the golden recipe that we knew would absolutely thrill our future clients. I don’t know if I am willing to reveal the super-secret recipe that led us to adolescent fame and success yet though.

Our original plan was to use cheap electric hand mixers we got from our local Walmart. Unsurprisingly, we found that the motor would burn out quickly after mixing the ice cream. Admittedly, we decided to ignorantly ignore this, justifying that we would simply mix the ice cream slower and thus circumvent the problem, and we would buy backups just in case the main set we were using would break. In case you didn’t pick up on it already, this is most certainly foreshadowing…

Marketing

One of the things we underestimated most going in was marketing. We always knew that we wanted an Instagram account and one of our group members to make an announcement on the PA system, but we never could have estimated the return we would get from our investment in an extravagant marketing campaign. We put in place three marketing campaigns that we knew would go over incredibly well.

The first was our creative branding. We decided to heavily push a product called “The Goliath.” Intimidating name, I know. Whenever we had an opportunity to promote our product, we always ended with an emphatic “DON’T FORGET TO TRY THE GOLIATH!!” which enticed younger grades especially, finding our boisterous tones extremely amusing. The Goliath became inexplicably tied to us, so much so that people would come up to us and exclaim that they were excited to try the sweet treat. To make the Goliath even larger than life, we started saying only the most courageous people could even try the Goliath and that it was a challenge to even attempt eating one. What was the Goliath and why did we choose that name, you may ask? It was a larger-sized dessert with all the toppings included, and the name was just something we found funny.

Second were our posters. Thanks to an incredibly lucrative connection I had through my mother to a graphic designer, to whom I am unbelievably grateful for her help, we were able to have professionally made posters at an unbeatable cost. The poster was dynamic, showcasing our ice cream almost popping out of the picture, attracting the eyes of any passersby. It had the toppings we were offering flying out of the ice cream so that our future clients could see exactly what they could order. The large text underneath our logo? Why, it was “Come try the GOLIATH!” of course! It is said that one of our posters is still hanging in the economics classroom to this day. We would not have been as successful without the notoriety this poster brought us, and we are incredibly grateful for all the work that was put into it.

Lastly, we produced a video to further build the intrigue of the Goliath. It included a variety of my friends sitting in front of a green screen, which we superimposed in a dark room where they were mock-interviewed. They would talk about how they could not take down the Goliath, and how they were fearful and intimidated by its stature. All done with a somewhat quippy tone, of course.

By knowing our market and putting in place marketing efforts that no other group was implementing, we managed to gain an advantage on our selling day and maintain an incredibly high public perception throughout the SSX period. 

Partnerships

We had the opportunity to partner with another team to offer things such as skipping lines or discounted items. While unnecessary, many teams took this as an opportunity to elevate their businesses. While we could’ve partnered with another group that would’ve been a better fit for the brand we were trying to build, we partnered with a team of many of our friends from another class. It raised an incredibly interesting debate within the group, whether we should go with a group that was predicted to do incredibly well or pursue a partnership with a group consisting of all of our friends. While I don’t think any of us ultimately regretted our decision, it is interesting to consider what would have happened and the further success we could've obtained had we decided to partner with this other group. It taught me a valuable lesson in evaluating partnerships, to consider not only how you benefit each other but also to consider what is best for your own business to thrive and succeed.

Leading, Delegating Work, and Its Challenges

The most important thing I learned throughout this experience was delegating work. Before SSX, I was what people liked to call a “control freak.” Jokes aside, I tended to like to take projects into my own hands, always having a very high standard for quality that I found not many people were able to obtain. Going into this project, I expected to maintain this trend. Handling all the big work myself. However, it became apparent almost immediately that this project could not be done solo, and it would take the combined efforts of everyone in my group to make this project succeed. My friends, who I had been working with, were more than willing to do the work. Due to my stubborn preconceptions of teamwork, I wouldn’t let them. While they appreciated my efforts, they were far more worried about me and my well-being. Opening up and letting them take control of certain aspects of the work—well, I don’t think I could’ve made a better decision, to speak plainly. We would’ve never had our logo, our video, our final recipe, or any of the complicated logistical work done if I had not stopped being such a “control freak.” In hindsight, this allowed our company to thrive. While not every group is like this, I think it's important to recognize when you do have people of great quality, and to work with them to help achieve success.

The Selling Day

Our business plan was as follows: Everyone shows up early to make the desserts, then we store them in the freezer, and we can simply hand them off to our clients. This was a departure from how the other teams operated, many of them would cook orders to order. We thought this was genius, we could minimize the line at our booth while getting our product into as many hands as possible.

This plan, however, was quickly thrown away. Our collective hard work over the past two months resulted in a positively humongous number of people coming to our booth. Our target market expanded into new depths as people told family, friends, and loved ones about our desserts, and the Goliath. After 15 minutes of selling, we realized that we would not have enough product for the other two selling periods. 

We quickly decided to adjust our strategies. We took advantage of our small booth and had only two people out front selling, while all of our other members shifted to working in the back of the school where we would prepare our product. We assigned two people to be “runners,” responsible for going to the grocery to replenish our quickly depleting inventory.

One of the biggest issues we faced was that all of our electric hand mixers completely burned out. Without our main means to make our product, there was no chance we could make more… right? This is when we decided to introduce hand mixing. Using spare whisks a teammate brought, we started to get the arm workout of a lifetime. Despite all these challenges, we were able to keep up with demand, all due to our flexibility and ability to adapt to the situations we encountered.

In the end, our ice cream was a huge hit, and we managed to sell almost all of our products. The experience taught me more about business, teamwork, and leadership than I ever could have imagined, and it solidified my passion for entrepreneurship. 

Doing What’s Best for the Team

Through our successful selling days, our “company” managed to rank among the top earners. When approached with the possibility of participating in the finals, we immediately huddled as a group to decide what we wanted to do. Despite the protests of some, the vast majority of our group decided that it would be best for us to forgo our place in the finals, as there was a greater focus on doing well in our final exams. While it was a less-than-glamorous way to end our SSX experience, we managed to raise $2,000 for our selected charity, and the well-being of our team was maintained. Being able to contribute meaningfully to a charity provided a sense of fulfillment, and avoiding the burnout that could have easily overtaken us had we pushed forward into the finals was more than satisfactory to us.

What I Learned 

Looking back, I realize that this experience laid the groundwork for my future in business. I carried these lessons with me throughout my cégèp and university experience. Some of the most important ones I still follow are what I have outlined below. These are all my opinions, of course. Please take everything said with a grain of salt, and remember I am by no means a professional in any definition of the word, but was a seventeen-year-old with a successful ice cream stand.

When developing a product, you need to know your market well. Do as much market research as you can. Interview people within your target market, and take advantage of friends and relatives of different ages and backgrounds to get a variety of perspectives, and focus on the common thread between all of them. For us, we talked to our brothers and friends in younger grades, made notes of what toppings were desired, and implemented them. We were lucky enough to have had four years of SSX experiences to have seen and noted successful and unsuccessful tactics. So if you are planning on entering a market, spend time in it! Make sure you absorb everything—the advertisements you like and dislike, the themes and gimmicks that people may employ, and even how you are greeted when you approach a stand are all incredibly useful tools that will go into shaping how you create your own business.

Don’t be afraid to not do something. If you are uncomfortable with doing something for your business or just don’t like an idea, don’t feel forced to do it! Especially if it came from an outside opinion. There were a variety of ideas thrown out that I knew immediately I just did not like. Remember, actually enjoying the process is just as important as the success something can bring.

Do not underestimate creative marketing. In my experience, humans are very visual creatures. Something that stands out will stand out in people’s minds. Don’t feel the need to comply; make something that pops, and take inspiration from painters, cartoonists, and other artists instead of just following classic marketing conventions. Do something out of the box, and most of all, make it funny! I have not met a person who doesn’t like to laugh, and interjecting a little bit of humor into your marketing efforts can ground your company and product.

Be adaptable. Go in with the mentality that “everything will go right until you need to make it right.” If something needs to be adjusted, adjust it. If there is a need to change something that isn’t working, change it. Something that held our peers back was their desire to stick with the pre-established conventions and rules that they established for themselves. If something breaks, change whatever convention you’re using to fit the situation. If your ice cream mixer breaks, get ready to whisk by hand! Especially as an entrepreneur, there aren’t any rules you necessarily need to follow (besides the laws).

Your team is important, and you should learn to rely on them. Make compromises and ensure that no one thinks they are above anyone else. This is something I quickly noticed about my team. No one considered themselves better than one another, and we all had a mutual respect for one another. We ensured that we communicated with one another when we were unable to get work done, allowing others to pick up slack if necessary. To ensure this, have open communication by giving everyone your phone number, communicating with others checking in, and not always talking about work. These are people too—learn about them, their likes and dislikes. Having a good team, however, means that as a leader you need to do what is best for your team. If that means going slower and taking a small hit to profits, then do it. Your team's well-being takes priority. You don’t want any of your teammates overworking themselves, so create an environment through your efforts as a leader that encourages them to work effectively.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Asking for others’ support is not a sign of weakness. I would not have succeeded if it were not for the guidance of my dad and mom. My mother helped with her connections and reviewed a variety of documents to ensure they made sense, and my father sat with me, helping me think up business strategies, build the cart, and offer me priceless advice that helped the competition go unbelievably smoothly. Asking your teammates to take on more work when necessary is never a bad thing, as many of them are not just there because they want to succeed, but they also care about you and your well-being. They will take on work should you need them to.

In the End

My experience meant a lot to me. It provided me with practical experience and fundamentally changed my path in life. Without my SSX experience, I would not be on the path I am today, and I would not have discovered a deep love for business and entrepreneurship. For those young entrepreneurs who happen to be in a similar situation, or are just thinking of opening an ice cream cart of your own one day, I hope this exploration into my experience can offer some guidance. Most of all, whatever you do, “DON’T FORGET TO TRY THE GOLIATH!!”