Area students participate in entrepreneurship challenge

When Luke Garlicki has an idea, he likes to create a business plan for it.

After all, he said, you never know if it will actually be successful.

And by age 17, Garlicki put two plans into reality — helping put a few extra bucks in his pocket.

The State College Area High School senior was one of about 130 students from central Pennsylvania who participated in an annual entrepreneurship challenge Thursday at Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology.

The event, sponsored by EconomicsPennsylvania, allowed students to create business plans and present their ideas to their peers and business mentors.

EconomicsPA is an organization that encourages youth to understand business knowledge including consumer services, entrepreneurship, and investing and saving.

Students worked individually, or as teams of two or three.

“It’s like a local version of ‘Shark Tank,’ ” said business owner Jason Oakman, who also helped with the conference Thursday. “The real logic is to help teach students how to grow their own business.”

He said he used his experience with a “trial and error” approach to help students learn.

“We hope to help teach the students to take risks,” Oakman said. “If there’s no risk, there’s no reward, and they have to challenge themselves (or) else they won’t know if something works.”

Statistics from EconomicsPA Vice President Carolyn Shirk said one in 11 people become entrepreneurs, but less than a third are successful.

Oakman and a business partner founded Xsalta about eight years ago. It’s a State College-based Web development company that works with clients across the country to help with Web design and marketing.

Students submit their final plans to EconomicsPA by Jan. 10. On Jan. 20, a winner will be named.

Garlicki was the individual winner last year.

He’s part of the State College Area Building, Construction and Technology class and club that had about 40 students represented at Thursday’s challenge.

Last year, Garlicki created Luke Rocks! — a small business with a play on words that combined his name with work he did with stones.

“I paint on the rocks and then priced them appropriately,” Garlicki said. “It takes a while to come up with your marketing plan, but you have to find a way to advertise and sell them on multiple platforms.”

Garlicki had a booth at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts last summer where he sold his product, and also created a website.

This year, he founded Juicy and Groovy Smoothie, where he makes original fruit drinks.

“Health and wellness is big right now, which is why I went with a health focus,” he said. “All my stuff is all-natural and homemade. I make my own recipes, but also give my customers the chance to customize their own smoothies. I want my customer to be the boss.”

Garlicki said he came up with the idea earlier in the school year after he received a smoothie maker from his grandma, and created drinks.

“I wanted it to be different than what I did last year, but also be an original idea that puts customers first,” he said.

The challenge required participants to describe their business plan; explain how the business idea would satisfy needs, wants and desires; choose a name; find how to deal with competition; and figure out what the target market is.

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Area students participate in entrepreneurship challenge."