I hope to attend the Summer Challenge program for the Business: From the Ground Up and Economics classes in the summer of 2019. My spark of interest for business started when I was at a young age. My mother is a the owner of multiple businesses in the Bay Area like restaurants and cafes. Since I was in elementary school, I would often help her purchase materials for her restaurants every weekend. I would watch her add up the different costs of materials and calculate the sales and profits of that would come with dishes made with that material. I would also listen while she has business meetings with her employees. I soon became very interested in this process of business due to the influence of my mother.
I had some small business experiences myself as well. Although I didn’t make much profit, these experiences made me want to learn more about business and how I can improve. I started by setting up a booth at a flea market with my grandmother where we sold temporary tattoos. Although we only made a profit of 10$, I was really happy with that experience and it expanded my interest for business. From that day I concluded that finding a location for your business is an essential element to growing a successful business. Since we chose to place the booth at a flea market, it meant that the people who are in that location are generally adults.But temporary tattoos is product mostly bought for kids so I figured that was a big reason why we weren’t able to make much profit from that location. Perhaps if we chose a location with more children in like a mall or park, temporary tattoos would’ve been a better product to sell.
 I’ve also tried YouTube as a form of business. In my freshmen year, I saw that a lot of kids my age began posting videos on YouTube and earning money from with a google adsense partnership. I wanted to try it myself and I now own a channel with over 100 subscribers and 10,000 total views. Once I monetized one of my most viewed videos, I earned $3 from the adsense account. Although it’s not much, it influences me to learn more about business management and entrepreneurship. This was a actually a very fun experience as I got to learn more about building a brand. I believe this is the most important factor in the making of a successful business. Marketing and Social Media influence is a very efficient way to expand a business brand as the internet is a very dominant force in our current society. I hope that through this program, I can learn more about marketing tactics to advertise for a product.
 I also have some experience in leadership and public speaking. I was always in leadership/class council from elementary school to freshman year of high school. I also am the secretary of animal protection club which is a club that volunteers at animal shelters and helps animals in need. However, my favorite leadership experience is being a delegate of Albany youth and government. This is a mock government program which gives students like us a voice to be heard and make changes we want to see in the world. We pass proposals that have potential to actually reach the government. Through this program, I was able to develop leadership skills on a larger level and practice on working with others who may have different opinions. I think this is also a very important skill in developing a business as we need multiple perspectives when building a business from the ground up.
I really hope to get into this program as I believe the skills taught in both seminars are extremely useful to running a business. I am very interested in finding out how people choose to buy certain products and how you can shape your business plan according to it. I have always wanted more guidance and tactics in terms of business as this is something I want to pursue as a career. I hope that through this program, I can learn about business and use these skills as a business owner in the future.