Alex Clouser- My Entrepreneurship Story Assignment 3

To be honest, I really have not been exposed to entrepreneurship very much during my 19 years on this earth, at least not in a hands on sense. I have obviously seen entrepreneurship on TV through shows like Shark Tank, and learned about what entrepreneurs do through general learning in school and such, but I have not really interacted with any real life entrepreneurs who are serious about their craft. About the only time that I can remember when I even remotely dealt with entrepreneurship or was exposed to entrepreneurship in real life was when I was in middle school. In middle school, there were these very popular products called Silly Bandz. Silly Bandz were a hot commodity and they had a direct correlation to your coolness factor in the social hierarchy of the cutthroat world of middle school; the more Silly Bandz you had, the more fame you garnered from the masses of 11-13 year olds in middle school. I would say that the business negotiations associated with these rubber bands were far more sophisticated affairs than many negotiations that go on between businesses today. The Silly Band trade brought out your inner entrepreneur, whether you knew you had it in you or not. I partook in many of these trades and amassed a hefty collection of them myself, in order to further my ascent to the top of the social hierarchy. Many people would buy Silly Bandz for an inordinate amount of money just because they were "rare" shapes that no one had seen before; simple supply and demand negotiations. However, soon the rare shapes would be mass produced and everyone would have them, decreasing their value, so you had to strike while the iron was hot and quickly sell them for triple what you paid for them. I made a pretty good chunk of change in these business dealings for an 11 year old through understanding the laws of supply and demand. I would say that this is the only real hands on experience I have had with entrepreneurship so far in my life, or at least the most profound impact that an entrepreneurial experience has left on me. I have included a picture of many Silly Band shapes down below for reference.

I enrolled in this class because I am a Business Administration major and need to take this class to further my education, however I did not mind having to take this class as I was very intrigued as to what exactly the specifics were that entrepreneurship entailed and how I might be able to use these details in my own life moving forward.