Logan Russell's Entrepreneurship Story

Logan Russell’s Entrepreneurship Story

            My family has this tradition where we bake homemade pumpkin bread for our teachers as a sign of appreciation. Quite literally for generations, this tradition has been honored, using a family recipe so secret no one outside the family knows it. So during my sophomore year of high school around Thanksgiving, I was giving out the loaves to my teachers, and I had one left over. I was going to eat it, but then one of my friends came up to me, saw the pumpkin bread and said “Jeez that looks really good! I’ll give you $5 for it!” I took his money and he took the bread. I had realized now that there was a market for this bread that I had the potential to dominate. So that night I went home and made dozens of loaves of pumpkin bread with the intention to sell them to my peers. That next day I brought the loaves to school and sold out before lunchtime. It became clear to my mother what I was doing, as I was too stupid to be discrete. She was upset I was using a family tradition for profit, which I understood entirely. That weekend, I used the money I earned and bought her a necklace from Macy’s. Eventually things smoothed over. I would say that is the first real instance in which I saw and entrepreneurial opportunity and went for it. 

(While this is not actually a photo of my family’s pumpkin bread, I found the resemblance uncanny!)

I signed up for this class because I wanted to challenge myself. I am an Innovation Academy student, so this class was required, but I didn’t necessarily have to take it right now. I made the choice to because I decided that I was going to take courses that challenge me this summer, but not in the traditional sense. For example, I am also taking Intro to Public Speaking this semester, not because I need to, but because have trouble speaking publically; I get anxious and tense up. The same reasoning can be applied for this class. So much of business relies on interaction with other people, so I figured where better to hone that skill than in a class like this? I am already excited to see how much I can learn and improve upon myself through this class, and I’m keeping an open mind for what’s to come!