From business plans to making pitches for startup money, students learn the entrepreneurial way – The Advocate

The announcement caught the attention of Dutchtown High School junior Sydney Hubbard early last fall something about a way students could learn how to become entrepreneurs.

"I heard an announcement in class one day," Hubbard said.This sounds interesting,' I thought. 'I'm going to apply.

Hubbard did apply and went through interviews to become part of the 2020-21 class of the nonprofit Young Entrepreneurs Academy of Baton Rouge, now in its third year as a local chapter of a national program that teaches students how to create and run their own companies.

The academy works with students in grades eight through 12. Tuition costs $995 and the program offers need-based scholarships. Students who graduate earn three credits at LSU.

"In the last three years, 60 students have graduated (from the academy) and launched 50 businesses in the Greater Baton Rouge area," said Sarah Munson, executive director of the academy's Baton Rouge chapter.

From September to April, 16 students in the Baton Rouge area took weekly after-school classes on Zoom this year, but usually on the LSU campus with instructors from the university's E. J. College of Business, as well as guest speakers.

Each student worked with mentors and volunteers to design logos for the businesses they hope to launch.

The students didn't have to come into the academy with an idea for a business, but Hubbard had one from the get-go: a website called Afro Next that would provide information to help African American women learn now to care for their hair.

"I had trouble doing my hair," Hubbard, 16, said. "I still have some trouble."

"The textures of African American hair are different, and there are different curl patterns," she explained.

The idea of entrepreneurship comes easily to Hubbard. Her parents, Tim and Tori Hubbard, each have their own business. Sydney's mother runs a speech therapy practice and her father presidents over a commercial and residential construction company.

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"I like the freedom of owning a business," Sydney said.

By the end of this year's Young Entrepreneurs Academy, with a virtual graduation in April, students had written a business plan "Nobody knows how hard that is," Hubbard said registered their business with the Louisiana Secretary of State's office and made pitches to an outside panel of professionals to receive seed money, in varying amounts, for startup expenses.

Hubbard was one of six Ascension Parish public school students in this year's class.

The BASF chemical manufacturing plant in Geismar paid tuition for the students, something it's done for the Ascension participants in the previous two school years and plans to continue doing, the company said.

All the students in the Young Entrepreneurs Academy were able to meet on Zoom and that's the way Hubbard met Mya Beathley, a junior at Liberty Magnet High School in Baton Rouge.

The two became co-founders of the proposed Afro Next website, because of a shared interest in providing information on the care of African American hair.

Other graduates from this year's Young Entrepreneurs Academy are Alanna Riley and Edward Tyler, both of Dutchtown High in Ascension Parish; Morgan Miller and Luke Williams, both of St. Amant High in Ascension, and Jaylen Carter of Donaldsonville High, also in Ascension Parish.

From East Baton Rouge Parish are Mateo Chaney-Martinez, University View Academy; Siya Kuman, Baton Rouge Magnet High; Anmol Mehotra, McKinley High; Quentin Messer III and Joey Roth, both of Episcopal School, and Parker St. Romain, Catholic High.

Other graduates are Gabryel Duncan and Matthew Rotolo, both of Walker High in Livingston Parish, and Cardell Smith, of West Feliciana High.

Applications for the 2021-22 Young Entrepreneurs Academy are open now through Aug. 20 at http://www.yeabr.org/apply.

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From business plans to making pitches for startup money, students learn the entrepreneurial way - The Advocate