Matcha lattes poured, pies flew, and carnival games drew lines of students as Chadwick’s inaugural Entrepreneurs Marketplace transformed weeks of business planning into a lively Upper School community gathering.
On Dec. 12, students in Chadwick’s Business and Entrepreneurship class hosted the Entrepreneurs Marketplace on the Vanderlip Lawn.
The event was the brainchild of a pair of new Upper School Business and Entrepreneurship teachers, Dan Nord and Ivan Cestero, who wanted to launch a hands-on activity where students could apply their business learning beyond the classroom.
“We both have a preference for real activities and real-world simulation,” said Cestero. “We thought that the old lemonade stand experience was a great microcosm of the whole business experience, from coming up with something, figuring out how to make it, selling it, talking to customers, and making a profit.”
Added Nord, “You can stand in front of a class and talk about entrepreneurship, but real entrepreneurship is lived. It’s problem-solving in real time. It’s all those hard micro-decisions that you make.”
After settling on the idea of a marketplace, the students underwent the process of pitching their business proposals, working through the logistics of bringing their products to campus, and executing their sales during a real-time simulation with customers and spectators.
Nord and Cestero encountered a few hiccups in the process. For example, grading based on profit didn’t quite seem like the right idea, according to the students. A student-run spa wasn’t quite what the Marketplace was attempting to achieve. And Nord and Cestero eventually determined that charity, not student earnings, would be the best direction toward which the profit should be channeled. But after navigating these bumps in the road, the students worked even harder to bring their ideas to fruition.
Each booth started with a budget of $200 and the mission of generating a profit. Early on, students pitched ideas to their teachers in a corporate meeting-adjacent setting. The process was interrupted once by a prototype run in late November, after which the students were given a month to make adjustments to their plans. Throughout the process, Nord and Cestero were blown away by the students’ ingenuity getting from point A to point B.
“It has been fun to see the creativity of these students and what they can do,” Nord said. “What I thought we would get was lemonade and cookies, and we ended up with smashing plates and pies in the face.”
In the end, the Marketplace plan was massively successful both for the teachers and the students. Those running stands reported that chief among the skills they improved were communication, creativity, and generating interest from the Upper School. Anyone who has tried running a Friday Social knows how difficult the latter can be.
But Nord and Cestero believe the student impact may extend beyond what the students realize. In what they described as a rather “risk-averse” place, they challenged the students to navigate social pressures and balance a drive to succeed with a chance to have fun along the way. And anyone who walked the Marketplace grounds on Friday picked up on those subconscious changes. Students smiled and stood proudly over their products. They stood tall when pies hit them in the face. Several vendors polled for statements even told us they truly believed they’d made lasting, positive changes to the Chadwick community.
It will be interesting to follow the progress of Business & Entrepreneurship as the class continues with different plans in the second semester. Surely, Chadwick Marketplace has helped its students to develop course-essential skills.
“Everyone has ideas, but hustling and getting it done? That’s what separates [entrepreneurs],” Nord said. “This will be good practice for the Shark Tank simulation that we’ll launch next semester!”
As for next year? Given the right student feedback, Nord and Cestero would be excited to run the Entrepreneurs Marketplace again. And with these two at the wheel, any student with a newfound or long-lasting interest in business has a bright future ahead of them at Chadwick.
