Still, our high school students were up for the challenge. Big time! ROC students, for the first time ever, were members the winning team in the Bakersfield Startup Weekend competition. And it gets even better. Our students were also part of the second and third place teams as well.

Techstar’s Startup Weekend first came to Bakersfield in 2017. The third local incarnation of this international event was held in November 2018 on the campus of CSU Bakersfield. Local entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial-minded people from all walks of life were invited to spend 54-hours – Friday night through Sunday night – to pitch their business idea, form teams with before unknown team members, and vet and validate their business idea in preparation for a final presentation to judges at the close of the weekend.

For the proactive, business-minded students of ROC this was a challenge that was gladly accepted. Students from Mobile Apps, Small Business Entrepreneurship, Robotics, and Sports Medicine – 16 in total – entered the competition. These young teenagers teamed up with and competed against businesspeople two and three times older than themselves.

Through the course of the weekend students learned about developing business models including finance and marketing, conducting SWOT analysis, Lean Startup Canvases, surveying and interviewing customers and industry leaders, determining break-even point, and, importantly, developing a prototype of their good or service (oftentimes a working website or mobile app).

A special shout-out to those students from the ROC Small Business Entrepreneurship and Economics program who gave up their weekend so they could expand their entrepreneurial mindset and experiences:

• Angel A (Independence High)
• Max A (Liberty High)
• Nolan B (Stockdale High)
• Jesus Q (Arvin High)
• Jorge R (Mira Monte High)
• Abby R (Mira Monte High)
• Steven R (Highland High)
• Dalia V (Liberty High)

ROC wishes to thank the local Startup Weekend organizers as well as CSU Bakersfield and Bank of America for sponsoring the event.

ROC Small Business Entrepreneurship students had the special opportunity to meet with one-on-one with nine local business people as part of the 21st Annual ROC Olympics competition. Each student has launched his or her own business and this was the day they were able to gain real-world insight into their efforts.

 

The schoolwide event allows students within each of ROC's 27 program areas to compete with their classmates. For the Small Business students that meant presenting their business plan to the coaches.

 

In a "speed dating" format, students had 6 minutes to share their business model, marketing, income and expenses, and plans for growing their business with each coach prior to rotating to the next coach.

 

In that short time period the coaches were able to ask probing questions of and give meaningful business insights to the students on how to improve upon their business. Students will be tasked with implementing these improvements over the final 8 weeks of the semester.

 

The nine community business volunteers, after meeting with 16 different business teams, were asked to select the three with whom they were most impressed. After 20 minutes of deliberating, they selected:

 

GOLD  Temia William's Teens Helping Teens

SILVER   David Castillo's Castillo's Granite and Marble

BRONZE  Kat Maroney's Kathryn's Face Painting

 

Program manager Michael Russo commented on how appreciative he was of our local business coaches taking time to participate in this activity as well as praising his students for the preparation and care they put into their business presentations and their efforts to-date.