St Joseph’s Young Enterprise companies, Strings Attached and Sunramics have been running as companies since September.

Both teams have come up with products that focus on sustainability, but with a close eye on costs and profit margins. Below is an introduction to each company and an update on how they are performing.

Strings Attached

How it started, written by Freddy Year 12 CEO

Our company is Strings Attached, we are one of the two Young Enterprise Student companies operating this year. There are 16 members of our team, we are all working hard in our respective jobs and departments to operate a real-life business. We came up with many ideas for our product, ending up settling on bracelets. We figured that bracelets would be a simple and fun product to make. We carried out market research which showed that there was demand within school for bracelets. To fund the start up of the business we ran a guess how many sweets in a jar fundraising event which generated £80.

Sales

Currently we have sold bracelets at the school concert and during lunch and break times. Sales revenue from these events has amounted to £240 which we feel has given us a good start. We plan to continue selling in school and at the school events. As well as this, 5 of us are going to travel to the Lexicon Shopping Centre in Bracknell on Saturday 2nd March to take part in a Young Enterprise sales event.

We are all looking forward to the future of the company as we continue to learn a lot about the world of business.

Sunramics

How it started, written by Isla Year 12 CEO

We are Sunramics, one of the Young Enterprise teams this year. Made up of 11 Year 12 students each focusing our skills and interests into producing a service that we are all passionate about.

We are producing personalised ceramic trinket dishes and incense holders; our main focus is sustainability and trying to produce a professional and unique product as green as possible!

Since our gifts are each handmade by our team, we offer a personalised service where customers can choose a design of their preference in any colour, which will be pre-ordered and delivered. We also have many premade designs which will be on offer to purchase at our upcoming sales. Each incense holder also includes a selection of incense sticks in a variety of scents which customers can choose to their own taste.

Sales

So far, we have had one Christmas sale at the Visa office in Reading and this went very successfully. We sold nearly everything that we took and it was a wonderful experience for everyone that attended. We were able to get an outsider perspective from strangers about our product which allowed us to get a sense of how our business might survive outside of school.

We will also be selling our products at the intervals of some of our Drama productions.