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Marielle Payton by
Each year, Cedarville University’s Integrated Business Core gives students the opportunity to develop, formulate and market a business plan. This year-long program has students taking principles of marketing in the spring semester and principles of finance and principles of organizational management in the fall semester. These three courses are spread over two semesters and give students the opportunity to simulate the business process from development to production. In this process, students learn valuable and practical skills and gain real-life experience that is easily transferable to the workplace after graduation. Finally, they present their business plan to the Alumni Board and receive funding for their project.
Caleb Miller was inspired to create his whiteboard work; boardless, After struggling to study efficiently in his cramped dorm room. After speaking with several students on campus, he noticed that this problem of cluttered study space was a recurring issue. Due to lack of space to study adequately, students were finding it difficult to concentrate and get work done.
Through conversations with students and hall partners on campus, he realized that this problem particularly affects undergraduate and nursing students. While this whiteboard product is useful for everyone, Miller says he designed them with that in mind.
“We really want to improve the workplace for students, professors and staff,” Miller said in an email. “Many students expressed concern that standard whiteboards are messy and get in the way, and other media such as sticky notes or scratch paper are small and not reusable. So we saw the need for reusable, portable and convenient products that can easily accommodate a desk or work space.
Large, dry-erase whiteboards are available for all students to use in the Cedarville campus library, but many are not available and are quickly requested and used. Miller hopes to market their product to libraries and convince them to purchase some for student use and easy access. The whiteboard product he plans to produce is a “flexible, portable and reusable light-board option that retails for $12.99.”
A lit-board is a smaller version of this big whiteboard: it’s a portable, flexible and space-saving small, rectangular dry erase plastic sheet. It is non-sticky and can be easily stuck to any surface – but leaves no residue. This particular product is currently in short supply in the US market, but is widely available overseas.
Miller based his production from China. He is excited to pioneer this idea for the US markets and is working hard to make this dream a reality. It definitely has the potential to take off.
Once Miller and his team had an idea of what kind of product they wanted to create, they went through steps to determine whether such a project would be feasible. In order to get the loan and use the money given to IBC students, they came up with a marketing plan.
First, they conducted a financial analysis, conducting a cost-benefit analysis, considering shipping costs and weighing them against estimated sales volumes. It was encouraging that he and his team saw a practical use for the concepts learned in the classroom. Doing a financial evaluation of the product they were about to launch gave them a new appreciation for everything their core business had to offer.
Their professors were with them every step of the way, providing constructive criticism and genuinely wanting them to succeed. Thanks to this, Miller and his team were able to present their proposal before the committee. Boardless It is approved by them to approve or reject and make few changes to the product.
They plan to start selling in mid-October. Based on their research, they decide to order and sell 400 units to start and see how the demand goes down. All profits go to Back2Back, a charity that focuses on universal access to orphan care services for vulnerable children and their communities. In addition to donating all of their money to Back2Back, Miller and his team will each do 10 hours of volunteer work at the end of their business project.
From helping students study better to making charitable donations and volunteering, Miller and the Integrated Business Core have demonstrated what it means to plan and aim to give back to their community in any way possible.
Marielle Payton is a high school student from Vienna, Virginia, outside of Washington, DC.In addition to writing, she enjoys skating, learning new languages, and reading old comic books.
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