<p>so this is just the first essay for the common application, it is way too long, and i don't know how to shorten it. please make any cooment you wish, sorry for how long it is. thank you.</p>
<p>October 14th, 2008 begin just like any other school day. I got up at 6:30 am, went to school, sat through the six or so hours of dreadful, boring classes, and went to a football practice that could not end quickly enough. Finally, 6:00 pm rolls around and football practice was over. After practice, a bunch of teammates and I just sat in the locker room, all dead tired staring at the ceiling. Again this is all very normal. But then someone begins a conversation that will forever change my life, and this is how the conversation begun, You know, it would be pretty cool to have something to cool off these drinks automatically (he points to his Gatorade bottle), you know like one of those liquid nitrogen things. Now, to make a long story short, we spend the next 30 minutes arguing why liquid nitrogen would not work, because it will probably freeze more than the Gatorade, like your hand or even your body! But like all arguments, this one ends when someone gets up, and declares that he was too tired and it was time to go home because this discussion is stupid. So the argument was left at that
or was it?
When I got home that day, my creative and entrepreneur mind would not escape that argument about nitrogen, and so I sat down and begin thinking; it would be very cool and profitable to make a product that can cool off drinks automatically, why didnt anyone think of this idea before? One thought led to another, and before I know it, I was up on Yahoo (yes, I use Yahoo, instead of Google not a big deal!) researching what could be used to make a product to instantly cool off beverages. I found a couple of chemical formulas, but upon further research, they were all part of a chemical reaction known as a endothermic reaction, which supposedly is a cycle where heat or energy is drained from a substance to make it cold. What if I make something that uses this endothermic reaction to cool off a beverage? This is a breakthrough! By coincidence, one week before this idea came to my mind; I had started a business club at my high school and had been bombarding my principal with ideas for a product to produce. Before this idea, the best ideas I got were selling pencils and gum and school shirts. And to much of my dismay, my principal shut every one of those ideas down. He told me he wanted me to think big and not be afraid to take risks. Well this idea will show him! There is no way he can shut this idea down!
The next morning, I marched into his office for the 15th time within the last three days (this is not an exaggeration) and I said, I got an idea that you can never shut down! and I told him all about my little idea. To be honest, he looked bored when I finally finished, and told me to go do some more research. I took his advice and made it even better. That night, I stayed up all night and wrote a sixteen page business plan for my little idea. I even included facts that Coca Cola alone manufacture as least one billion beverages per day! (If you think about it, that is a lot of beverages and land wastes!) The next day, I went to his office, again, and presented him with my research. Finally, he was impressed! He asked me what I would do next, and I told him I honestly have no idea. He suggested to me that I should start a company and see how far it would go. And so I begin a company because any challenge is too good to back down. I asked two close friends of mine to join me on my venture and we begin brainstorming. The first thing we did was to come up with a name for the company, we choose Squeez LLC.
We figured that it would be safe to get a patent first, so we came up with $500 of our own money, and with the help of a lawyer, filed our provisional patent on January 2nd, 2009. In our patent, we had drawings of what our product would look like, we also had descriptions on what we were patenting, one of which is automatically cooling the beverage contained within a container, suing chemicals on the outside of the container. I am not even sure if that is English, but hey, lawyers write stuff that no one can understand except other lawyers. Within a week of filing for our patent, we decided that the next step would be to hire a company to run through some data, and make the designs of our product. We begin calling design companies, in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and just about every other design company across America. Now I live in Andover, Massachusetts, which is 30 minutes north of Boston, so it would be ideal to use the Boston companies. But as it turns out, one New York design firm by the name of SNS Design was $5,000 cheaper than the Boston firms, they also have worked with Fortune 500 companies, which is a huge plus. Now, even with that $5,000 discount the cost was still $10,000. That is a lot of money especially for 16 years old teens. To deal with the shortfall on cash, we begin researching ways to get funds for startup companies. We found out that there are venture capitalists, which are usually people or firms who were willing to fund startup companies in return for 20%-30% of the company stock. The next day we went back to the principals office, told him all that was going on, and also told him that we needed money. He told me that from that moment on, I was to use we when talking about the company, he also told me to go home, do some corrections on the business plan and he will see if he can connect us with a venture capitalist. I did as I was told, and gave him a new copy of the business plan the next day, and to this day, I always use we when talking about Squeez LLC.
About a week after giving the principal the new business plan, I get called down to the office. The principal wants to see me. I go into his office, and he looks me straight in the eye and said, two weeks from today (February 5th, 2009), you have a meeting with Mr. Carmen Scarpa, who is a partner at Tudor Investments, one of the most successful venture capitalist firms in the country. I was overjoyed; I shake the principals hand, said thank you, and proceed to call my two partners in Squeez LLC to share with them the good news.
Finally February 5th, 2009 rolls around, and my two partners and I are sitting in an office at 7 in the morning all dressed up in suits like professional. Now if we were adults, we would probably all be nerve wrecked, but since we were all teenagers, we werent at all nervous, in fact we were probably just the opposite of that. The meeting finally begins, and we showed him our drawings, our ideas, and what we liked about our product. We told him that this idea is the only of its kind in the market. He looked impressed, and asked us what we plan to do next, we told him that we wanted to get a real patent, get the design for the product, and then get a prototype of the product. He shocks our hands and told us that he would think it over and let us know if he was willing to invest in us.
Two weeks after the meeting, Mr. Scarpa called me and told me that he was willing to invest an initial amount of $20,000 in our idea. He said that we need to register our company with the State, and then open a business bank account at Bank of America. I said that we will do exactly that, because it is not every day that you get $20,000 to help start a company. After we opened the bank account, and after our registration with the State, we called up SNS Design and signed a contract with them in order for them to design our product. We told them what our specifications were, how much chemicals of what, and what materials we wanted to use. They begin working and within four weeks, they were done. We had diagrams, drawings, specifications; you name it, of our product. Then we ordered one prototype for $1,400. It took two weeks for the prototype to be made, but once it was, and we were able to see it, we were more than pleased. The prototype looked like a real product!
With the prototype in hand, we begin to make calls to local stores to see if we can get Squeez on the shelves at a local market. To our surprise, we got a much bigger market then just a local market. In fact, we got a meeting with the head of beverages at the 45th ranked super market in the Top 75 North American Food Retailers annual ranking; the super market was called DeMoulas/ Market Basket. On the day of that meeting, we brought the prototype and all the paperwork with us, and like the meeting with the venture capitalist, we had no butterflies in our stomach. The meeting with the head of beverages at Market Basket could be said as a success, but it also shows how far we were from the finish line. During the meeting, he showed great interest in our product, often asking us questions that showed he has interest. But he also said that he wanted to see a real done product in a packages bag, he also wanted us to do more research, perhaps hire a market researcher. He told us that he will talk to the President of Coca Cola North America (one of his friends for 25 years!) to see how they liked the idea. He also gave us his contact number and told us to contact him when the real product and all the market research had been done to reschedule a meeting.
After the meeting with Market Basket, we had a meeting with the venture capitalist. We told him our situation, and he told us that he was willing to fund us up to $100,000 to get the mass manufacturing steps started. After the meeting with the venture capitalist, we found a market researcher that could be hired to find data that will better help our company.
As I am writing this essay, Squeez LLC is in the process of making a deal with both Market Basket and Coca Cola (the President of Coca Cola like the idea!). We are hoping that the mass manufacturing could be started in June of 2010. We also hope to sign a deal sometime in late 2010 or early 2011. But, starting my own company has more to it than just making money, and signing deals. I have learned that age doesnt matter as long as you are willing to work hard and prove yourself. I have learned that things arent hard as long as you follow through and have perspiration. I have more about my creativity and leadership skills, and its use in real life. I have learned about self confidence, and used Squeez LLC to win business awards such as the Alexander Hamilton Scholarship, the Junior Achievement Outstanding Young Business Person of the Year, as well as the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Teen Honorable Mention, to name a few. Most of all, I have had experiences that will remain with me for the rest of my life. Some of these experiences are founding your own company, getting $100,000+ in funding, getting a prototype, meeting with various leaders in business, and the honor to speak at the Boston Business Hall of Fame. No matter what happens to Squeez LLC in the end, (hopefully is gets sold for $1 billion!) I will forever be grateful for the diverse opportunities created by Squeez LLC. Through it, I have earned experiences that are more valuable than any amount of profit or money, experiences only a few are able to go through in their lifetimes.</p>
There are also QUITE of few grammar mistakes in there. A lot of tense issues… and some misuse of words. Look it over, I’m sure you will identify your issues.</p>