Many students interested in business aspire to become highly successful and “live the dream,” but probably find themselves asking the same question: “How can I accomplish my business goals when I’m only in high school?”
A few members of the student body have taken the leap of faith and found an answer by starting their own businesses before they reached the Sixth Form.
Sixth Former Blake Paul started his business, Redirection Loans & Welfare, around three years ago. Sixth Former Arsh Aggarwal started High School Intern early in his Fifth Form year. These students are among the few who’ve gained a successful head start gaining professional experience.
Paul and Aggarwal agree on the qualities and resources a student needs to be able to accomplish such a feat.
The question that Paul asked himself leading to his idea was: “How can one [be] reward[ed] financially [while] giving back?”
For Paul, that was focusing on low-income individuals in the greater Philadelphia area, inspired by his motto: “You help when you can.” “Microfinancing security fund” is the appropriate term for his business, but, simply put, Paul’s company connects selected loanees with investors who fund the loans and make a profit when that loan is paid off.
Aggarwal said, “Let’s go back to the root of why I started a business in the first place. I came from a robotics and engineering background, and a lot of that cultivates a problem-solving mindset.”
High school Intern stemmed from Aggarwal’s difficulty in finding internship opportunities and his willingness to help his community. Aggarwal successfully used the school network to find local companies to host interns from Haverford, facilitating school’s mission of “preparing boys for life” to change the world.
Both Paul and Aggarwal embody the school’s vision of using their accumulated skills, judgment, and community connections to flourish in our world, even before graduation. Their businesses, geared towards aiding others, speak to Haverford’s virtues of support, compassion, and character.
Entrepreneurship Club faculty advisor Ms. Brooke Kenna, and Marketing & Consulting Club faculty advisor Ms. Alexandra Surdel, think Haverford can foster the growth of young entrepreneurs and business owners.
Ms. Kenna said, “You have an opportunity to fix a problem in your life.”
Having gained experience in college and the professional world, Ms. Kenna now sees her duty to the business world to influence and aid young entrepreneurial minds at Haverford. “Networking is the number-one thing for anyone who wants to go into any kind of business,” Ms. Kenna said.
“You have to be willing to reach out to people.”
Ms. Alexandra Surdel
“You have to be willing to reach out to people,” Ms. Surdel said, “because the first step of starting a business is finding mentors who have a successful business.”
Ms. Surdel took a similar stance to Ms. Kenna as a facilitator, willing to leverage her network to help students pursue their business aspirations, highlighting the strong and extensive network that extends beyond each student’s time at Haverford. Seeing as the faculty play a key role in seeing the school’s mission through, advisors like Ms. Kenna and Ms. Surdel are taking the necessary steps to support students with ambitions similar to those of Paul and Aggarwal.
“I think the thing that stops people in high school from starting a business is that they think they’re too young, not smart enough, or too inexperienced to succeed,” Aggarwal said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a young entrepreneur, it’s that there’s an infinite number of ways to define success, but perhaps the most important one is the success of getting started in the first place.”
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