American Enterprise Project focuses on home-based businesses

Odessa High School advisor for the Future Business Leaders of America, Terri King, reports that the members of the Odessa chapter have chosen home-based businesses as the focus of their American Enterprise Project with the Odessa School District’s eighth-grade students.

According to Nerdwallet, a website that provides comparisons of financial products, expert information and helpful tools for managing money, roughly 50 percent of all small businesses in the United States are considered home-based businesses. Many opportunities are available for those living in rural America or those who desire to work from home, and since the pandemic hit, this business model has become even more popular. In fact, Apple and Disney both started out as home-based businesses.

Home-based businesses can sell many different items on many different platforms, so for this project the FBLA members chose to focus on three common ones: GoldBelly for food, Etsy for crafts and farmer’s markets for plants. With these platforms in mind, the eighth-graders learned about and created their own home-based business. The class was split into two groups, with two different home-based products. The first group created Dippin’ Sticks to make and sell cookies that look like French fries and come with a dipping sauce. The second group, Superb Herbs, planted herb gardens in decorative pots for placement on kitchen counters.

“Products from both businesses will soon be available for sale, with hopes that each group will net a nice profit,” says King. The Odessa FBLA Facebook page will provide more details on the students’ progress.