‘Young Entrepreneurs’ Present Plans for Record Label in Haas Program

Nearly 50 students from surrounding high schools presented business plans to a music label executive at the Haas School of Business Saturday as part of a Haas-run program aimed at teaching underprivileged youth about business skills and college.

Students in the Young Entrepreneurs at Haas Saturday Business Academy presented their ideas on how the Ruff Ryders music label could expand its market in Europe to a panel of four judges, including one executive from the label.

“We were really excited to work with such a large corporation,” said program participant Jeffrey Vu, a student at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont.

The presentations were the culmination of four months of instruction on basic business skills and work on the Ruff Ryders case study as a part of the program.

The participants, organized into five groups of five to ten students each, made recommendations to the company about what products they thought would be viable in Europe and how the company should go about marketing those products.

One of the groups suggested that Ruff Ryders should work with local bands to build a connection to European music fans and increase awareness for the label. The group made power point presentations outlining its plans and fielded questions from the panel.

The Young Entrepreneurs program aims to take low-income youth from East Bay middle schools and high schools, make them excited about college and give them the skills they need to succeed, said Lucas Abbott, director of the Saturday Business Academy branch of the program.

“Our target kid is low-income, first in his or her family to go to college and enrolled in a public school,” Abbott said. “We want to get them more prepared for the real world, more competitive and explain to them why going to college is important.”

The Young Entrepreneurs at Haas Saturday Business Academy matches high school freshman and sophomores with a mentor from UC Berkeley and includes an intensive two-week camp during the summer in which students learn the basics of business presentation and computer skills.

“Our overarching motivation is giving back to the community,” Abbott said. “We have mentors all the way from undergrads to Ph.D. candidates. We are fortunate to have so many volunteers; we have 70 volunteers and three full-time staff.”

Throughout the school year, the students work on two main case studies and present their work in a competition against the other groups for a prize, which this year was a Best Buy gift certificate for each group member.

Last semester the groups presented a plan to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek.

“At first I was interested in the program because I’m a teenager, and it had to do with how to make money,” said participant Christian Cortes, a student at American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland. “The program has given me a chance to meet new people and learn about working in groups.”

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