Three pillars of success from a teen entrepreneur | Pierce Millar | TEDxCCHS Youth
Pierce Malar outlines three pillars for entrepreneurship: taking chances, effective marketing, and delegation. He argues that starting small, like with a custom bike pedal or 3D-printed fidget cubes, and applying scalable marketing strategies—such as influence marketing—can build a business, which then requires leveraging others' skills to grow exponentially. ## Speakers & Context - **Pierce Malar** — Freshman at CCHS; founder of multiple small businesses. - Presentation topic: Simplifying the path of Entrepreneurship into three main pillars. - Motivation for the talk: To share lessons learned about seizing opportunities through personal experience. ## Theses & Positions - Entrepreneurship is accessible to the community and students, requiring only basic steps. - **Pillar 1: Taking Chances:** Starting requires embodying the principle that *"you miss 100% of the shots you don't take."* Failure is only avoided by never trying. - **Pillar 2: Marketing:** A good idea requires an amazing marketing strategy; influence marketing, specifically placing products with aspirational people, drives desire. - **Pillar 3: Delegation:** A business becomes exponentially more productive by delegating tasks to free up the creative mind for bigger tasks. - Starting without these foundational principles is like constructing a brick wall without foundational bricks, leading to collapse. ## Concepts & Definitions - **Grassy Pedals:** A bike pedal product that allowed users to bike to the beach while barefoot by using artificial turf on the top of the pedals. - **Influence Marketing:** A marketing strategy that puts a product in the hands of people whose lives are aspirational, causing consumers to buy the product to emulate their lives. - **Students for Hire:** A local club and business on campus enabling parents to post jobs for students to complete, allowing students to earn side cash without full-time commitment. ## Mechanisms & Processes - **Problem Identification (Grassy Pedals):** Observing the need to remove shoes before biking to the beach led to brainstorming a novel product solution. - **Profit Generation (Fidget Cubes):** Selling 3D-printed fidget cubes for $15 each, while costing a cent to produce, resulted in a profit of nearly $150 daily from selling about 10 units. - **Marketing Execution (Fidget Cubes):** Targeted the three most popular kids in the grade with free cubes and offered them a commission on sales they brought in. - **Business Growth (Initial State):** Malar initially struggled by keeping control, leading to being overworked and losing sleep. - **Scaling via Delegation:** Allowing friends to draft emails and schedule meetings allowed Malar to focus on app design and publication, boosting overall productivity. ## Named Entities - **Mark Zuckerberg:** Founder of Facebook, noted for success developing social media apps from an early age. - **Facebook:** Social media app that has transformed online interaction. - **Pierce Malar:** Speaker and founder of multiple small businesses; freshman at CCHS. - **CCHS:** High school attended by the speaker. - **Grassy Pedals:** Specific product designed for biking barefoot to the beach. - **Fidget Cubes:** Item used in the marketing example, sold in multiple colors and combinations. - **Students for Hire:** Local campus business/app for job posting. ## Numbers & Data - Age at first endeavor: **11 years old**. - Duration of Etsy page existence: **More than 4 years ago**. - Cost to make fidget cubes: **A cent**. - Selling price of fidget cubes: **$15 a piece**. - Daily profit from fidget cubes: **Nearly $150 a day**. ## Examples & Cases - **First Endeavor (Grassy Pedals):** Identifying the inconvenience of removing shoes to bike to the beach and creating a pedal solution using artificial turf. - **Second Endeavor (Fidget Cubes):** Using free 3D printing files to create and sell cubes, demonstrating the need for marketing strategy. - **Marketing Case Study:** Giving free fidget cubes to the three most popular kids in the grade and implementing a commission structure. - **Third Endeavor (Students for Hire):** Creating a campus business listed on the App Store and Google Play store for local job posting. ## Tools, Tech & Products - **3D printer:** Tool received for a 2-year-old birthday, enabling the creation of fidget cubes. - **Etsy page:** Online sales platform where the initial Grassy Pedals product remains listed. - **App Store / Google Play store:** Platforms where the Students for Hire business is located. ## References Cited - **Wing Gretzky quote:** *"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."* ## Counterarguments & Caveats - The initial quote attributed to Gretzky is noted as potentially overused, but its truthfulness is emphasized. - The speaker acknowledges that the profitability achieved with the fidget cubes ($150/day) was based on initial efforts and scale. ## Methodology - Identifying a personal inconvenience (e.g., removing shoes at the beach) and brainstorming a product solution. - Developing initial prototypes (e.g., 3D printing fidget cubes). - Systematically testing marketing methods (e.g., influence marketing on popular students). - Scaling operations by offloading routine tasks through delegation (e.g., hiring friends for admin work). ## Conclusions & Recommendations - The path to entrepreneurship should be simplified and made accessible to the community. - The process involves starting by taking risks, employing sophisticated marketing, and critically delegating tasks. - The final message is to actively go into the world to start making these leaps. ## Implications & Consequences - Early entrepreneurial success proves that youth have immense potential to shape a better future through business endeavors. - Control hoarding (by keeping all tasks internal) prevents exponential business growth and limits potential. ## Verbatim Moments - *"There is power in teenage entrepreneurship."* - *"you miss 100% of the shots you don't take."* - *"The first Leap doesn't always have to be a big one it just be experimenting with an idea or considering the logistics."* - *"i was using a more scaled down version of influence marketing."* - *"a business becomes exponentially more productive by limiting the busy work for the creative mind."* - *"every challenge is an opportunity every setback a lesson every dream a possibility waiting to be realized."*