Schools
Apple Valley Tween Launches Business with $15,000 Mentorship Award
What began as a small business to raise money for a school trip now has a multi-media ad campaign
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Apple Valley tween Morgan Rohwer’s energy and passion earned her what most entrepreneurs only dream of: financial backing as she packages and markets her new business.
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This month, 12-year-old Rohwer earned a $15,000 Business Mentorship Award from Mogul Nation, a non-profit organization that mentors teen entrepreneurs with education and support resources to help them realize their entrepreneurial dreams.
Rohwer, a seventh-grade student at Valley Middle School, captured the attention of Mogul Nation this summer when she began making corn cozies for her mom’s friends and coworkers. Corn cozies are fleece-wrapped sacks of corn that people can put into the microwave or freezer, then use to melt away aches and pains. Rohwer began making the cozies to raise money for a school trip to Washington, D.C., next year. After she raises the more than $1,000 needed for that trip, she hopes to begin saving money for college. She wants to become a pediatrician.
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“I’ve always been good with money, ever since third grade,” Rohwer said. Through other jobs such as babysitting, she had already saved enough money to buy an iPad, which she uses to track sales.
What began as a small project to replace her mom’s neck warmer has now evolved into mySpa Tranquility Collection, a home-based relaxation kit featuring Rohwer’s cozies, aromatherapy and a CD.
“I never really knew what business was like,” Rohwer said. Then she met Bridget Cronin Sutton, a marketing consultant who works with MogulNation. Cronin Sutton was a Facebook friend of Rohwer’s mom, Kendra. Cronin Sutton was searching for young entrepreneurs as she began a new project with MogulNation. Kendra coordinated a meeting between Cronin Sutton and Rohwer.
“She has a really good head, and she’s really focused,” said Cronin Sutton of the 12-year-old budding entrepreneur. “The product that she came up with was a really good match for the type of campaign we were looking to do.”
From there, the project quickly took off.
“I really wanted to take the chance,” Rohwer said. “I wanted to see what having a business would be like.”
The $15,000 Mentorship Award is being used to coordinate a professional photo shoot and marketing videos for use in a low budget TV ad buy through Google Adwords Auction Network with cross media support through Social Media and Web based ads. The business also has a Facebook page set up under mySpa Collection.
Find the videos on YouTube.
“I’m nervous and excited about seeing my ads on TV,” Rohwer said in a news release from MogulNation.
MogulNation secured a team of Twin Cities based companies including Full Throttle Interactive and Design, Dupont Designs and Cress Photography to help Rohwer execute her business plan. Cronin Sutton coordinated the project through her company, Pounding Heart MultiMedia.
“The entrepreneurial bug bites really early” Cronin Sutton said. “Kids just from the beginning are go-getters. I thought it would really make a difference to a lot of these kids if they had that entrepreneurial structure early on. One of the things I love about kids this age, they don’t know what they can’t do.”
MogulNation hopes to develop a curriculum through games and apps that districts can use to start entrepreneurship programs in their schools.
“I think it’s been really cool and a really big experience that will help me later in life, especially with money,” Rohwer said. “I’m not just going to drop it. Who goes into a huge experience and drops it?”
