STUDENT winners of a ‘Dragon’s Den-style’ competition launched their creative businesses at The Frome Independent earlier this month, with fantastic results.
The year 9 entrepreneurs from Frome College showcased their winning business ideas, which included a design-your-own t-shirt station and a miniature pets corner, alongside the region’s top independent traders.
As well as ongoing mentoring from The Frome Independent team, the startups had been awarded £150 in funding, which they turned into over £200 of profits at the busy market.
Enterprise co-ordinator at Frome College Rose Hiron-Grimes was delighted with how well-received the student’s teams were by visitors to the market.
She said: “We are really grateful for all that the market has done to support the teams. They got so much from the day – we all worked hard, enjoyed ourselves tremendously and slept very well that night!”
The students did very well to cope with the pressures of a busy market and one of them commented, “I felt I really gained in confidence doing the market”. They also gained valuable business and enterprise skills and learned about their target market and ways to effectively sell products.
The competition was part of an Enterprise Challenge run by Frome College and The Frome Independent as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, last November.
Teams of Year 9 students were tasked to battle it out by pitching to a team of “Frome Dragons” including councillor Kate Bielby, market founder and entrepreneur Gavin Eddy, and director of The Frome Independent, Tabitha Clayson.
Tabitha was extremely impressed by the level of creative ability demonstrated by the students, who she thought did brilliantly alongside the market’s top traders.
She said, “It has been great to see the young people of Frome represented market. It has been great to work with Frome College and we hope this is the start of something big for them.”
