Black In America is an online community for African American men, women, and families, and want to shatter negative stereotypes and misconceptions. This platform stimulates positive ideas, dialogue and solutions,
Meet KALIEF ROLLINS a young man who could have easily became a statistic. But instead he used his creativity to start a T-Shirt company that stands out from the rest.
Read Kalief's story courtesy of NFTE:
Since the age of seven, Kalief Rollins has been selling whatever he could to make money. First, he sold candy to his classmates; later on it was jewelry, which he would buy wholesale. “I’ve been an entrepreneur pretty much all of my life,: Kalief says.
During his junior year at Downey High School, in Carson, California, the 17-year-old enrolled in a NFTE class to fulfill a lifelong dream—starting his own “legit” business.
The hardest part of the class was the numbers---doing the math for my business plan,” Kelief remembers. The easiest part was coming up with an idea. Some time before, his uncle had suggested that he and his older brother Anthony should start a clothing business, since Anthony liked drawing and Kalief was a born salesman, but the two brothers never pursued it. Taking a NFTE course gave Kalief the skills that he needed to turn the idea into a reality. He created a business that sells custom T-shirts with designs that the brothers wanted to wear but could never find. At present, the company produces eight T-shirt designs with positive, inspirational messages targeted to urban youth. So far the business, which is run out of the Rollin’s garage, has sold nearly 200 T-shirts.
“The most important thing that I learned from the NFTE class is how to determine how much to sell your product for to run a good, profitable business,” Kalief states.
The young entrepreneur took top honors for his business at the NFTE Greater Los Angeles Youth Business Plan Competition, on his way to winning first prize at the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in New York, on October 7.
Kalief is now a freshman at Southwest Community College, majoring in business. He hopes to transfer to USC during his junior year, go on to get an MBA, and eventually open his own store. Kalief’s advice to other aspiring young entrepreneurs:
“Work hard and never give up. Just look at me”.
Coming up with nothing, I really never thought I would own my own business. But now the sky is the limit”
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Thursday, July 5th 2012 at 11:21PM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
