FM #1812 - High School Entrepreneurs - SNND Events - 08/31/26

0:00Steefer like if for Franklin matters Franklin public radio available anywhere anytime on the internet yes in your browser WFPR.fm and in the local Franklin mass FM radio dial yeah the dial maybe the buttons the knobs whatever if you can preset it to 102.9 that's the number preset it and it's always going to be there for you here today with a couple of great folks who as seniors in high school already have a business how about that so Swami and Andrew welcome how are you doing today good good how are you you know I'm getting to talk with you and hear your story there's nothing you know they can't get much they can get better but

1:02it can't get much better than this right now so you've got a company and since you're only seniors in high school give us a little bit of that story how did it develop how did you put it together yeah so Andrew and I have been friends since kindergarten since I moved to Franklin and since Andrew basically moved to Franklin right and you know we've been friends we've been hanging out but as soon as we entered high school we were like we have to make some money but we noticed that the DJs at like local events for example like the fun yeah the fun day places like that in the in like the middle school we're like receiving these DJ invoices that were like thousands of thousands of dollars we were like we could definitely learn how to do that so we you

2:04know contacted one of the people that they contracted DJ Mike and you know we learned about some of the basics we did some YouTube searching you know some Google searching right I know Andrew got really deep into like the speaker stuff yeah you don't talk about something like just spent long time on YouTube different forums digging up stuff on the internet looking for the best possible speakers to start yeah so basically we bought all that stuff with like a small like I think $500 investing for yeah like four three hundred investment for our parents and we started DJing for the Franklin Public Library for free for now yeah to get clients we were like oh yeah maybe we should go to the library and ask if there's any things that we need to do there so we talk to Miss Callie Keating yeah you director there yeah and I think what we were there for like two maybe a year two yeah maybe a year or two yeah so a year or two and we were just doing a bunch of free events for them some including like new

3:04years Eve yes celebration for like little kids so they can celebrate the new year as well as like cultural events like Holy and some other stuff sure but basically we started off with doing free pro bono-esque events yeah and now we've focused on you know getting paid events actually we have an event right after this interview with us okay yeah Washington not Lincoln yeah what Lincoln she was last week but Washington Street yeah Washington Street School yes yeah exactly yes so we're doing the back-to-school kickoff there yeah so we're providing sound some video and you know transitioning from DJing we're an event production company now so we do a lot of filming audio event planning and just like a lot of stuff behind the scenes sure to make things happen and then to help whoever's the organizers like because we coordinated on the the recent

4:07Franklin Interact Club with the senior center record department rotary that was a great conversation you took some great pictures I believe you did some video but I think in your short that you produced it was it seemed to be mostly the pictures coming together in a collage with some music that you coordinated with Jamie Barrett to reuse his song from then that was that was a nice piece too of course yeah I mean interact you know I'm a part of that club I know Andrew's pretty good friends with everyone in that club you know we're like I don't why don't we help them out something free we can do for the community I love doing that yeah yeah and that'll be the first of a series the second one I believe in November 19th you know hopefully there'll be more after that so yes yeah so that's the kind of events you do and you get into obviously working with an organization to coordinate their event on their behalf so you

5:11would provide some of that technical expertise the audio video things of that sort yeah exactly we also do private events we did yeah we did a wedding yeah yeah yeah so we did we did a wedding okay we've done other private events like birthday parties sure I got more like you know something you know to keep us busy well you know absolutely absolutely especially during the summertime when you know and you as seniors clearly you're now into that last year you've got college applications to make and then figure out where you're gonna go yeah but I think to the extent that you've already learned some things about business that's gonna stand you well going forward of course 100% as part of your schooling did you get into involved with the Deca Club at all I know I was a member and I did a little bit of stuff there but I thought that actually running

6:14the business with Andrew was a lot more into definitely talk more about like some school stuff that he did with like the video production right oh yeah so I took video production last year in school and it's definitely helped a bunch for the just editing of videos doing comics school has definitely helped us a lot for the sure business yeah but there's nothing like the need to figure it out yes for sure yeah it's all the story and elsewhere that because and I think you're aware there's Chris and Chris and Chris that do video at the studio so my name Steve so I can't do video but I've been working my way towards it and then I there was an opportunity to you know quote give back to the community so the police station building tour happened but not a whole

7:14lot of people were showing up so I talked with the chief and the deputy chief and they got me into the building so I did some pictures did some video and then produce that series so that they can go to you know well it's available to anybody because there's still a decision that has to be made in terms of should we as the town rebuild or build a new police station or not obviously it's going to be a bunch of money so the video at least because I also recorded with the car in chief um spent 90 minutes with him in the in the room recording and it was amazing because he did the walkthrough based upon you know kind of the outline he had given me it was like he was watching the pictures in the video he knew that building so much he was almost like right onto the inch so this is what's here this is what's there it was amazing so and I structured it such that you know

8:15the video has his audio in terms of current conditions we didn't get into kind of the future stay what they want to do that's part of the cell piece if they do decide to go forward we can reuse the video and then just add some audio to do that kind of argument but we don't know yet so you know that itself was a learning experience for me so yeah most of them very fun so oh it was yeah because the deputy chief also let me get some of his drone footage that he had of around the building so I was able to incorporate that in a couple of pieces so it wasn't just my own video of course I gave him credit for it you need to do those things yeah yeah so yeah you mentioned you got the Washington Street school so we won't go too long today we want to make sure you have plenty of time to set up do you have other events planned so far or

9:16just open schedule and ready to meet the needs of whatever whoever wants to pay you for your services yeah so like we have a lot of events planned for like the year up until basically we graduate true so some of the biggest things that you know it takes up most of our time this year will be the Franklin high school sports yes as of right now we have around contracted with I think 10 or 11 total sports yeah yeah I think 11 total sports throughout the entire like high school season yeah yeah and then this fall we're working with the football team the soccer teams the field hockey teams cross country teams and we're just you know providing videography which is a new thing we're starting off I know we talked with Franklin TV we're going to be collaborating with them with some of their visual you know aspects of stuff because they're

10:23going to be their live broadcasting we'll be there with like the creative video sure and photos so be you know a fun experience for everyone busy busy though yeah definitely and I like as a foam or cross country runner I like that cross country reached out to you because you know that you see people start and you see them finishing maybe you see them in between but it's a fun sport and it needs to have some more you know exposures how to speak yeah exactly we both actually do run cross country so oh good yes excellent do you do track and field as well or just cross country I do yeah yeah I do cross country uh and you special fees on the track side do you short distance long distance spring four hundred meter hurdles eight hundred six hundred oh middle yes yeah I did the four hundred hurdles two yep yep four hundred uh four hundred meter and then relays sometimes the two hundred but I wasn't fast enough to be in the hundred four by one

11:29I at least had the strength to go to distance not not that everybody else did good so clearly it's still early do you have some targets as to where you want to go for a college to continue to develop either in some other area or would you focus more in this arena or use it kind of as you know something you could still do all the time thank Andrew can talk about yeah I think we're definitely a focus on expanding mm-hmm on probably more hosting parties of our own yep as well as continuing with the photography and videography and we are planning on hopefully going to the same area yes so yeah something near Boston you know I plan on studying something more in the degree of like economics uh mathematics okay something more focused on like um you know the social side of things as well as like the math part

12:32yep and then I plan on going into more the engineering world so okay creation yeah yeah I think that really does reflect how we you know operate the business as well I like uh you know talking to the people getting some of the contracts and stuff well Andrew's always behind the scenes Texas you know always behind the operations yes we can do this no don't tell them we can do that we can't do that yet that sounds like a good collaboration yes you do need to leverage the skills of both and then grow the skills individually you don't have to be be everything for everybody that's for sure but that team yeah that's good mm-hmm excellent is there anything else you want to share with the community any perhaps advice in terms of other students looking to do something out that they would compete with you but lessons would be good uh I think the biggest piece of

13:35advice is to start um start early that's the biggest thing just because you may think like oh I I'm in my sophomore year I have time but things like this especially if you want you know start a business you know do something something of like profound impact definitely start early because these things like take time to grow like we went from DJing at the local public library to now working with our high school getting you know tons of contracts um you know we even got to stay uh town proclamation for volunteer work and entrepreneurship um but it takes time that's the biggest thing yeah well and I think the good you you kind of followed the kind of the freemium model you gave it for free to prove that you could and to kind of build the exposure as well as the network and then oh well yeah look at they can and now they're doing better so oh yeah we can afford that guys yeah you found that sweet spot clearly compared to some of the others and yeah that's good

14:42all right excellent well thank you for taking time today to share um good luck with your event today and in the future through the year and you know sometime later we'll have to check in to find out okay what's that college decision what does the next world look like for you if you're willing of course I'm sure you why not yeah yeah of course yes thank you thank you no thank you this is this is great um this is exactly what we do because you're showing initiative you've shown that you've were willing to learn willing to work and you're continuing to be successful in learning along the way there's nothing wrong with that so that's all goodness and that's what we that's where we're here to share excellent so good luck especially for the rest of the day for the school year especially with your decisions I'm sure I'll pass across along the way yeah of course and to the listeners thank you for listening and we'll include in the show notes their contact info their web page etc so if

15:46the opportunity arises that you want to utilize them don't contact them and if the schedule works great and of course quick reminder we do this because Franklin matters we are not producing this in collaboration with Franklin TV and Franklin public radio this podcast is my public service effort for Franklin but we can't do it alone we can always use your help how can you help if you can use the information that you find here please tell your friends and neighbors if you don't like something here please let me know through this feedback loop we can continue to make improvements and I thank you for listening for additional information please visit Franklin matters.org if you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at suresteve at gmail.com the music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael clock in the group east of Shirley the pieces titled Ernesto Mannyana copyright Michael clock contain type tunes in 2008 and used with their permission I hope you

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