At Wayzata High School, it's fitting we find 16-year-old Bharat Pulgam in an entrepreneurship class because this high school junior is already a CEO and company founder.
"Sometimes I have to stop and take a moment, and I'm like, 'Wow, I'm the CEO of an actual company,'" said Pulgam.
Pulgam's startup company is called Mxers Audio, and along with a team of 12 other Wayzata High School students, the company has a patent pending for modular and customizable earbuds.
The journey to entrepreneurship started for Pulgam when he was one of 30 students chosen nationally for a youth entrepreneur incubator program called Catapult.
"They give you education and then they say, 'here's what you have to do, go for it'," said Pulgam.
Invention catches investors eyes, ears
Pulgam's idea for a company was the result of seeing a need and finding a solution for earbuds that malfunction.
"[I wondered] Why am I wasting money buying entirely new sets of earbuds when I can just replace the wire," said Pulgam. "We're like let's make these all modular, make every single part separable, and so when someone breaks a part, they can just snap, twist, and bam, it's fixed and it's good as new."
Sue Iverson, Wayzata High School's Talented and Gifted program coordinator, encouraged Pulgam to apply for the entrepreneurship program after working with him on student council when Pulgam was a freshman. Iverson recognized Pulgam's smarts and leadership qualities, but she could also see he was a self-starter with a high level of emotional intelligence.
"He is always the one coming to me, 'What else can I do? What else can I do?,' and then [he is] also taking a very rigorous academic load and performing really well."
During a recent trip to Chicago for the Catapult entrepreneurship program, Pulgam made his company's pitch to a room full of investors. Meanwhile, the team of students behind the company have a GoFundMe site to raise money for the next phase of product development. They've done their market research and they know they're audience.
"We are the target market, we know exactly what these people around us, these high school students, these college students what they're looking for in this product," said Pulgam. "They want affordable, they want repairable, they want customizable."
The goal is to start selling the product in November 2016, and whether or not the company becomes Pulgam's career, he already has the tools for success.
"I love business, never thought I would be a business man, but the road has shown me the way."
Alexandra Renslo reporting
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5 сен 2024
