The courtyard was bustling with students checking out all the colorful products on display. Students of the Principles of Business class held a business expo on Apr. 12 in the courtyard to promote their businesses, bring in customers and help increase the sales of the products that they have been working on.

Freshman Kamryn Robins, president of the Flaming Kicks, a company that revamped shoes, shared her thoughts on the event.

“The expo was held for students of our class to get their business out there,” Robins said. “By selling to the students at our school, we hoped that our business would attract customers in the Bellaire community. Different kinds of products were being sold like silly putty, shoes, phone cases and chargers.”

The expo was a way of showcasing the products the student entrepreneurs had been working on throughout the semester. Robins shared how they kicked off their company.

“We partnered with Junior Achievement to help us learn more about business,” Robins said. “Junior Achievement is a nonprofit organization that helps students develop skills to successfully compete in the free enterprise system.”

At the beginning of the semester, the Principles of Business class, sponsored by Alice McKinney, was split into five groups. Then, the students agreed on their business name and the products they would be selling. Junior Mya Reese brainstormed to come up with a business name and was inspired by a video she saw online.

“We didn’t have any good ideas at first,” Reese said. “Several other companies were also revamping old stuff, so when I saw a YouTube video on color changing shoes, I thought we might as well try this. When you step into the sun they change from one color to another color or if rain touches the shoes, it will go back to the original color.”

With an idea in mind, Reeses’s company began the journey to success. Next she had to create a business plan.

“We all had to pitch in some of our own money to buy supplies,” Reese said. “We bought color changing paint, paint brushes and supplied shoes. Then, we assigned each team member to do a specific job.”

At first, the process was slow and the girls experienced difficulties with the paint.

“We have been working on this project for three months now,” Robins said. “In the beginning, we had trouble figuring out what paint to use and getting the paint to stick.”

Gradually the process got easier as she started to get the hang of painting the shoes. After attempting different methods of applying paint, Reese found a successful application method.

“I was one of the shoe painters,” Reese said. “Every day we have been painting shoes to get ready for this event. We took old and new shoes and revamped them into something different. I went through many trials and errors to make sure the shoes were sellable.”

Now that the company has perfected the techniques, Robins was ready to make a profit. Flaming Kicks used the business expo to their advantage.

“For our main goal at the expo, we were trying something different,” Reese said. “We were trying to get our business out there and make some profit.”