Reading, writing, arithmetic and creating a soda company.
That’s what 17-year-old Yesenia Mercado, a senior at The Met School in the Shepard Building in Providence and a self-proclaimed “business geek,” has been working on since January.
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This November, her work and that of 16 other Met students, will come to fruition with the debut of The Big Picture Soda Company, named after the company that designed and started The Met School.
The soda – to be offered in a passion-fruit flavor, a diet version and a seltzer – will be sold at local delis and restaurants, with all proceeds going to The Met’s scholarship fund, Dollars for Scholars. According to Mercado, the company’s target audience is 14- to 39-year-olds.
“If I were at a regular school, I wouldn’t be doing this,” she said. “They are all about your passion, and my passion is business. It’s The Met that made the spark.”
Dennis Littky – co-founder and co-director of The Big Picture Company, and the director of The Met Center, the group of six local Met Schools – said the new business is a perfect example of what The Met aims to do.
“I think it’s an incredible project, for kids to start their own business,” Littky said. “Starting a business has all the pieces of good learning. The kids have to write, research, problem-solve and communicate with other people – so it’s real, with real consequences.
“At The Met, we love things with real consequences, because that teaches by itself,” he added.
It began when Littky asked the Peace Street advisory, a group of 15 students led by Sharon Pacheco, to look into making a soda. The students came up with a product, and Mercado took the next steps, through an entrepreneurship class.
Her business plan won Mercado a chance to compete in the regional contest of the National Foundation of Teaching Entrepreneurship’s New England business plan competition. She won second place, $750 for the soda business and a chance to compete for $10,000 at the national competition this month.
The Peace Street advisory students, along with Mercado, worked with the Yacht Club Bottling Works Inc. of North Providence for nearly a year. “It was a long process to get the flavor right,” Mercado said.
The student company has a chief operating officer, 17-year-old senior D.J. Hall, who was in Mercado’s entrepreneurship class, and is currently seeking students for seven additional positions, including vice president of sales.
Although the students will be running the company, Hall said, it is still a learning experience. The sales team, for instance, will be trained by Richard Croft, former the head of sales for Timberland. And for both Hall and Mercado, the business is their senior thesis.
“We’re not expecting the students to be out there like we’re a big company,” Hall said. But they do expect to compete with the big companies. Listed among their competitors are Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Snapple products, as well as sodas from independent bottlers.
Hall and Mercado will be graduating this year. The business is expected to continue, with a new group of students. But Mercado will retain the title of CEO, and she said she will be back.
“This is my first business,” she said. “I’ll have others, but this is my baby.”
