Like many kids his age and younger, 17-year-old Jason Rivera gets a rush playing games that hadn”™t yet been invented or come into vogue in the youth of his parents and grandparents.
“Paintball, video games, I love them,” he says, nursing a soft drink in a diner booth down the street from his home in Yonkers. “They”™re my passion.” Recreational aggression, vicarious warfare in modern knight”™s helmet and camo pants, at about 100 bucks per indulgence at his favorite paintball field.
Rivera gets a rush from business, too. “I was always interested in business, ever since I was little,” he says at the Argonaut on Yonkers Avenue. “The whole dressing up in suits, talking ”“ I feel comfortable speaking in front of other people.”
In a folder he carries his business plan for “Kinetic Rush” ”“ winner of last month”™s Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship competition for high school students in Westchester County. The contest began last spring with 589 students presenting their business start-up plans in classrooms at 10 high schools.
Founded 25 years ago in New York City by a high school math teacher and former entrepreneur in the South Bronx, NFTE began as a program in low-income communities to prevent dropouts and improve academic performance among students at risk of failing or quitting school. Through entrepreneurship, kids turned street smarts into business smarts. NFTE officials said the organization has worked with nearly 450,000 youths in the U.S. and around the world.
At Lincoln High School in Yonkers, Rivera needed no coaxing to compete. As a student in the public school”™s Academy of Finance, which prepares students for careers in financial services, he took classes in accounting, financial planning and entrepreneurship. “The classes they gave us, I just kept falling in love with them.”
Rivera came to the 2012 competition wiser and more focused after falling short of the prizewinners”™ circle as a junior last year with his “TG Skins.” The aspiring entrepreneur ”“ “basically, being your own boss is what I like” ”“ had an idea then to launch a peer-oriented service business that would sell personalized decals for players”™ headsets and video games equipment.
Apparently he didn”™t explain his business well enough to last year”™s judges. “At the end, I”™m not sure they actually knew what it was,” he says.
This year, the repeat contender was more persuasive, even though mention of home-delivered paintball play zones has adult judges raising sticky business issues such as liability insurance ”“ and who”™ll clean up the post-party mess? (Kinetic Rush will, as well as provide netting to protect homes from errant projectiles of biodegradable paint.)
Rivera was among 27 students who advanced to judging rounds at Westchester Community College. This year the June graduate took home the $1,500 first prize and a domestic round-trip ticket on Southwest Airlines. His detailed plan for a mobile paintball and laser tag business ”“ catered “war zones” for kids”™ parties and corporate outings in parks and backyards ”“ topped two other finalists”™ visions for a chocolate sculpture business and energy-conserving custom wire production.
“I wanted to win it this year,” Rivera says at the diner. “I was going to come back and I was going to hit harder.”
“What helps me get through is if I know what I”™m talking about. I actually know paintball.”
He will be a student at Iona College in October ”“ $1,500 richer in prize money but still about eight-grand short of his calculated start-up investment for Kinetic Rush ”“ when he represents Westchester County in the national NFTE competition in New York City.
“I have major tweaking to do” on the business plan before then, he says. “Prices, branding, promotion. I”™m going to order a jersey that says, ”˜Kinetic Rush.”™”
He might not want to rush to place a large order. That jersey might already be worn in England, where a bicycle company goes by the name “Kinetic Rush.”
So we tell the kid, gently. Before the first threat of legal action from an intellectual property lawyer with a London office arrives in the Rivera family”™s mail.
He is not surprised. He”™d already come across the Brit company in a trademark search. The company name might not be available, but he secured a web domain name for his mobile paintball business.
Rivera takes his paintball gun to Liberty Field in Putnam County. It”™s about a 50-mile haul from his home in Yonkers ”“ just ask his accommodating parents. It”™s a jaunt to inspire entrepreneurial thoughts about doing this recreational sport another, more customer-convenient way.
“I”™ve been playing for five years, and it”™s always the trouble of begging your parents to drive you and your friends up there,” he says. “There”™s people who love to go like every two weeks ”“ but the hassle of actually getting there.”
Rivera said to a paintballing friend ”“ one with a suitably spacious back yard ”“ wouldn”™t it be cool to bring paintball to people”™s homes? To big Westchester homes whose owners can afford Kinetic Rush”™s $300 reservation fee and $25-per-player charge?
Rivera did a market survey ”“ of 10 paintballers ”“ and found that, as he noted in his winning plan, “70 percent of children would rather have paintball than a bouncy castle at their birthday parties.”
He is not targeting the prime bouncy-castle birthday-party crowd. His mobile paintball service will cater to youths 10 and older, including those clinging to their paintball guns well into their late 30s.
He calculates his start-up investment at $9,553. At the time he wrote his business plan, Rivera had $503 in personal savings to stake in his venture.
“It”™s not going to happen overnight. I”™m not going to get nine grand overnight.”
If it does happen, his high school alma mater could be the first venue for Kinetic Rush.
“I spoke to my principal,” Rivera says eagerly. “He said if I can prove I”™ll do the clean-up, I would be able to host an event at Lincoln High School.”
Our waiter leaves the check. Jason Rivera grabs it. Exercising seniority, we reclaim it.
So Rivera reaches in his pocket for loose bills and throws down a tip. A generous businessman”™s tip.
