Isaiah Carter (2025) is a Westerville North student who plays football, does his schoolwork, and runs a clothing business on the side.
Carter runs a clothing brand called Rich Emotions; through which he sells hoodies, pants and tracksuits. He has had a total of three product releases so far with the first two selling out.Carter also has an Instagram page which advertises his merchandise and shares his story as a young entrepreneur.
According to Carter, he gets his materials from websites where he then has a manufacturer who makes the clothes in bulk and then ships it to him to sell. He says that he packages orders and goes to the UPS store to ship them out. Carter says that it’s important that he finishes his schoolwork during school so that he has time to package the orders, but his schedule makes it achievable.
As stated by Carter, he has been able to share his designs and ideas with others, and finds the value of doing so in his business. “The perks [of having a business] is putting your creativity on someone else,” Carter said. “I can draw whatever I want and come up with my creative idea and someone will wear it and think it’s cool, and also just being able to say you have a clothing brand which is really cool.”
According to Carter, he sells at least one hoodie and one track suit a day to a student or someone buying online. He states that he has been able to increase the prices of his merchandise as demands increase each drop, and he is excited for the third drop believing that it is the best he’s ever had and that it is of good material.
He expresses his amazement upon the success of his business. “It’s a really cool thing if you have a dream or want to design. It’s really achievable,” Carter said.
Another student who has had their share of having a business is Gemma Schmitt (2025) who owned a baking business.
According to Schmitt, it was unofficially named the Sheila Joan Bakeshop. Schmitt started this business when she was twelve years old. She states that she always wanted to own a bakery, and as she got better at baking, her mother would post her work on Facebook. As time went on, people became interested and she received orders from friends and family.
“I loved baking,” Schmitt said. “Easily [the] most rewarding thing – other than delicious cookies obviously – was getting to see my final products and people going, ‘oh, these are so great.’”
She also stated that she was able to charge more for her goodies as the business went on. One of her biggest orders was for a wedding where she made about 375 cookies where afterwards she was able to use the profits to buy a Nintendo Switch.
Schmitt believes she has learned lots of valuable lessons from her experience of owning a business. “I think that owning something at such a young age helped me realize that I had a lot of control over my future, but it also made me realize that sometimes you have to choose what you’re going to do not solely based on passion,” Schmitt said. “Even though I loved baking, when you add work to it, it’s always going to become a bit of a chore in my opinion.”
Schmitt claims that she also found hardships when dealing with her perfectionistic tendencies. She shares advice on doing a passion-focused business. “If you have something you love, you got to do some of it for work and you got to do some of it for you,” Schmitt said. “If you always make it work, work, work, you’re not going to love it as much as you used to.”
According to Schmitt, she found it easier to hold up her business during the pandemic since school was more relaxed, but as school started up again, her business became harder to pursue. When Schmitt changed her focus to school, she decided to postpone her dream upon realizing that owning a bakery is very expensive. She decided that if she had the money and freetime one day, she’d pursue it once again.
Another student who is pursuing her passions through business is Shakayla Dickerson (2027).
She owns a service that focuses on haircare and hair designs. She mostly braids hair because a license is required for using certain tools like flat irons. Her service is called Kaybeautifully and she can be followed on Instagram or Tiktok.
Dickerson states that she plans to have business cards soon that she can hand out to people around the school. “I’d say I started off at a good time, so by the time I get older I’ll be good enough to succeed,” Dickerson said.
According to Dickerson, her company tends to get busy when school is about to start or when it’s hot outside since people want to look good for the first day.
Dickerson says that she hopes to go to the Delaware Area Community Center (DACC) next year to study cosmetology and gain more experience in that field.
These students are just a few of many who own their own business at Westerville North, showing that it is achievable to pursue a passion at a young age and profit from it.
