By Jessica Fontenot
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Not often does a student make a substantial profit from a project assigned by their teacher. This was the case for Sophomore Reyn Aubrey, who took an idea given to him by his fellow classmate, Sophomore Jay Pang, in an entrepreneur class project and turned it into a business. He now runs his business, Pop-iT Hawaii, by selling soda tab bracelets at public events and has his own website where consumers can buy a variety of different color bracelets such as foam white and firetruck red.
“I guess I kind of knew (Aubrey) would be the type of person to start that kind of thing because he saw our profits and he’s a more out-going type of person,” said Pang, “So he took that opportunity to get a proper idea that wasn’t invested in our school or Hawaii in general and made it more popular in our (age) section and exploited it so he would make more money and more business.”
The idea of stringing together soda tabs into bracelets came from Pang’s middle school Market Fair, where the class was required to make a product out of everyday items. Parents were given first dibs on the students’ products and used fake money on the products they thought were best. “I had only a few left for the students. So I thought it was a good idea to use those because I made a lot of money that day,” said Pang.
It was during this year’s homecoming game that the entrepreneurship class, taught by Janise Kim, held a fair to showcase their products. Pang’s idea of the soda tab bracelets was used again by his group and sold 42 bracelets, almost selling out. From there, Aubrey created a website to showcase the product even further and made his success. “A lot of people
really, really like the idea of supporting a teen entrepreneur, of supporting recycling because it’s a product that combines recycling and planet sustainability with business and teen growth,” said Aubrey, “Mainly I just want to learn about running a business, about management, about growing (it into) something that can be profitable.”
Even with the amount of success Aubrey has achieved with his product, he values what he has learned from this journey more than his profits. “He’s a very interested student,” said Kim, “I know he will be successful in the future. He just has that drive and desire to be successful and to learn. I think that’s the most important. He’s always willing to learn, he wants to experience, he wants to learn more so I have very high expectations of him.”
Although learning about entrepreneurship is important to Aubrey, so is the practice of selling a product that will not have harmful long-term effects on the earth. “I like to think that, you know, when you create a product, it can be something that can benefit the earth and I like to think that in my own little way, these recycled bracelets are helping to keep the planet sustainable,” said Aubrey.
Although soda tab bracelets can be found anywhere, Aubrey is one of the first to officially sell the product. He now offers brown and gold bracelets which are not yet offered on his website, www.popithawaii.com
