Devoted to women of color in business

The Girls' Middle School (GMS) has it right when they encourage seventh-graders to participate in an Entrepreneurial Program. "It's a nontraditional role for a girl, especially a girl in middle school, to be told she can create and run a business," says Andrea Johnston, the GMS development director. These girls, like Edith Gomez, Shreya Kumar, Emily Xander, and Jing Xu, cofounders of JEES, are assigned to teams and spend months going through all of the issues that startups go through, from writing a business plan, doing research and development, raising startup capital, bringing their products to market, and managing inventory and distribution.

Venture capitalist Christine Comaford-Lynch said she "felt embarrassed for the MBA students" after judging the GMS company presentations at Google's headquarters last February: "These thirteen-year-old girls were kicking their butts."

Students demonstrated a variety of products and services, including two companies which have already sold more than $1k of product: Dragon's Eye, which specializes in pajama pants, chandelier earrings, hair chopsticks and earring organizers, and Komfort from the Kitchen, which sells food items like gingerbread houses.

JEES, started in 2005, sells the unique Mini Mirror, a darling, limited-edition mirror targeted to women and girls who want to get organized. Company's founders were seeking $100 in startup investment and anticipate selling $702 worth of product this year.

The girls focused on their potential rivals, and detailed in their business plan that "Our competition is places like Office Max, and Office Depot because they sell locker mirrors too." The difference? JEES Mini Mirrors are "more stylish and we have more varieties."


Mini Mirror retails for between $12.50 and $14, and company founders plan to direct a portion of net proceeds to Unicef.

Ann Tardy, co-director of the program, says that  at GMS the girls “generate their own ideas and write their own business plans. They’re taught that they can make money on their own ideas.”

We can all learn a lesson from that!

Congrats to the girls and good luck with future business ventures.