It isn’t very often that students start businesses while they are in college and it’s even rarer to see two student businesses at the same time. Sophomore Mary Blackledge and senior Alyssa Luebke both started businesses for their ENT 401 New Venture Experience taught by Assistant Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship Lisa Tschauner.
Blackledge created Crunch & Cram, a subscription “healthy snack” service that provides a snack or drink, or both and an entry into a drawing for a prize at the end of the semester. Luebke created Boxes4Peace, a mental health (de-stress) box that provides students with stress relieving tools and tricks according to themes such as comfort, self-care, fidgets/trinkets, snacks/drinks and more.
“I came up with the idea for the business while I was sitting in Lakeside doing homework and I wanted to grab a snack from the Coffee Shop/Den areas and noticed that they had mostly Candy and other sweet snacks. So to solve that problem, Crunch & Cram was born,” Blackledge said.
For Blackledge, this is an opportunity to both provide a service she thinks Doane students are in need of and to apply what she is learning in class into something tangible for her career.
“This business came from a class; the class itself has taught me that I am way more capable than I think I am, in MANY aspects. I have completely jumped out of my comfort zone and been able to talk to people I normally would never talk to, along with getting myself out there via social media and word of mouth,” Blackledge said. ”My overall Doane experience and education has also helped in many different ways; through different ENT classes and Business classes that I have taken, I have learned different business strategies and also important communication strategies, which have helped me pave my way through building this business.”
Blackledge’s classmate Luebke has also used her student business as an opportunity to provide a service that she feels Doane students are lacking. For Luebke though, her business aims to help ease some of the student stressors that are common for many students.
“I came up with the idea for Boxes4Peace by talking to the Doane community and trying to figure out a common problem between us students. Through my research, I found that a majority of us college students are experiencing high levels of stress,” Luebke said, “I knew that this was a problem that I wanted to help solve and luckily I had some background knowledge and experience on this matter. I have been through years of therapy and I learned about different coping skills for stress and anxiety relief, so I decided to create boxes with some of these tools for my classmates.”
Luebke wants to use Boxes4Peace as a vehicle to make the most out of her education. She sees her business as something that prepares her for life after college and it also makes her appreciate the work she’s put in while at Doane.
“When I started my college journey, I never would have thought that I would start a business on campus successfully and even be entered as a Big Idea Finalist with the Boxes4Peace business idea. Being able to experience a customized education towards my end goal has given me a head start when it comes to launching future business ventures because I have been able to gain experience before entering the workforce,” Luebke said.
Both Blackledge and Luebke are actively selling their products and services. For more information on Crunch & Cram, visit on Instagram: @crunchandcram or email Blackledge mary.blackledge@doane.edu and for more information on Boxes4Peace, visit @boxes4peace on Instagram or email alyssa.luebke@doane.edu.
