CINCINNATI — A group of 14 high school students nervously waited their turn to present their team. They had spent the past three weeks at the Bigger Than Sneakers (BTS) Academy learning how to design shoes and clothes and create a cohesive business strategy around their fashion line. All that was left was for them to present their idea to a panel of judges.
“It’s kind of emotional because I spent three weeks with teenagers and we all got along and it was really fun,” Mariam Barry, 15, said after the presentation. “These three weeks were probably the best three weeks of my summer vacation.”
Barry is going into her senior year at Walnut Hills High School. She had planned on getting a job over the summer, but after being accepted into BTS Academy, she decided it was more important to spend a few weeks of the summer learning about marketing and design.
“I think the best thing about this program is just the connections, because now we have all this information from these people that might help us start our own brand or business and move forward,” Barry said.
BTS Academy required select students to attend “classes” from 9am to 1pm, Monday through Friday, for three weeks. Students were given brand new iPads loaded with design programs to take home. Nearly every day during the first two weeks, the school hosted guest speakers who were leaders in marketing, design, and business. In the final week, the students were challenged in groups to create a mock company, complete with a budget and marketing program, and then present it to a panel of judges.
Matt Toma-Michel is the co-founder of Bigger Than Sneakers. He opened his sneaker boutique, Corporate, in Hyde Park 16 years ago. Now he has two stores in Indianapolis and Dayton. The idea behind Bigger Than Sneakers was just that: to give the community an opportunity to offer more than just fashion options for their feet.
“I didn’t graduate from college,” Toma Michel said, “but I’ve been running my own business for 16 years. I felt like I had something to offer people using my network. I thought, let’s get together and create something that we all wanted as kids.”
Thomas Michel grew up in Green Hills and remembers being laughed at when he said he wanted to open a sneaker store while attending Winton Woods High School.
“If I went through that, I can only imagine what it’s like right now with social media and everything that happens to kids,” Toma Michelle said. “As if they have to grow up fast. If that’s the case, I want my kids to be prepared for that. I want them to find their passion early.”
And so, BTS Academy was born.
One of the supporters is 16-year-old SCPA student Jayden Thrasher. His sister attended the academy last summer. He was selected to be a member of the academy this summer and was one of Barry’s teammates at the presentation. He said the past three weeks have had a huge impact on him.
“I just did a presentation on sales,” Thrasher said, “and I didn’t know how to crunch numbers and put them into a spreadsheet or what my gross income was or anything. I had no idea what any of that was. So it’s been really great to learn something that I can apply to other things in my life, other businesses, other things I pursue in the future.”
Although he usually focuses only on design, he says that learning about business and the costs involved in running a company from the CEO has broadened his perspective and changed his way of thinking, and also made him think more realistically about his future.
“Our project was about passion,” Thrasher said. “You start diving deep into it and thinking, what are my passions? What do I want to do? I feel like this project is taking me to the next level of thinking about the future.”
And that’s exactly what Thomas Michel was hoping for.
“I feel like I always have to get out of this city to be great,” Toma Michelle said. “Now I can be great here. I need more positive examples of ‘making it’ to fill my days.”
