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SM South News

the student news source of shawnee mission south

SM South News

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Getting Technical

Getting+Technical

When most high school students look for a job, they go to fast-food restaurants, clothing outlets or grocery stores.  Seniors Eric Groves and Jay Michels, however, weren’t content with flipping burgers or bagging groceries. They had bigger and better plans —  starting a business of their own.

Their business, Techapedia, specializes in everything from website design and networking, to gaming console and mobile phone repairs.  Started last January, their enterprise has grown in leaps and bounds.

In their first year, Groves and Michels estimate they’ve made anywhere between $10,000 to $12,000 total, but given the increase in business recently, they may make even more this year.

“Right now I have five websites I’m making,” Michels said.  “It’s definitely growing a lot. Just in the last three months it’s been like, boom.”

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December was particularly busy for their business Groves said.

“At one point, I’m pretty sure I had 11 jobs stacked up at once over the holidays,”  Groves said, “and I had to cram through all those as quickly as I could.”

Techapedia didn’t always have that steady flow of customers, though.  Like all entrepreneurs, Groves and Michels had to start somewhere. But their love of technology has remained constant from the start.

“I started freshman year repairing Xbox 360s after I got the red ring of death, and I kind of fixed my own and it just went from there,”  Groves said.  “I started fixing it for other people, then it expanded into fixing iPhones and computers over the next few years.”

Michels said, “I started business in eighth grade summer, where I was making websites for people. Then we both realized that if we combined all that, we would have a bigger market base.”

And so, Techapedia was born.

“We just kind of went for it,”  Michels said.  “Put a website up, put some ads up, paid for everything; it’s just us.”

Jay’s mother, Zelma Michels, says she wasn’t surprised when he first told her about his business venture.

“As a parent, I am very proud of Jay’s entrepreneurship,”  Michels said.  “They both work hard and look for ways to improve and expand their business.”

Getting started was easy for Michels and Groves.  The real challenge?

“Gaining popularity has been the hardest part,”  Groves said.

Despite this, Techapedia is beginning to take off.

“It’s not like we’re a household name,”  Michels said.  “But we’re starting to get that networking effect, where people are saying, ‘Oh I heard about you from a friend of a friend.’ ”

Michels and Groves have seen a wide variety of customers in Techapedia’s relatively short history.

“Everyone. Literally anyone you can imagine,”  Groves said.  “We get most of our [business] through Craigslist, so we get pretty much every type of person.  There’s people that you don’t want to let in your house; there’s people that show up in these really unique cars and clothing.  A guy once wore an all-jean outfit, with a jean jacket that had a dragon-thing on the back, but you can’t judge them based on who they are.”

With business on the rise, Michels and Groves have expressed high hopes for Techapedia’s future, and wish to continue operating through college and beyond.  The duo have also considered opening a store after graduating, but the costs coming out of college are Groves’ biggest concern.

“Starting a store and everything is a lot of initial start up cost,”  Groves said, “and if it fails it could be pretty bad.  I’ll probably go and work for a bigger corporation, like Microsoft or Google or even Apple.”

Their advice to anyone following in their footsteps?  Follow the tried and true formula of dedication and hard work.

“If you want to do it, at least try it,”  Michels said.  “There’s nothing wrong with getting out there and trying it. If it fails, it fails.  If not, then maybe you’ll make some money along the way.”

Groves said, “The biggest thing is you can’t give up on it.  If you’re trying to follow through with it you have to dedicate a lot of time to it, in order to gain a name.”

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Getting Technical