![]() Given the relatively low risk and ready market of hungry students, delivering food on campus has proven to be a recipe for success. Why not see what happens?" Sure enough, Penn Drinks has sold over 21,000 drinks to date and has also licensed their site design to three other colleges. "You probably won't invest much money, and you're not depending on your business as your full time job as you might later in life. "To me, starting a business as a student is great timing because you get the chance to learn and test out your ideas with minimal risk," she says. Kelly Schaefer, who graduated from Wharton last December with Management and Marketing and Communication concentrations, cofounded Penn Drinks, an online drink delivery service on campus, with classmate Jason Toff. ![]() And it turns out Penn students have more than enough good ideas, some of which have become the very cookies and cupcakes that grace your doorsteps at 1 a.m. Students who have the drive and creativity to translate their musings into reality are presented with a captive clientele, potentially inexpensive labor and a chance to make it big on a small scale. When it comes to food and drink, a college campus, as a microcosm of the real world, serves as an ideal testing ground for original business ideas. The long-ago addition of those first several employees, who were Penn and Drexel students, sparked the rapid growth of a late-night student food delivery company that would inspire future budding Penn entrepreneurs. This past February, Berkowitz was named one of business Web site Inc.com's "Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30." This year, he says, the company will likely reach a peak employment of 175 bakers and drivers nationwide. ![]() About a year after Berkowitz and his business partner Jared Barnett got Insomnia off the ground, they had two bakers and two other drivers.įast forward to today: Insomnia Cookies will be opening its 22nd store this month and already supplies its famed cookies and brownies to 15 schools from Ohio State to NYU to Cornell. In just one year, the economics and history double major, who says his parents "initially thought was totally crazy," was able to upgrade the project to a small commercial facility on 23rd Street that he equipped with the essentials: two ovens, a walk-in freezer and a mixer. "It was just a college adventure." Berkowitz began using the oven at his house on Beige, where he lived with nine roommates, functioning as the sole baker and deliverer of what would grow to become a booming national success. "I was sick of my classes and ready to do something in between, so I had this idea to start my own small business and hand deliver cookies Monday through Thursday," he says. ![]() It all started with a boy on Beige Block who liked to bake.Īs a junior at Penn in 2003, Seth Berkowitz found himself traveling back and forth to see his girlfriend in Boston on weekends with nothing to occupy him during the long solo weekdays. ![]()
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