Lesson learned from meeting my competition.

When I was in fifth grade there was a really huge trend in making these rubber band bracelets. So many kids at my school had them. It was like a little almost a competition on who can make the coolest one. So I started to make them also. Michaels, my local arts and craft store, was even having workshops on how to make them. So it was a pretty big trend happening for kids my age.

 I first started to only make them for myself, then I eventually started to sell them to other kids at my school and bring them to different events I was going to. I was invited to this fundraiser event in Los Angeles for a Steam Carnival they were going to host. I figured why not bring my rubber band bracelets and give them away to people. I just had so many of them at my house. 

This fundraiser event was hosted by Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman. They were the ones who were having the huge Steam Carnival. It was a really fun event, it was very different to any other event i had been to. They had different arcade games which were very fun to play. My favorite was this button wall game they had built. They also had a lot of alcohol but I wasn't able to drink any of it. It was fun walking around and exploring all the different attractions they had. 

 I was just walking around and exploring and my dad had stopped and told me that is Nolan Bushnell. I was only 12 at the time. I did not know who this guy was. Then my dad began to tell me little about him that he's an entrepreneur and a businessman, and that he created Chuck e Cheese and Atari the game. So I'm like this my competition right here. I thought to myself he'd be a pretty cool person to give one of my bracelets to and tell him about my arcade. 

 I go up to him and I'm a little nervous. I started telling him about my cardboard arcade I had created and then I asked if he wanted one of my rubber band bracelets i had created and that they were free. He took one and handed me a 20 dollar bill and told me “You should never give away something for free when you can sell it”. I had that on my mind the whole night. I just kept thinking about and repeating it in my head. In business you always try to grow your profits as much as you can, so that advice was very true to me. In my rubber band bracelet business i started to do discounts if you had bought multiple of them. I then started to sell a lot more and i didnt have so many anymore at my house just sitting. This was a very important lesson learned from meeting my competition. I still bump into Nolan Bushnell at Two Bit Circus and talk to him. He is a role model to me and someone I want to be when I'm older.

First picture is meeting Nolan Bushnell and showing him my bracelets i made. Second picture is with Nolan Bushnell and Brent Bushnell at the event. Third picture is a updated picture with Nolan Bushnell.