Spring Break
Students find alternative ways to make money through entrepreneurship
By: by Kevin Burns
Issue date: 9/5/01 Section: Aggie Life
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The number of available workers has increased dramatically with the coming of Fall 2001, and competition for jobs is fierce.
This means there will be new faces scooping up half-eaten pickles at the movie theater, new smiles serving burgers and many disheartened faces of the unemployed seeking jobs within a system of campus-job bureaucracy. Students can be seen filling out job applications and loan forms until their fingers bleed.
However, there are other options. Ryan Ewing, a senior marketing major, and Josh Dayberry, a freshman computer engineering major, have found another method of earning extra cash flow — entrepreneurship.
Ewing is the owner, operator, manager and janitor of Northgate Vintage, while Dayberry personally launched www.SKERBLIP.com this fall.
Ewing’s business is tucked away above Campus Photo on Northgate and specializes in vintage T-shirts. Ewing started the business in a kiosk in the mall last year, but said eventually he started doing more online business and needed a bigger place to ship from. His customers range from college students looking to get away from today’s khaki and tees fashion trends to Japanese teenagers looking for a little American chic in their wardrobes.
“They are all T-shirts ranging from old YMCA tees, track tees, to band tees, to specialized sports shirts,” Ewing said. “I try to focus on everything from the ’70s and ’80s. It’s very rare that anything will sell that was made in the ‘90s.”
Ewing said his parents are very supportive of his business.
“My mom is involved — she is key to finding the shirts. She has a great eye and is definitely an integral part of the whole process,” Ewing said.
While he admits students are purchasing clothes his mom picked out, the complete process of finding and selling T-shirts is more complex than a two-person operation.
“Clothes are brought from all over the U.S. and some from outside,” Ewing said. “I have distributors that work with me from New York, France and elsewhere, who separate the shirts for me and after that, my mom sifts through those.”
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