These High Schoolers Were Tasked With Turning $1 into $100 in a Week. One of Them Made Over $2,000.

When Darrick Ramsey first held the single dollar bill he’d been given, anxiety deed him hard. “I was very nervous, for illustration I was anxious,” he recalls successful an question and reply pinch Entrepreneur. 

Alexis Jordan had a similar reaction: “For me, I was very nervous,” she says. 

In February 2024, a documentary movie squad tasked these 2 students, on pinch astir 2 twelve of their then-high schoolhouse classmates, pinch an different challenge: Turn $1 into $100 successful a week utilizing each of the resources astatine their disposal. They started the situation terrified of failing, past utilized their businesses, networks and difficult activity to move $1 into acold much than $100 successful a week. A documentary movie released past period called Learn to Earn: A Student’s Journey From $1 to $100 chronicled their experiences.

Both Ramsey and Jordan initially grappled not conscionable pinch the math, but pinch the reality of trying to build something successful “this economy,” arsenic Jordan put it, wherever “what tin you get for $1?” is simply a genuine question. The clip framework added pressure: They had astir a week, layered connected apical of school, sports and different commitments, to move $1 into $100. “We had different worldly to do, truthful it was very time-consuming,” Jordan says. 

How Jordan flipped $1: services and Kool-Aid pickles

Once the daze of the $1 situation wore off, Jordan went straight to the community she knew best. “My strategy was, wherever do group springiness the astir money?” she says. “So for me, I was raised successful a church; my religion is for illustration a large family. So I said, fto maine spell to my number 1 supporters.” With that azygous dollar and her existing relationships, she offered labor and creativity alternatively of products she couldn’t spend to buy.

“Usually what I did was I cleaned their yards, I cleaned the church,” she says, describing really she exchanged services for donations and payments.

Then she layered connected a homemade snack that became an unexpected hit: Kool-Aid pickles.

“It’s weird,” she says. “But a batch of group bought them. Everybody bought them, for illustration everybody was going crazy complete them.”

She explained the process simply: “You get the pickle jar, you move retired the pickle juice and past you conscionable operation Kool-Aid packets and sweetener pinch it, and past move it backmost and fto it ferment successful the refrigerator for for illustration a time aliases two, and past aft that you put them successful a Ziploc container and you conscionable waste them.”

With cleaning work for section mini businesses and a snack that turned heads, she surpassed the $100 target.

Where she is now

More than 2 years later, Jordan, 19, runs a business called Blended Threads LLC, which centers connected puerility diabetes, a information she was diagnosed pinch successful 4th grade.

She wrote a children’s book, Why Did Diabetes Pick Me, chronicling her struggles and really she overcame them. She is now moving connected a 2nd book, this clip a section book. She’s besides a keynote speaker, turning her lived acquisition pinch juvenile glucosuria into acquisition and advocacy. 

“I wanted to broadcast and bring consciousness to it, because you seldom perceive anybody talk astir puerility glucosuria aliases juvenile diabetes,” she says, adding that group successful her organization were “shocked” to study much and “glad” she published the book.

Alexis Jordan

For Ramsey, the turning constituent came erstwhile he realized that the $1 was little important than the relationships he already had. He was portion of the CEO program astatine his precocious school, and the programme had taken students to circuit businesses successful the community. 

“We had a journal, and I wrote down each business owner, their sanction and their contact,” he says. When the $1-to-$100 situation arrived, he asked himself: Why can’t I conscionable scope backmost retired to these guys to spot if they tin thief me?

He recorded a elemental one-minute video for those contacts: “I tried to support it existent short and simple, explaining, hey, my sanction is Darrick Ramsey. I talked to you successful the CEO programme before. I’m conscionable wondering if you had immoderate proposal aliases if I tin pressure wash your car aliases item it for you,” he says. 

He had bought the powerfulness washer earlier the situation pinch money from an hourly job.

The consequence was overwhelming. “I benignant of overbooked myself pinch each the group that we had met and each the group they know,” he says. “I really sewage to spot the organization coming together. It was conscionable great.”

He focused first connected unit washing and later added car detailing arsenic request grew. “It sewage to the constituent wherever I had to unit lavation successful the cold, had to unit lavation successful the rain; we had the car item successful the freezing cold, for illustration cars were icing complete arsenic we were washing them,” he says, describing 1 of the busiest weeks of his life. By the extremity of the challenge, he’d acold exceeded the target, earning $2,065. 

Where he is now

Ramsey, 20, was calved successful Decatur, Alabama, and moved betwixt Chicago, Atlanta and Alabama earlier settling backmost successful Decatur. He struggled “academically, financially” successful school, which shaped his intent now: “I consciousness for illustration 1 of my life’s purposes has been trying to thief the younker pinch what they do best, and support excelling,” he says. He is simply a physical acquisition teacher and mentor who “goes each complete Decatur metropolis schools” to link pinch kids, pulling them speech to talk done “behavior issues and really conscionable worldly I was struggling with.”

His business, PeerPressure, was calved retired of individual condolences and bad influences successful mediate and early precocious school. After a adjacent friend died the summertime earlier ninth grade, he says, “I was peer-pressured into doing a batch of things that I really felt for illustration I wouldn’t person done if I wasn’t astir those bad friends.” 

In his sophomore year, pinch the thief of teachers, he turned that communicative into a brand. PeerPressure now offers unit washing, mobile car detailing, location washing and automotive ray work, built complete “about 4 years” and expanded done activity pinch “many business owners wrong our organization and extracurricular of our community,” he says. 

Darrick Ramsey

His biggest situation was internal

Ramsey says that he was his ain “biggest enemy” solely because he didn’t really judge successful organization aliases family astatine the time. Academic and financial struggles near him emotion isolated and nether pressure, which “created a batch of self-doubt” during that week.

Reaching retired to group changed that perception. “They started showing maine that I wasn’t alone,” he says. “Then I started to spot a bigger vision.”

The lesson has stayed pinch him. He endured years of “long nights, a batch of crying, a batch of work.” Those years helped him specify his purpose: “If I tin alteration somebody’s life done school and mentoring, past I consciousness for illustration I’ve fulfilled my purpose,” he says. 

This article is portion of our ongoing Young Entrepreneur® series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of being a young business owner.