Every December, the Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship hosts a holiday market where students with small businesses showcase their entrepreneurial talent.
The marketplace, held in December to kick off the holiday season, takes inspiration from holiday markets like Bryant Park’s Winter Village. There were over 20 students and alumni vendors this year, offering a variety of products including graphic tees, baked goods and keychains.
The event was held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in two locations: the Newman Vertical Campus lobby and the field center on Dec. 4. Marlene Leekang, the executive director of the Field Center for Entrepreneurship, started the marketplace in 2022 after he noticed Baruch College students’ various “side hustles.”
Leekang said she wanted the Baruch community to interact and support one another more through the marketplace. “We’re a commuter school and no one talks to each other,” Leekang said. “This was a great place to give them all the opportunity to show what they do, promote their business and hopefully gain new clientele through their own fellow Bearcat students, staff and faculty.”
When the market first started, Leekang noticed a large handful of food businesses. This year, however, it was dominated by clothing brands.
One of this year’s apparel vendors include Joel Ramirez, a senior majoring in digital communications, who created the clothing brand 49 Archive. Ramirez conceptualized his brand on July 7, 2022, his birthday. The first 49 Archive drop was in March 2023. Since then, there have been four total releases with the marketplace acting as a preview for the fifth.
“I always felt like a lot of clothes didn’t feel like me,” Ramirez said. “I wanted to wear something that expressed who I was. Everything is pretty much an expression of who I am, more or less, and also expression of human emotion.”
The brand is completely run and designed by Ramirez. Clothing items include a hat with “let me guess your ex is toxic,” across the top and a T-shirt with a love letter written by Ramirez. Prices vary based on the intricacies of the design. The only rigid price is for the 49 tees priced at $49 for branding purposes.
Ramirez also expressed gratitude to the field center for supporting his brand ever since its inception, referring to the center as his favorite place and for giving him the spirit for his brand.
“They helped me with setting up an LLC, making sure if you need a business plan, grants, all those things,” Ramirez said. “They help you with anything entrepreneurship wise, even if you just need advice. A lot of the times we go in there and we’re just talking about life.”
Students passing by were also drawn to Dr. Drummy Keychains, which displayed keychain versions of trendy figurine brands such as Smiski and Calico Critters. Alice Gonzalez, the creator of Dr. Drummy and a senior majoring in computer information systems, started her business in 2023 after coming across an advertisement for a Latin Hispanic market near her home in Astoria.
Gonzalez’s main products are the “lobotomy keychains.” The products are figurines with holes drilled in the heads that allow her to turn them into keychains. Gonzalez’s Smiski keychains cost $18, while Calico Critter keychains are $16. Regular beaded keychains and jewelry range from $5 to $7, with “bring your own” lobotomy keychains priced at $8.
To prepare for the market, Gonzalez crafted 17 keychains — only three keychains remained by the end. Gonzalez currently sells through physical pop-ups, including Newtown HQ, where she’s been invited several times. However, Gonzalez also pays attention to current trends to create promotional videos using trends such as “subtle foreshadowing” to show the lobotomy process for the figurines.
The Entrepreneurship Center also helped students with marketing for the event by providing a printed banner or board with their logo. Promotions are completely run by student staff at the center through promotional flyers and videos, while the rest was up to the student vendors themselves.
“It really is them being fully prepared,” Leekang said. “As much as we’re going to give them the space and opportunity, they have to fulfill the requirements as business owners themselves.”
The center provides oversight to make sure vendors follow general rules such as safely packaging food products. The marketplace also offered free smores’ kits to all attendees who entered the field center. Any customers who purchased an item over $20 got to spin a wheel for a free prize including pens, lip balm and socks.
The marketplace is just one of the resources the Entrepreneurship Center provides. They mainly work to align students with available services such as the Small Business Development Center and MakerHub. SBDC offers small business owners free counseling and guidance with professionals and experts. MakerHub hosts workshops, events and hosts spaces for students to workshop their creative ideas.
“What I’m building here is not just the programs, it’s the community,” Leekang said.
Editor’s note: Managing Editor Sonia Kalo participated in the marketplace as a vendor and had no part in the editing process.
