Huntington’s Virtual Enterprise Companies Clear $311,000

Huntington High School’s Virtual Enterprise companies are off and running this fall. The budding executive from the four firms participated in the state online trade show on Tuesday. It featured 60 companies form across New York networking and attempting to sell their products to others virtually.

A full year, one credit course, Virtual Enterprise is a simulated business that is set up and run by students to prepare them for working in a real business environment.

“The sales department, CEOs and select executives from each of the four Huntington firms worked in the library for the whole day making and tracking sales, projecting revenue, identifying indirect competitors and getting their first taste of the live Virtual Enterprise experience,” high school business teacher Bryan Outsen said.

By the end of the day, the four firms had collectively sold $311,475.93 in revenue for their respective businesses, which they will utilize by purchasing more inventory, increasing employee wages, creating employee training and donating to strategic partnerships.

“Our team at Raydiance worked really well together when making sales with other firms,” company CEO Grace Oliva said. “We reached our goal of selling at least $50,000 worth of products as we had over $68,000 worth of revenue. We made a total of 71 sales as a team and had a very productive day.”

Henry Stein, the vice president of sales for Haven was also pleased. “Today, Haven’s sales team and the CEO worked hard to make sales of our products, including our Haven barrier, installation services and training videos,” he said. “I made 15 of our 60 total sales. The whole sales team rotated between being in our own Zoom call and going around to other VE company Zoom calls to sell and buy products. It went really well and we grossed over $77,000. Although the task was repetitive, we found a way to stick to our work and basically use all of the money in our employees’ personal bank accounts, utilizing our money to make purchases from other companies.”

The event was a novel experience for some of the Huntington High School students. “This was my first trade show for Virtual Enterprise,” said Henry Gerberg, the chief strategy officer of Flo-Pro. “I really enjoyed it. It was a great experience to connect with other firms around the state and make sales to help my business grow. It was a great team bonding activity.”

With the first trade show under their collective belt, the Huntington business students are rolling.

“Our first virtual trade show went really well,” said Grace Gordon, CEO of Horizon VR. “Horizon made a total of $91,595.30. Even though we had three employees from all different departments working together, we still managed to be the most successful firm of the day. Throughout the day we collaborated effectively and the inter-department work will make our whole firm better in the future.”

This year’s Virtual Enterprise program is off to a strong start, with motivated students and creative ideas behind each of the companies.

“The virtual trade show went a lot better than I expected it to go,” said Lexi Balm, Raydiance’s vice president of human resources. “It was really great being able to interact with other VE firms and learn about their products. It was much easier to make sales than I thought it would be and I'm looking forward to hopefully attending more trade shows in the future!