The college hopes events like the Rawls Marketplace will provide platforms for students to grow as family business entrepreneurs.

At its core, the entrepreneurial spirit is about possibility. The possibility of building something from nothing. The possibility of failing and losing it all. The possibility of leaving one’s mark on the world.

The Jerry S. Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University has recently taken steps to foster and grow that spirit within its students. 

In March, the college hosted its first ever Rawls Marketplace, featuring 14 student-run businesses selling everything from vintage clothing and golf apparel to coffee and flower arrangements. The event was hosted by the Alderson & Griffin Center for Family Business & Entrepreneurship (AGCFBE) in partnership with the Scovell Business Leadership Program (SBLP) and the newly founded Raider Entrepreneurship Club (REC). 

“I remember as soon as I joined Rawls College, I asked Dean Margaret Williams if there was one thing she’d like me to do as part of my first action item at the center,” recalled Anish Quenim, who joined AGCFBE as associate director in October 2024. “She brought up the idea of the marketplace.”

A few short weeks later, Quenim partnered with students from REC and SBLP to get the marketplace up and running before spring break. He wanted to work with students who were invested in the idea of entrepreneurship or demonstrated strong leadership and initiative qualities.

Kyle Weber, a senior management student, helped found REC in November 2024 and jumped at the opportunity to help develop the marketplace. 

“Being a new club, we didn’t have any events planned for the upcoming semester,” Weber said about the serendipitous timing. “We were a brand-new organization and were looking to get into something like this.”

Weber also saw the marketplace as the exact type of event he wanted the new group to be associated with. The mission of REC is to connect young entrepreneurs with one another and help them grow as a community. Weber wants entrepreneurs at all stages – from opportunity identification to business planning to growth management – to feel welcomed to the club. 

Assisting Weber and Quenim were SBLP members Emma Ferriol and Katarina Samwel. Though they lacked entrepreneurial backgrounds, they still took on an entrepreneur’s mind frame when planning the marketplace.

“We jumped in and just figured out how to swim along the way,” said Samwel, a sophomore finance student. “We just had to do something every day, and soon you look up and realize, ‘Hey, we made progress.’”

In terms of that progress, Ferriol, a first-year finance student, said the team broke the planning into two different stages: securing vendors and then encouraging shopper attendance.

Bringing the Marketplace to Life

Weber, Ferriol and Samwel reached out to their fellow classmates to help spread word about the event. They also frequently met with their groups’ faculty advisors, Muhammad Algarhy (REC) and Feruzan Irani Williams (SBLP), for guidance and to help with logistics, like parking and obtaining speaking time in classes. Samwel also created digital signs to display throughout Rawls College and on social media accounts. 

With a turnaround time of less than 10 weeks, the team focused their efforts on Rawls College student entrepreneurs. Due to the limited space and bottleneck nature of the atrium inside the college, they capped the number of vendors at 14.

The first vendor to sign up for the marketplace was Anndee Greenlee, a senior studying business management with an entrepreneurship concentration. Her business, The Flower Box, offers customers a build-your-own-bouquet mobile bar for special events. 

While Greenlee feels more comfortable in open spaces that let her display the converted horse trailer that has become her mobile bar, she jumped at the opportunity to have a table at the marketplace.

“Normally I’m booked for private events, so I wanted to get more exposure to college students my age,” Greenlee said. 

Jaxon Tilley, a senior accounting student, saw the marketplace as an opportunity to move beyond his company’s typical ecommerce platform. His business, Bluebonnet Golf Co., sells golf apparel like hats and shorts to younger golfers who prefer modern styling. 

Tilley had never participated before in an in-person event like the Rawls Marketplace, so he came to the event with modest expectations.

“I told my partner, ‘Let’s try and sell, like, four hats,’” Tilley recalled with a hint of laughter in his voice. “We ended up doing way better than that. We sold nearly 20 hats, so we definitely exceeded our expectations.”

Tilley also said he saw several new followers on their social media pages and applications for their ambassador program. 

Alex Cabrera, a junior finance and marketing major and owner of Project Throwback, a vintage apparel store, was impressed with the execution of the Rawls Marketplace. 

Cabrera has attended several marketplaces before, and he’s organized marketplaces of his own, too. One of his most recent ones was in partnership with Bier Haus in Lubbock. 

“I think the turnout was very much up there with some of the great places that have established traffic,” Cabrera said. “I thought the location and timing of everything was perfect.”

During the marketplace, the buzz of commerce filled the air as students, staff and faculty gathered in the atrium to peruse the different vendor tables. Even people who were simply drawn to the marketplace out of the typical curiosity that comes with seeing a gathering crowd found themselves paying for a new piece of apparel, a bag of coffee, an air freshener or a flower arrangement.

Quenim estimated that each student business made $500 to $1,000.

“The marketplace almost hit $10,000 in total sales,” Quenim proudly said, adding that each business kept the entirety of the proceeds. “This is phenomenal, especially knowing that for some of the students this was their first dollar.”

Future Marketplaces

With the first Rawls Marketplace in the rearview mirror, all eyes are firmly set toward the horizon of possibility. 

For Quenim, what turns possibility into reality is having a clear succession plan. He wants the student entrepreneurs to continue building on the momentum from this and future marketplaces. 

“The Innovation Hub is one of the most important players for the marketplace,” Quenim said. “Once we see students who have potential, our aim is to move them to the Innovation Hub because of their programs like the Texas Tech Accelerator and iLaunch Competition.”

As part of developing that relationship, the Innovation Hub had a table at the marketplace where they were able to directly connect with the various student vendors.

Many of the details of future marketplaces are uncertain, but one aspect is nearly set in stone: the Rawls Marketplace will continue to foster a community of entrepreneurs.

“I didn’t realize how many other student businesses existed,” Greenlee said. “It can feel lonely at times because it can be hard to find people who can relate to having a full workload of school and running a business.”

Ferriol sees the marketplace as another way to showcase the amazing things Rawls College students are doing beyond the classroom.

“When it comes down to it, we all have a place in our hearts for the students of Rawls College,” Ferriol said. “A lot of the vendors I spoke to after the market said that this helped them tremendously.”

Weber also hopes REC and the Rawls Marketplace showed student vendors and aspiring entrepreneurs in the crowd that there’s support for them. He wants them to know that Rawls College is the place to be for entrepreneurship.

“When you’re a young entrepreneur, you need all the support you can get,” Weber said. “It’s inspiring to see our community supporting each other like this.” 

Participating Student-Owned Businesses

• Air Beniteaux
• Bluebonnet Golf Co.
• Glamour Grove
• Go Green It’s Groovy
• Ibex Coffee
• Izzy Money Vintage
• Mia’s Posters
• Mulligans Hat Company
• Project Throwback
• Sassy Smellies
• Snow Designs
• Sunkissed Threads
• The Flower Box
• Unitd