For this blog post, I also wanted to answer some of the questions from the comments I received on my last post asking about what was the inspiration behind the P.S. Snacks company. When Nikki was in college, she developed a gluten intolerance and that, paired with her healthy and active lifestyle inspired her to create a blog, Slender Seven. With that, came her new invention for cookie dough made out of chickpeas which was inspired by her mother’s blondie recipe that she loved as a child. In the recent year, she rebranded to P.S. Snacks because she wanted to separate her college blog from her future company so that she would be able to create her unique and individual business and brand. One of the most recent growing pains that I have directly come into contact with is manufacturing. Right now, we are manufacturing in a food incubator and making the dough ourselves. Because of this, we cannot possibly meet the demand that is quickly increasing across the U.S. The answer to this problem is to find a co-packer that will manufacture the product in a facility and be able to increase our supply immensely. Throughout the business cycle of her venture, Nikki has had the advice from her parents, investors, and fellow business owners to help her go in a successful direction to grow her company.

This week marks the halfway point of my internship at P.S. Snacks. What I am most proud of is that I have been able to work and collaborate with other companies on events and samplings completely on my own. I found their contact information, emailed them, coordinated the event/sampling, and then completed the event successfully by increasing exposure and awareness for the P.S. Snacks company. One thing that I’ve definitely learned and experienced is that though not being able to meet your demand is in theory a good problem to have, it is still a problem and could end up being catastrophic for any business. I hope to achieve by the end of this internship a sense of the big picture of all the moving parts that go into growing a successful venture. Not only am I able to see this by working for Nikki’s company, but I am also able to see this when I’m working in Union Kitchen where a variety of entrepreneurs with different POV’s and products are attempting to start their own venture.

My name is Hana Polizzotto, and I am a co-founder of Higher Art Galleries along with recent Wake Forest graduates Alexandra Dow and Brooke Einbender. In a nutshell, Higher Art Galleries is an online art gallery that showcases and sells student artwork to alumni and parents across the nation. With every piece purchased, a portion of the profit goes back to the student artist and their art department. Brooke, Alexandra, and I launched our company this spring at Wake Forest, but this summer we are putting a majority of our effort into expanding to other universities (primarily in the North).

We are so excited that we are a part of the Summer Fellows Program because the resources from it will help us with our goal to expand! I am already living in NYC working on the company, while Brooke and Alexandra are currently working remotely. However, they will be moving to NYC in the coming weeks, and we cannot wait to be back working together in person!

This week, I spent a lot of time working on our website. Since we are an online art gallery, our website is the core of our business. We have received tons of entries from extremely talented artists, so I have been diligently working on getting their artwork up and available for purchase on our website.

The rest of the week was devoted to launching our GoFundMe. As a startup, we need all the funding we can get. If you are interested in learning more about Higher Art Galleries or want to donate, please check out our GoFundMe here: https://www.gofundme.com/support-higher-arts-growth. Please help us reach our goal and spread the word!