Entrepreneur. 

Senior Kavish Patel lives with this title every day.

Patel is the president of the Entrepreneurship Club and owner of his own business. In his early life, he watched his retired grandpa trade stocks while looking at charts, patterns and averages to make money. Meanwhile, his father went into business and owns an assisted living center where Kavish volunteers.

“My dad [took] a lot safer of a route [than my grandpa,]” Patel said, “Seeing how my dad was able to run this business [after attending] a community college [instead of a prestigious school] inspired me. With how little [of an] education my dad had and seeing him do [all this, I can’t] imagine what I could do with a finance degree.”

After finding his inspiration, Kavish knew he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandpa. He originally wanted to start the entrepreneurship club in his freshman year after trading stocks with his friends in his money matters class, but couldn’t find a sponsor.

“[It just made me think,]” Patel said, “Some kids don’t know how the market works and don’t have exposure, but I wanted to bridge that gap.Why not start a club?”

In August 2023, as Kavish was starting his junior year, he began the entrepreneurship club after finding a sponsor — business teacher Ellery Smith.

“My first thought was, ‘I don’t have time for it,’” Smith said. “I know he’s a go-getter, and someone who is always self motivated, so when he spoke to me and gave me more details I agreed to sponsor [the club.] I thought it would provide an educational experience for more students, [and] it has grown tremendously.”

In the club, Kavish creates lessons and engaging activities based on different aspects of entrepreneurship, such as business management, financial literacy and investment strategies.

“I feel like it could benefit students [by] inspiring them to start something on their own,” Kavish said. “It also brings a sense of community knowing that there are other people that think like you and are similar to you. So many people have such great ideas, but they don’t act on [them.] If you want to start [something,] then go start it. Who knows, it could go nowhere, it could go somewhere, [but] it’s all about [the] journey of doing it.”

Close to 70 members meet in the Bright Room on B club days to listen to the lessons Kavish creates, do activities and give their ideas.

“Kavish is just an amicable person.” Smith said, “He’s full of enthusiasm. People gravitate toward him in anything he gets himself involved with. It’s something [that is] going to help him because I can see Kavish being a very successful businessman in the future.”

In order to help support the club, Kavish gave the position of Vice President of the club to his friend Luke Sharp. Sharp helps with creating the lessons and inviting speakers to the club meetings.

“We are really good friends,” Sharp said. “We’ve gone on college visits together, and hang out all the time. He’s a smart, hardworking [and] creative individual. He’s always willing to do whatever it takes, whatever that end goal may be. He [has] always struck me as someone who could do entrepreneurship, and it’s been there since day one.”

Along with the entrepreneurship club, Kavish runs a business. He sells tongue scrapers with a sleeve. He thought of the idea after a past experience. While on a trip, his personal tongue scraper didn’t have a sleeve, causing dirt to grasp onto the tongue scraper, annoying him. He said he thought about how he could prevent this from happening, so he made a case. He proceeded to sketch it out, then met with manufacturers, engineers and graphic designers to create his business.

“I thought it was a neat idea and just decided to run with it,” Kavish said, “Every part of the way, I had done on my own, and it’s crazy to see the journey and know I’ve learned so much. Seeing the amount of people who are interested in the product and use it is awesome. It’s one of my favorite accomplishments.”

Patel also works with Sharp on the business. Sharp would help Patel with whatever he could while getting experience in entrepreneurship.

“[When] he started his new business, [I] was fortunate enough to tag along,” Sharp said. “I’ve been able to help wherever I can, but I’d say he’s driving [the] business and I’m just here on the side with some encouragement and to learn.”

Patel said he wants to go to the University of Pennsylvania to study finance. He also applied to the University of Miami, University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, and Southern Methodist University. After college, Kavish plans on going back to his father’s family assisted business to scale and expand it.

“They all [have] strong business programs and are target schools to go into private equity and investment banking [after college,]” Patel said, “[My dad and grandpa have] always [pushed] me to do better.  [I’ve] balanced classes, having time to hang out with my friends and creating all these ventures in high school. I think I’ve done a pretty good job with [everything].”