The First Student-Made Story

Once 2-3 student businesses were discovered, it became clear that there was something to this— as student entrepreneurs each knew 1 or 2 other students working to grow a business while in college, too. After 3 months of discovering more and more of this presence of incredibly talented students, who had infections ambition to spread what they were making to other, and wished more students knew about it on campus— The ‘Student Made Holiday Market’ opened in the campus Student Center with 15 student-entrepreneurs, and 300 customers. Clearly a hit, the same market was put on the following year— this time with 35 artists and over 800 visitors!

After graduating in 2019, the founders Lindsay and Ryan wanted to find a way to run this year-round, and be able to feature more student creators. So, an online site launched in September of 2019 with 25 Elon artists, and soon expanded to the University of South Carolina— a monumental step that began the second part of Student-Made’s mission— connecting passionate, creative students between campuses to help each other expand the reach of their business even further. Launching Appalachian State was inspired by a trip to Boone, NC where an obsession with locally-made & artistic expression was immediately apparent. We hope that as we continue expanding, we provide these students with a powerful outlet to continue doing what they love after graduating, and that you as a supporter can get to know the unique and wonderful cultures that makes each of our new campuses a pleasure to welcome to Student-Made.