Kicking asphalt

He was sitting on his porch, hopeless in finding a job for the summer due to COVID. He started asking his dad to help try to spark an idea. His dad suggested that he start his own driveway sealing business like he did when he was a kid. Loving the idea, he called up his buddy and asked if he wanted in. The rest is history.

Seniors Michael Dolan and Jack Venneman started their own driveway sealing business over the summer, bringing in significant amounts of money.

“I was down to do it, but I didn’t know if Michael was going to follow through with it,” Venneman said. “It was good to see that we actually followed through and made some good money.”

Before they could seal any driveways they needed to learn how to seal them. They decided to practice on family member’s driveways.

“With the help of his dad, the first driveway we ever sealed was Michael’s grandmother’s,” Venneman said. “It did take us a very long time because it was our first, but it was a good experience.”

A lot went into jumpstarting the business, as a source of driveway sealing tar was unknown at first.

“We found a tar distributor off of Manchester Rd and after we began receiving good feedback from our first few customers, we knew to stick with them,” Venneman said. “We started becoming regulars as we pulled through the drive-thru part of the tar distributor location, sometimes more than once a day.”

Like most new businesses, it started off slow. It was hard for them to get their name out to the public because they were just a couple of teenagers.

“We started by posting flyers on poles all around neighborhoods and that got us a couple of customers, but it wasn’t enough,” Dolan said. “We started to go door to door and at first we were so nervous to do it.”

The young entrepreneurs were welcomed to the business world with people who wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

“The first door that answered was a shirtless man who told us to get lost,” Venneman said. “We were a little bit discouraged, but we kept doing it and got about ten sales going door to door.”

In total, the two entrepreneurs managed to make $1,650 each in profit. This business didn’t just give them money, as it also taught them a lot of life lessons that they will use for the rest of their lives.

“The people skills is definitely one of the biggest things I learned,” Dolan said. “Especially going door to door, you gain a lot of confidence and you realize that a lot of people see you go to their door trying to make money through honest labor, they’re going to actually want to support you.