Faces in the business world don’t get much fresher than Rakkim Johnson.
The 18-year old senior at The Big Picture High School in Bloomfield has opened up his own soda business that is just now being sold to area retailers.
The Big Picture High School is an inter-district magnet school that is based on a central theme: learning through internships and performing real work based on the interests of the student. The Bloomfield school district contracted with The Big Picture Co. in Providence, R.I., to run the school. Its Providence school had started a soda company, which inspired the call to other Big Picture schools to embark on similar ventures.
Johnson has been involved with every facet of setting up the company that is called BP Soda. He worked with his mentor, Eddie Binn, a Hartford management consultant, to find a graphic designer for the label and another company to print the labels. He met with Rob Metz of Avery Soda in New Britain to concoct a proprietary flavor called Tropical Passion. (It involved sampling and mixing all the flavors the company had to offer until finding just the right blend.) The second flavor being sold is the more common Lemon Lime. Initial funding for BP Soda came in the form of a $1,000 grant after Johnson and Binn made two presentations to a venture group that provides seed money to young entrepreneurs.
It’s not soda, though, that’s driving Johnson: it’s a love of business. His high school requires internships as part of the course of study. His freshman year, he worked at the now-shuttered Saturn of Hartford because he had a goal then of selling cars. His exposure to the business side whetted his appetite for the corporate side of life.
“I started learning more about business and fell in love with it,” he said. Johnson wants to translate his love for business into helping other Big Picture students afford college through scholarships from the soda’s profits.
Johnson hopes his company’s success will be fueled by its community spirit.
“We’re all getting paid with an education and a scholarship,” said Johnson, who is heading up a team of four students on the project.