24 July 25 • 2019
jn
jews d
in
the
Student Startup
Seaholm High School student starts waffl
e
company and helps support local business.
B
ubble waffles have become an
international street-food craze,
and now you can get them right
down the street at the Birmingham
Farmers Market thanks to Valarie
Sherr of West Bloomfield, where she
lives with her parents, Andrea and
Roger Sherr. They attend Temple
Israel.
Sherr, 15, is a student
at Seaholm High School
who will be starting
her junior year in the
fall. Over the course of
her high school career,
she has become very
interested in entre-
preneurship. Having
grown up going to the
Birmingham Farmers
Market with her family,
Sherr thought it would
be fun to start a busi-
ness at the market. To
determine what kind of
business she wanted to
pursue, Sherr and some
friends began research-
ing foreign street food.
They looked into all
kinds of treats from
Dutch poffertjes (mini
pancakes) to South
American alfajores
(shortbread cookies).
Sherr then sent out a
survey asking people
which food they would
be most interested in
trying. The Hong Kong
bubble waffle won by a large margin.
She immediately decided that this
would be the company’
s main dish.
When Sherr first began experiment-
ing with bubble waffles, she attempted
to follow a badly translated recipe that
came with her bubble waffle machine.
After many failed batches, she turned
to the internet and spent a few days
trying out different recipes and getting
her family’
s feedback.
Along with some friends from
school, Sherr perfected her recipe and
had a few “training days” in which
everyone learned to use the machines,
pour batter quickly and handle the
waffles without popping the bubbles.
Crunchy on the outside, chewy
on the inside and complete with any
toppings you can imagine, the waffles
have been a hit at the farmers’
market.
“The response has been great,
”
Sherr said. “People are really interest-
ed in the fact that we are just a group
of high school kids run-
ning a business.”
Sherr has weekly
volunteers who help
at the Farmers Market
as well as eight per-
manent staff members
that she involves in the
nitty-gritty side of run-
ning a waffle business.
All the volunteers and
staff members are high
school students.
The company, called
Waffle GOAT, attended
its first farmers market
just three months ago
and has been doing
very well. In addition
to giving Sherr and her
friends real-life entre-
preneurial experience,
Waffle GOAT also helps
other local businesses
achieve the same suc-
cess by donating 10
percent of profits to
an organization called
Detroit Techtown,
which helps tech start-
ups and local businesses
launch and grow. Sherr
is supportive of their mission.
“Having gone through it, I know
how hard it is to start a business,
” she
said. “It’
s nice that we can help other
budding entrepreneurs.
”
Sherr is looking to expand her busi-
ness by finding a Saturday venue as
the Birmingham Farmers Market only
takes place on Sundays. The company
is also looking into catering parties
and other events.
“Starting the business has been so
fun, and I have learned so much about
entrepreneurship — way more than I
ever could in a class,
” Sherr said. ■
JESSIE COHEN JN INTERN
PHOTOS COURTESY OF VALARIE SHERR
Valarie
Sherr
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