By Kyle Clayton
Seventh-grader Jacob Weerasinghe is one busy kid. You have to be when you’re a 13-year-old entrepreneur and business owner.
Between piano lessons, swim and volleyball practice, church activities and homework, he also runs a successful retail and manufacturing company out of his bedroom and kitchen.
“During December and the fair I had a two-foot walkway to my dresser and then down to my closet, and it was really an obstacle course to get to my desk,” Weerasinghe said of the inventory storage room where he also sleeps. “There’s a lot of boxes and totes.”
Weerasinghe is the sole proprietor of Alaska Creations, a jewelry, candle and clothing company that took seed when he was in third grade. At eight years old, his friend Nora Priscandaro taught him how to make earrings. At nine, he made his first sale.
“It was a lady who my mom was working with,” Weerasinghe said. “It was exciting.”
His first sale turned into two, then three and an entrepreneur was born. With the aim to beef up his business, he sought help from community members. Jan Hill taught him to make zipper pulls and keychains. Lenise Henderson-Fontenot let him sell his products in the Rusty Compass Coffeehouse.
“I started to think about how I could expand my business,” Weerasinghe said. “I thought about doing candles so I went onto different websites to watch videos to research the process of doing a soy candle.”
He now sells products on consignment in Alaska Rod’s, Lynn View Mercantile, La Loft and Magpie Gallery. He also sells his products on Etsy and at 907 Clothing Co. in Skagway.
Henderson-Fontenot owns a business consulting company. She’s been a mentor to Weerasinghe since he started selling merchandise in her store. She recognized his skills early on and said they discuss the same retail sales concepts she advises adults on.
“That concept of looking at a store from not only profitability, but space taken up, is a pretty advanced retail concept, but it’s one that Jacob gets,” Henderson-Fontenot said. “You can already start to see the wheels turning and the thought processes are there. I could talk to Jacob for hours.”
For his birthday, Henderson-Fontenot gave him a book about customer service.
“What kind of 13-year-old would you give that to?” Henderson-Fontenot said.
You give a such a book to a 13-year old who manufactured and sold 150 candles this year, who works ahead in his classes, who packages t-shirt orders instead of riding his bike on weekends and who worries about high shipping costs.
Weerasinghe volunteered at Lynn View Mercantile with owner Kelleen Adams last summer. He learned how to better work with customers and makes sales.
“That was a good experience of getting to work with a customer at the checkout and talking to them and encouraging them to buy the product and persuading them,” Weerasinghe said. “I watched Kelleen a lot.”
Between his business and the rest of his responsibilities, Weerasinghe said he sometimes feels lonely, and at times he’s missing out on being a kid. Most of his peers don’t relate to his passion, and when he talks about his business, they often look at him blank-eyed.
“My friends aren’t as into what I’m doing,” Weerasinghe said. “This summer I feel like I kind of spent too much time on business. The seventh and sixth graders, they did a lot of hanging out this summer and I just want to catch up with them and do that with them more.”
It’s a concern his mother, Susan Weerasinghe, shares as well, but she said he’s doing what he loves. She makes sure he doesn’t overextend himself and helps manage his finances.
“It’s kind of crazy to see him doing this,” she said. “His dad and I are really proud of him. There’s a lot of potential but I also don’t want to see him not have fun. He has the choice to do the business. He chooses to do it. He gets a lot of enjoyment out of planning and making stuff.”
And he’s not alone. While he does 80 percent of the work, Susan said, he gets plenty of help from his family. His dad helps build and haul the booths he sets up at local bazaars. His brother even helped him on the manufacturing end. Classmate Haley Boron edited his t-shirt designs in the past and even created a few herself, which he bought from her.
The moments he feels like he might be missing out on aren’t enough to dissuade him from following what he said is his dream.
“I like how there’s never a boring part of it. I want to carry this as long as I can,” Weerasinghe said. “My dream would be to bring it up to where I’m 20- or 30- or 40-years-old and still be doing my company and have employees.”
Until then, one of his biggest challenges is getting people to take his business seriously. He said most people who come up to his bazaar table assume he’s just looking after the products while the adults stepped away.
“It’s not just a fun little business, but it’s actually something,” Weerasinghe said. “That’s why I’ve been getting labels and business cards and banners, to try and show people it’s not just a little, fun thing.”
Henderson-Fontenot is one of many who thinks Weerasinghe is the real thing.
“He’s a little entrepreneur in the making that’s for sure,” Henderson-Fontenot said. “It will be fun to follow him. He’s 13 now. What’s he going to be doing when he’s 26?”