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Welcome to Andover Business Club

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Our mission For Phillips Academy students who are interested in entrepreneurship and business, Andover Business Club hosts weekly discussions about real companies in the market and provides hands-on business experiences through running various startups at Andover.  ____________________________________________________________________________ We believe in the power of every voice, which is why our meetings are discussion-based and designed with the Harkness method at the core. During light weeks, our meetings consist of discussions about real businesses in the present, acquisitions, mergers, and business models. Some questions we ask are:  Why is XYZ able to succeed whereas ABC failed in starting a similar venture? What is XYZ’s strategy and why will this new acquisition help me achieve this goal?  We seek to delve deeply into these topics and unravel the tactics successful companies employ and identify the areas where failing ideas lack.  As mentioned earlier, we run startups
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2022 Update

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Hello Everyone! I am thrilled to share that the club remains in excellent shape, and our future prospects are as strong as ever. Below you will find a summary of the club's activity and accomplishments thus far this year. MEETINGS: Since the start of the year, ABC has continued to hold weekly meetings where we discuss business and current events. We have had consistent, solid attendance: on top of our eight-person board, our meetings also tend to attract around a dozen non-board-members. Some of our topics this year have included: Our upcoming venture Joint meeting with Student Advocates for Climate Awareness (SACA)  discussing whether or not the business community will be able to innovate our way out of climate change Facebook's big bet on the Metaverse Electric vehicles, and whether Telsa's $1 trillion market cap is sustainable The business of Nuclear energy (and potential innovation in the space) Potential venture collaboration with PA Coffee Club (guess what we were goi
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Cryptocurrencies and Digital Payments

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Last Wednesday ABC met via Zoom to discuss Cryptocurrencies. We first discussed whether Bitcoin is viable as a currency; Rohan pointed out that currencies need to be stable in order to be widely adopted, and Bitcoin is currently very volatile. Bitcoin also consumes a significant amount of energy per transaction, which makes it inefficient and potentially dangerous to the environment. We also discussed Tesla's purchase of $1.5 Billion worth of Bitcoin, which James pointed out, and whether that is setting a precedent for other S&P 500 companies. This segued into Luc asking the club whether they owned any Bitcoin; no one except Luc owned any. Luc told the rest of the club to "have fun staying poor," a common joke amongst Bitcoiners. Nonetheless, Luc also pointed out that anyone who owns an S&P 500 index fund technically owns Bitcoin, as Tesla ––who owns Bitcoin–– is an S&P 500 component. The meeting next transitioned into a discussion of digital currencies and di
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The American Education System: Public Schools

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This past Wednesday, Andover Business Club got to have their first outside meeting of 2021. It was amazing to see everyone in person after a year apart, and the board is more than convinced that everyone was tired of meeting online. This week is also one of the first weeks everyone at PA got to attend classes in person, and the campus is starting to take back its friendly feel. Unfortunately, one of our presidents was not able to be in person. However, make no mistake, Kenichi was still as much of a presence as he was last year. Not to mention, with the help of board members such as Rohan and Reese, ABC gained 13 members yesterday alone! With growth like this, ABC could be looking at an even bigger group than last year. Switching to the topic of our Wednesday meeting, ABC talked as a whole about the American education system. More specifically, we talked about public schools in America. Most members brought up the struggles of public schools in the poorer parts of America. We talked ab
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User Experience (UX)

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    E xcellent end of term meeting today, ABC! We had a lively discussion about User Experience (UX), eliciting our own opinions about certain companies, how they operate, and what it is that makes us eager to continue consuming. We then set out to explore what makes good user experience, and what a company should do in order to achieve such.      User Experience is about the interaction of a customer with a company's product, and whether their experience was pleasant, manageable, satisfactory and frictionless. Companies that focus on developing such user experience are very "customer-centric", focusing on generating a good experience for the customer. We discussed how a company first needs to develop a worthwhile product that a customer will want and be happy with, and then focus on enhancing their experience. No matter how good a customer's experience is, if the product is not of worth to people, the whole endeavor is futile.      Prior to the grand globalization th
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Advertising & Branding

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 Another great ABC meeting this week! We had a great meeting about advertising and branding, focusing specifically on a few different case studies and topics. We had engaging discussions around the strength & usefulness of branding, relating to Apple, Starbucks, Supreme, Amazon, Facebook, and other social media companies.  We started our discussion talking about phrases that make a company so popular. Phrases such as "Netflix and chill" or Nike's "just do it" are what we centered the conversation around. These phrases are exactly how a company gets free advertising and creates brand exposure. They allow people to learn and remember a company. We then moved on to how brands built continuity and trust through branding and advertising. Jake from State Farm is a great example of the advertising, and Starbucks shutting down worldwide for a day to train baristas is an example that shows a company committed to quality.  Moving on, we discussed verbs for a short per
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Streaming Services

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Another great meeting this week! Thank you to everyone who came, especially since we tried out Friday meetings instead of our usual Wednesday ones. For those who couldn't come, fear not! We discussed the topic of streaming services, such as Netflix, PrimeVideo, Disney+, and HBOmax. Before streaming services became a major source of entertainment, many people watched shows on cable. Over time, consumers started watching shows on platforms that included a variety of shows where they can pick what to watch instead of following the scheduling of cable services. Now with everyone spending more time indoors because of the pandemic, easy, accessible entertainment options, especially streaming services, are especially lucrative. Thus, we explored the different types and our opinions on them. The first service that we talked about was Netflix. Netflix originally started off selling or renting DVDs out to people. Later, they started compiling the shows up digitally. During a Blockbuster shar
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Apple: Its Image, Ecosystem, and Simplicity

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  Wow, this week has been an eventful one in ABC! The board wishes all of you the best of luck going into midterms! We all hope that your midterms are (at least somewhat) stress-free, and that you get the grades you hoped for! Anyway, for those of you that were unable to make it to the meeting we had this morning, ABC discussed all things Apple. From the luxury image the company has built up over the years, to the simplicity of their products, Apple has more than succeeded in creating a name for themselves in the world of technology. When first delving into our discussion, club members were quick to bring up Apple's "luxury" image. From years of developing their brand name under the production of well-known products such as the iPhone, iPad, and iMac, Apple's image has become one that is of great popularity. Members talked about how even though the company usually tends to charge top dollar for their products (especially with the fairly recent iPhones breaking the $
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