While metal water bottles may keep liquids cold in hot weather, they’re prone to getting covered with dents whenever they’re dropped. That’s why seven high school students in Umpqua Valley Christian Academy’s business class created a product called the Shokqua.
A combination of “shock absorbent” and “aqua,” the Shokqua acts as a thick sleeve for a metal water bottle to keep it protected from dents.
The students, Aaron Buechley, Lila Ferguson, Sareigh Bendele, Tyson Sanders, Curtis Weaver, Jarod Whitlock and Jacob Luther, took the business idea from concept to creation and started selling the product to classmates and family members last week.
Buechley said they took a week to brainstorm ideas to find an area of need a new product could address. The product needed to be completely new to them, and they had to come up with it without using electronics to research what was already on the market.
Ferguson said this rule was meant to help them come up with something entirely on their own, and something they, as high school students, would want to use.
“I had a water bottle that was completely dented,” Buechley said, adding the once-large bottle was dented down to about 2-inches in diameter. “I walked around with it every day and I thought this has to be an area of need.”
Ferguson said many students have Hydroflasks and other types of metal water bottles, so it was a no-brainer that the product would sell.
Bendele said the students had a bunch of different ideas for the name of the product, including “aqua sleeve,” but they decided on “Shokqua” when a recent graduate came by the class and gave them the idea.
Jacob Luther made the logo on a computer and drew over it by hand, then sent it to Oregon Serigraphics of Roseburg to perfect the look. The logo features the name of the product in front of a drop of water.
The students connected with Seattle Fabrics to create the pieces of wetsuit-like neoprene, which the students then made into sleeves that could fit a large metal bottle. The Shokqua comes in a variety of colors, including purple, blue, gray, black and camouflage. The students customized some of the sleeves by attaching pieces of leather and burning customers’ names into them.
To market the Shokqua, the students created a video, which shows them “accidentally” dropping a metal bottle without a Shokqua on the ground, which created an emphasized, cartoonish clanging noise. With the Shokqua, the protected bottle made a much more subtle sound when it hit the pavement, and didn’t collect any new dents.
Bendele said the students planned out each scene of the commercial beforehand so when they came early to school one day, they got it done in less than an hour.
Ferguson said the entire entrepreneurship process taught her a lot, and the students addressed issues and bumps along the way by turning to plan B, then C, and all the way through Z.
“That applies to life too,” she said. “If you have a goal, you don’t have to stop because of a bump in the road.”
Weaver added it was hectic trying to find all the materials to make it happen, and Whitlock added there was a lot of trial and error.
Sanders said the students learned to come together as a team.
“Everyone has a different belief or idea,” Sanders said. “But we had a lot of discussion time and voting, and finding ways to incorporate everyone’s ideas into one so everyone had a piece in it.”
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