Aspiring teenage entrepreneurs are a dime a dozen—successful teenage entrepreneurs are not.
Sebastian Cevallos ’26 belongs to the latter. The Brophy senior has seen commercial success this past summer after launching his business that sells specially-designed 3D-printed chocolates to customers in the Central Phoenix area.
“I’ve catered about five events and done two volunteer experiences,” said Cevallos. “I’ve also done a few individual sales, mostly through my website, and I hand-deliver them so they won’t melt en route. Most of my sales have come through events or teaching studies, though.”
Although his business has only been up and running for a few months, Cevallos has raked in a considerable amount of profit from his chocolate sales.
“I’ve made $1800 in revenue, so around $1200 in profit,” said Cevallos. “The $600 has gone to upkeeping my 3D printer, you know, buying parts and installing new rails, as well as buying more of the special chocolate formula for the printer.”
His chocolate making began in the study he conducted for AP Research his junior year, where he explored the overlap between a gap in the chocolate market and his passion for engineering.
“I started this project in AP Research to combine my passion for engineering with my passion for chocolate,” said Cevallos. I realized there isn’t much variety in the stores. You have your Hershey’s and your M&Ms, but for people like me who enjoy chocolate, even casually, we don’t see many choices, so I felt this would be a cool little niche to explore.”
Cevallos said that the results of his research project—which studied how Broncos rated his 3D-printed chocolate as compared to commercial brands—inspired him to expand beyond the scope of a simple school project.
“I saw that, after analyzing the results and data from my research project, many teenagers wanted new novelty chocolates. Many adults share this same craving, and there’s a big industry that isn’t going anywhere at the moment. So, my research showed the want for a new product, a new texture to chocolate,” said Cevallos.
Learning resource coordinator Mrs. Kristin Venburg was Cevallos’ first professional sale.
“I help oversee the Alumni Service Corps here at Brophy, and at the end of the year, we do a party to say thank you to them,” said Mrs. Venburg. “It’s a lobster party, so we fly in lobsters from Maine and everyone gets to eat a real lobster. Seb [Cevallos] made chocolate lobsters with ‘BCP’ printed on them, and they were darling. We used them as desserts, and everyone got to take home a chocolate lobster that had ‘BCP’ on it.”
Mrs. Venburg said that she rated the catering package a “10/10” experience and would most definitely buy again.
Yet, Cevallos says that he is in the process of slowing down his chocolate enterprise.
“At the moment I am ramping down a little on sales, as I have a lot on my plate with college apps and whatnot,” said Cevallos. “I do hope to be able to get more printers in the future and build a faster, better machine. That would allow me to have a wider delivery range, as I’m kind of limited right now.”
