By Brian Brannon ’11
THE ROUNDUP

Although the school year proves to be stressful for many, some students at Brophy and Xavier manage to balance school work with business ventures.

Max Gaynor ’11 and Arkaik Clothing

One such senior is Max Gaynor ’11 who co-founded the growing clothing company Arkaik Clothing.

“My business partners and I thought that the T-shirt business would be a great creative outlet where we could make great shirt designs,” Gaynor said.

He found a way to incorporate his artistic style and finesse through Arkaik’s clothing lines to create a business he enjoyed.

“Above and beyond my interest in business, I saw an opportunity to create value and generate profit while doing something I enjoy,” Gaynor said.

But starting a business was not easy as Gaynor had trouble marketing the clothing line to Brophy students.

The founders of Arkaik overcame this obstacle by furnishing popular bands with their designs.

“The inability of Brophy students to wear T-shirts on a regular basis and the relatively high price of our products made Brophy an incredibly difficult place to sell our products,” Gaynor said.

In addition to the slow start of sales, Arkaik had trouble competing with large clothing companies.

The financial and time investment necessary for him to start a business was large and stressful, according to Gaynor.

“Due to the advantages the large companies have, small businesses have to compensate with a huge amount of work just to survive,” he said.

In 2009, Arkaik moved its operations to Arizona State University and Gaynor left in order to focus on school.

For more information on Arkaik Clothing, visit their website at www.arkaikclothing.com.

Stacey Ferriera ’11 and MySocialCloud.com

Social networking has grown significantly in the last decade with the creation of Facebook, Twitter and other such hubs.

Users of such social networking outlets often subscribe to many sites, creating multiple usernames and passwords.

Stacey Ferriera ’11, a senior at Xavier College Preparatory, has collaborated to create a simple interface connecting all of one’s networking sites into one ergonomic social site: MySocialCloud.com.

“As the number of site communities we joined grew, we realized that managing the vast number of usernames and passwords was quickly becoming a headache…,” Ferreria said.

Condensing all the different login combinations onto one login screen, MySocialCloud.com allows its users to ease through the Internet and access information faster.

Ferreria pointed out that one of the biggest problems facing her social-networking site was finding investors.

“The biggest challenge is constantly finding investment to keep the idea alive and keep the programmers on board,” she said.

Investors play a large role in web-based businesses as they keep the development and maintenance alive until the site can gain profit.

Ferreria works with a team of skilled web designers who help build the coding infrastructure of the site and maintain it.

In addition, Scott Ferreria ’10 is the Chief Executive Officer of MySocialCloud.com and manages the overall development of the project.

For more information on MySocialCloud visit their website at www.mysocialcloud.com.