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Two Sacred Heart Business Students Run Successful Businesses On The Side

FAIRFIELD, Conn.—Two students at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield are following their dreams and goals of becoming successful business owners. Alan Ksiazek, 21, owns Twin Tides, an online apparel store, and Graham Welter, 20, co-owns Nantucket Buckets, an online hat store. 

Graham Welter and Alan Ksiazek, both students at Sacred Heart, run successful businesses while in college.

Graham Welter and Alan Ksiazek, both students at Sacred Heart, run successful businesses while in college.

Photo Credit: Scared Heart.edu

The two students balance schoolwork, fraternity duties and sports and still make time to manage their businesses. 

“This has always been a dream of mine,” said Ksiazek, a junior from Chicago majoring in finance. “Ever since I was 13, I wanted to start a business.” 

When a friend asked if he wanted to get involved with Twin Tides and potentially buy it, Ksiazek said that he didn’t hesitate. It took nine months, but Ksiazek re-launched the business in September 2015

Now that the business is up and running, Ksiazek said things are going well. Through a University grant, he has three interns working with him, and the Jack Welch College of Business has provided him with a cubicle where he can get his work done.

Similar to Ksiazek, Welter, a sophomore majoring in marketing, also had a knack for business at an early age. The Avon native said that when he was growing up, he would start landscaping businesses and try to sell textbooks.

While attending the private high school, Avon Old Farms School, Welter was co-president of the entrepreneur club with his classmate Marc Zuzolo, who attends Miami University in Ohio. They started making and selling preppy, summery hats to classmates and quickly saw how popular the hats were when they sold 120 of them in four days. They built a website and watched the business grow from just bucket hats to custom bucket hats and baseball caps.

“We never saw it coming this far,” said Welter, who experienced all aspects of building a business, including all the legal concerns. “I’m not caught up in the money. I want to learn about the business processes and become as knowledgeable as possible.”

When Welter isn’t going to class, doing schoolwork or playing on the men’s lacrosse team, he works on Nantucket Buckets in a cubicle the business school has provided.

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