Classmates who turned getting eaten alive by mosquitoes into an actual business.
Kaylee Dobke was tired of getting bitten. As she puts it, she was constantly getting mosquito bites and could not find a product that actually worked for her. Most people would just buy another bottle of spray and complain. She decided the problem was worth solving properly.
So she and a classmate built the fix. Dobke teamed up with Danielle Gustafson through their school's INCubatoredu program, and together they created Repeluxe, a line of jewelry infused with mosquito repellent, designed to keep the bugs away while still looking like something you would actually want to wear.
The idea held up under judging. The two were named finalists in Junior Achievement's statewide young entrepreneur competition, turning a shared annoyance and a class program into a real product other people want.
"Everyone complains about mosquito bites. They built jewelry that does something about it."
The best products often start with a small, specific frustration that everyone else just tolerates. Dobke and Gustafson took theirs seriously enough to prototype a solution, which is the entire difference between people who complain and people who build.
This is the builder instinct ANF loves to spotlight. Take the small annoyance everyone else puts up with, and build the thing that fixes it.
They were tired of the bites. So they made the bites someone else's problem.