The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

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Briarcliff “Points Kid” Jumps Miles Ahead

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Vacation planning isn’t easy. Deciphering the complicated world of frequent flyer miles and credit card points, partner airlines and excursion fares with built-in stopovers seemingly requires an advanced degree. During his Briarcliff High School days, however, it was Rob Karp’s hobby. That hobby became a passion, and that passion turned into a thriving business before he was out of his teens.

On the Runway

Beyond balancing school, standardized tests, varsity soccer and the debate team, Karp (BHS ’15) had another commitment – leveraging airline and credit card points for free travel.  He had always loved flying, even as a young child.

“My true passion has always been planes and aviation; when other kids were playing on their Xboxes I was sitting on a computer being a virtual pilot on Microsoft Flight Simulator,” Karp recalled.

Fascinated with all facets of airline business, and aware of “these things called miles” which could be earned and used to pay for flights, he spent middle school Friday afternoons calling airlines’ customer service numbers with questions and poring over online blogs. Karp helped his father research business travel, and with his father’s accumulated miles got his entire family to Israel business class with a multi-day stopover in another country.

When area airports closed following Hurricane Sandy in late 2012, Karp succeeded in booking his family to Minneapolis for a bar mitzvah by routing them from Westchester County Airport, which opened first, through Atlanta. A relative was impressed and suggested he turn it into a business; three weeks later, a day shy of his 15th birthday, Karp Enterprises LLC was born.

Taking Off

Demand grew quickly as word of his miles and points wizardry spread.  Known locally as “the points kid,” Karp’s early success and decision to charge for services was largely due to word of mouth in the Briarcliff Moms and Chappaqua Moms Facebook groups. He spent up to 30 hours every week analyzing customers’ points and miles, intended destinations and dates, researching creative ways to book flights for no or drastically reduced cost. Eventually he used money earned as a soccer referee to hire someone to build a website.

Karp also familiarized himself with credit card “points” programs, offering paid consultations to help clients maximize point-earning potential based on spending habits. And he continued to immerse himself in the aviation business; for his BHS science research project, Karp worked with Delta’s Domestic Revenue Group, analyzing “hub” ramifications of airline mergers and interning for two summers at Delta’s Atlanta headquarters.

Word of the young entrepreneur’s expertise spread. He was featured by Bloomberg TV and Fortune.com, and as a BHS junior was named a “Westchester Wunderkind of 2014,” celebrating the area’s brightest young professionals under 30. By the time Karp graduated from BHS in June, 2015, Karp had worked with 100 customers, all on his own.

Spreading His Wings: Expansion during the College Years

Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration (“SHA”) was a perfect fit for Karp. After his BHS graduation, he rebranded his company “MilesAhead,” but shut down 90% of his business the first semester.

“I wanted to start college with no strings attached,” he said. “It was one of the best decisions I’ve made, because stepping away made me realize how much I missed the business.”

Late that first semester, he hired three students part-time who shared his passion for aviation to help him research and book flights. Shifting his focus to luxury travel, in January 2016 Karp partnered with large national agency Valerie Wilson Travel, a member of the Virtuoso network, which provided MilesAhead with access to special airline values and hotel perks. Karp forged his own relationships with travel vendors, his team now having visited roughly 300 properties.

“I saw an opportunity,” Karp said. “Customers whose flights I was booking were booking hotels elsewhere, but said that they would be happy to give me the business if I were to provide it.” Building industry connections allowed him to expand MilesAhead’s offerings to hotels by the start of sophomore year.

Through 2017, his team was mostly Cornell students working part-time; Karp eventually became busy enough to hire a full-time assistant and independent off-campus “contractors,” also aviation enthusiasts, he met via connections. MilesAhead developed a presence on campus, and this past year was the first student owned and operated company to exhibit at the Hotel School Career Fair.

Flying High: Growth and Customer Service

Even during his BHS days, Karp recognized the need to keep clients happy, for example driving out to JFK himself to resolve a ticketing glitch. “That was an early example of my company’s commitment to customer service.”

He wants to make things as easy as possible for clients, and finds that MilesAhead’s use of the AXUS itinerary management app is a “key part of the customer experience.” Clients can download AXUS to their phones and view multiple trips–all flight, hotel and excursion information–and get updates on changes.

Karp has grown his company considerably–this spring about a dozen part-timers–to cover customers’ travel needs before, during and after their trips. MilesAhead is now comprised of Advisors who build trips, the Concierge Team, which finds and books anything from private guides to dinner reservations, and the VIP Team, which deals with logistics such as check-in and boarding passes.

The Sky’s The Limit

As a college student, Karp managed to devote 50-70 hours a week to MilesAhead, but upon his graduation this month is poised to “hit the ground running.” He has secured Manhattan office space and will have six full-time employees, all with the company for over two years, as well as additional part-timers. MilesAhead’s growth has not gone unnoticed; Karp and his company have been featured in or on CBSTV, the Cornell SHA magazine, the New York Times, and Forbes.com.

“I’m a full-time business owner and CEO.  But it’s been one of the best learning experiences–being a student, a ‘college kid,’ and business owner all at the same time. I’ve learned to prioritize and what’s important to me,” he said, noting his evolving role. “Now my focus is building, developing and training my team and growth. We’re always looking for awesome new young talent, and have exciting and grandiose plans to keep expanding. We’re still savvy and thrifty,” Karp added, “but with building our luxury services, we have maintained our commitment to keeping that personal touch.” 

Greeley Grad Pursues Startup Dreams as a Venture for America Fellow

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Horace Greeley graduate Grant Steinhauer finished up at Tufts last spring, and instead of taking the corporate route, he landed a fellowship with Venture for America, a nonprofit that trains young entrepreneurs, and works for a startup in New Orleans. “I did the whole corporate internship thing where you feel like a cog in a machine,” Steinhauer said. “And I felt that wasn’t really for me.”

Looking for something “more impactful,” he wandered by a Venture for America booth at a career fair and was prompted to do a little research. He liked what he learned, and applied for a fellowship.

College students apply to Venture for America and go through an interview process like that for any job. “When you get accepted they connect you with startups around the country that are in cities in need of economic revitalization,” Steinhauer explained, such as San Antonio, New Orleans, Baltimore, Cleveland and Detroit. “It’s like an online dating program.”

Each fellow posts a profile with a resume and can indicate interest in factors such as location, size, and field of interest. Startups can then make job offers to fellows that look like good fits. “Technically you’re not guaranteed a job, but there are more startups than fellows,” Steinhauer said.

Fellows then attend a five-week training camp in Detroit over the summer, which besides job preparation, enables the fellows to get to know each other. That helps when it comes to moving to new cities. “Venture for America doesn’t actually help you find housing,” Steinhauer said, explaining that getting to know the 14 other fellows heading to New Orleans meant he had many potential roommates. “I moved to New Orleans with 14 friends.”

That sense of community extends to fellows from other years, who offer a helping hand to newer fellows when they can. The startups are required to pay a minimum salary, which is generally less than what a motivated ambitious college grad would make at, say, a standard corporate career-ladder starting position. But myriad benefits accrue to each fellow that may prove more beneficial on a long-term basis than more money.

First of all, at a startup, “you do everything,” Steinhauer said. Instead of developing a more narrow expertise at a first job, Venture for America fellows experience a broad range of responsibilities. Secondly, the natural ending point of the two-year commitment means that the fellows can be assured of a built-in opportunity to “pivot,” or make a career change. The two years provide “a great organic cutoff,” Steinhauer said. “I didn’t want to become complacent.”

Steinhauer works in New Orleans at Maverick VR, a virtual reality company that helps other companies provide virtual reality experiences at an array of corporate events and trade shows.

Another benefit of a Venture for America fellowship is that if Steinhauer wants to form his own startup after his time at Maverick VR, Venture for America will help him with that, too, through a program they offer fellows called the VFA Accelerator, which gives fellows starting businesses four months in Detroit to work, have access to advisors, and even pitch to investors.

There are a disproportionate amount of Greeley kids who do Venture for America after college. I would be very surprised if there was higher representation from any other high school.

“There are tons of fellow-founded companies,” Steinhauer said. They include Ash & Eire, a fashion company focused on clothing for men 5’8” and under; Aiva, which helps real estate agents with their leads; Cooperative Capital, a private equity fund that helps people pool money for community-focused investments; and The Spoke, which enables users to “search and store recommendations from friends and influencers. ”In this way, Venture for America hopes to have a long term impact on the economies of the cities to which they send fellows.

(As a side note, Venture for America founder Andrew Yang’s ambitions for our country don’t stop there. He’s running for President and already has a website up promoting his campaign to secure the Democratic nomination in 2020. His policies include a universal basic income and Medicare for all. “He’s getting support from young people because he’s very very progressive,” Steinhauer said.)

When he got involved with Venture for America, Steinhauer had an interesting realization. “There are a disproportionate amount of Greeley kids who do Venture for America after college,” Steinhauer said, adding that while he doesn’t have hard statistics on the percentage of participation by Horace Greeley graduates, it seems to him that there are a surprising number, especially since Venture for America recruits from colleges, not high schools. “I would be very surprised if there was higher representation from any other high school.”

Steinhauer said the environment in Chappaqua “creates a really tight-knit sense of community and I consider Chappaqua a really close town.” In this way, he said, growing up in Chappaqua prepares youngsters for the startup environment. In both places, community is key, and being surrounded by hard workers helps each person do his or her best.“You can get a lot of stuff done if you’re surrounded by great people and hard workers,” he said.

Learning from Experience: Local Young Entrepreneurs Rack Up Life Lessons

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Camp counselors, lifeguards, the desk at the pool: teens join the workforce in droves when school’s out, often taking these classic summer jobs. But some entrepreneurial local teens–and even younger kids–will spend this summer working for themselves, at new businesses or endeavors they started. They’ll make money but they’ll also be paid in life lessons other young people may not necessarily learn until after college.

Matching Jobs with Teens

Mac Yavner and Spencer McGowan, both 16 and juniors at Horace Greeley High School, are the third owners of Teen Agency (teenagency.org) which matches teens with community members who seek to employ them. “We hope to develop (the agency) and we hope to sell it when we graduate from Greeley,” McGowan said. “We started with parents asking us for babysitters and tutors but one of our goals was to get different kinds of jobs.”

After working on getting more visibility for the agency, different requests did come in. A homeowner wanted logs moved so Yavner and McGowan enlisted friends who play football to put some muscle into it. Then an elderly couple asked for someone to change the batteries in their smoke detectors, and word spread in their development about that service. “Word gets around,” Yavner said. “Before Thanksgiving, one person asked for help moving furniture, then a lot of people asked for the same thing.”

Yavner and McGowan are in business for the experience; they will madonate their profits to a food allergy charity that helps people who can’t afford epipens and don’t have insurance.

But they both say they’re really profiting by what they’ve learned. “What you put in is what you get out,” Yavner said. “If you try to make money and be successful it’s definitely within reach,” McGowan added.

Jewelry Making Biz: Bijoux by Chloe

Byram Hills High School Senior Chloe Perline has been running her jewelry-making business, Bijoux by Chloe, for about three years, and she plans to continue her efforts while at Syracuse University next fall. “I started making little bracelets a few years ago and my friends really liked them,” she said. That led to the creation of a website, bijouxbychloe.com, and Perline said her business is going very well, and she’s learned about a lot more than jewelry making. “There’s a lot to it,” she said. “Figuring out pricing and marketing–it’s a lot of work but it’s really fun too.”

‘Rent a Teenager’

Mason Greenstein,14, and a freshman at Horace Greeley, is a student with a competing business called Rentateenager.com that provides responsible teenagers to perform various jobs.  “We offer a less expensive option than professional expert services. Some of the services we offer include sports coaching, tutoring, baby sitting, dog walking, yard work, after school drivers, photographers and anything else that a teenager can help with,” explained Greenstein.

Greenstein feels that the business has taught him to hone in on his organizational skills. “I have a lot of teenagers offering their services. I also have a lot of people who want teenagers for various jobs. Everything needs to be organized so I can promptly provide the right teenager for specific requests.”

The Paint Can Kid

In Chappaqua, 11-year-old Michael Weyne has joined the ranks of the hamlet’s younger entrepreneurs as The Paint Can Kid (the name, by the way, is trademarked.) Weyne will come with his dad, Jonathan Weyne, to pick up old paint cans for a mere $2 per can–and for a lot of cans there’s a volume discount. Handling old paint cans wasn’t Weyne’s first business idea –he had another plan but realized he needed startup money.

“He asked me how to get capital,” Jonathan Weyne said. “I said you could have it, borrow it, or earn it–so I challenged him to start a summer business and earn $10,000.” Weyne overheard his dad and a neighbor discuss getting rid of paint cans, and another business idea was born. He researched his idea extensively and launched The Paint Can Kid last summer, when he was 10, and gave out more than 25 flyers to people listening to music on a summer evening at the bandstand.

Weyne wound up with so many prospective customers, he was booked 4-6 weeks out. He takes the cans and sorts out the cans that have a lot of good paint left. Those, he found, Habitat for Humanity will take, so he’s currently setting that up. As for the rest, Weyne empties the paint into a large bin because he and his dad, a physician who runs clinical trials for biopharmaceutical company Regeneron, are inventing a machine that will separate out much of the water so the remaining paint can be recycled and used. They crush the cans and recycled 133 pounds of steel this past Earth Day.

Will he make it to $10,000 this year? Weyne estimates his chances at 70/30. After all, he’s making money but he’s also spending it–and learning all about business expenses like gas and mileage.

Michael “filed his first income tax return this year,” Jonathan Weyne said, adding that the business is an LLC. While Jonathan Weyne acknowledged that it has been time-consuming helping Michael with his business, he said he truly enjoys this time with Michael (and with Michael’s younger siblings, Alex and Nicole, who are occasionally enlisted as unpaid interns). The Paint Can Kid can be reached at 914-200-3344.

Tutoring Business: A Family Affair

Jake Horwitz, who is currently running Turning Point Tutoring from Scotland as he studies abroad, took over the business from his brother Robbie, who started it as a junior at Greeley. Horwitz said it’s doing well and he currently employs 12 tutors. He credits his success to “great students at Horace Greeley” who serve as tutors, and calls customer service “essential.”

“The most important part of a small business is the people,” Horwitz, 20, a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, added.

From Sneakers to Snapshots

Greg Skriloff, a junior at Byram Hills High School in Armonk, offers web design and development as well as photography –his website is greg.skriloff.com. But his start in business was buying and reselling limited edition sneakers, a lucrative effort he continues to this day. “That’s when I’d date back my entrepreneurship in general to when I was 11 or 12 years old. I’d set up a whole process, get a few pairs from each release and re-sell them.” Skriloff  “It really teaches you how to separate yourself and manage your time,” Skriloff said. “For example, a kid in high school would ordinarily be going out on a Friday night. But a business changes your priorities.”