LEXINGTON — A day after talking about starting a business together, high school seniors Nicolas Schmidt, Mason Trittschuh and Akheem Walker ordered supplies.
“We met at the Y one day, and I think the next morning we started ordering stuff,” said Lexington’s Schmidt.
The trio started with window-washing this summer and have hung Christmas lights for about five different customers since mid-November.
Schmidt assured everyone wears harnesses and stays safe on jobs.
Walker, a Mansfield Senior student, and Trittschuh both work at the Mansfield YMCA. Trittschuh and Schmidt are students at Lexington High School.
Schmidt said his interest in entrepreneurship sparked at the age of 13 when he purchased gumball machines. He said he wants to continue operating his own business after high school.
“It’s great working with friends, we all get along and we work hard,” he said. “As soon as we get to a house, we’re on it.
“We still have fun though, like we’ll play music and wear Santa hats when we’re hanging lights.”
The trio hung lights on some of their family members’ homes and cleaned neighbors’ gutters before they expanded to other customers.
“We got to hang up lights for some people from the YMCA, and one Lexington teacher, so that was fun,” Walker said. “Being up on the roof was scary at first, but it got easier. And we all feel pretty comfortable with it now.”
Walker said his favorite part of the jobs ThreeFellas has done is screwing in light bulbs. The group usually buys their own light bulbs and charges around $600 to $800 for hanging Christmas lights.
“It depends on the amount of lights we use, but bigger houses take about a whole day,” Walker said.
ThreeFellas to offer services throughout the year
Schmidt said it’s been difficult to time out ordering lights before each house, but that he enjoyed learning how to put up lights.
“We needed to learn where to connect the plugs and everything,” he said. “We realized the lights look better if you face the bulbs down at the house instead of up.”
The trio plans to offer shoveling through the rest of the winter, but haven’t determined their rates yet. They will start window-washing again in the spring and plan to add power washing in the summer.
Schmidt said they used squeegees for window-washing this summer, but plan to buy a deionizer to decrease streaks.
“Costs will vary based on how big the house is, how many windows there are and things like that,” Trittschuh said.
Trittschuh said the group has mostly worked on weekends but can do after school, too. Sometimes just one or two members of the trio will work on a smaller job.
“We’ve got it outlined now the types of jobs we want to do. But if we already know someone and they need help moving a piano or something, we’ll try to help them,” he said. “We just want to show up and do a good job.”
Kathy Weidig, Trittschuh’s elementary school principal, said one of her co-workers recommended the group for yard work.
“I was impressed they had the fortitude and persistence to start their own business, especially as high schoolers,” Weidig said.
“I appreciate someone who’s willing to do the odds and ends jobs for people who are maybe getting older or don’t have time to do it themselves.”
Trio plans to continue business after high school
The three seniors will graduate in the spring, but plan to keep working together.
“I’m not sure what we’ll all be doing after high school, but might as well keep doing this as long as we can,” Trittschuh said.
Matt Trittschuh, Mason’s dad, said he’s proud of the trio for starting their own business and coming up with new ideas.
“They did this all on their own, financially too,” he said. “I posted on Facebook to see if that would help get them customers, but that’s all I did.
“All three of them are hardworking young men, and they maintain good grades, extracurriculars and sports on top of everything. I’m really proud that they’ve started this and kept up with it.”
ThreeFellas is on Facebook and customers can message the page, or reach out to threefellas567@gmail.com and 419-566-2966.
