BUSINESS 2000: Companies set up by second-level students will get a chance to display their products at the final of a scheme that encourages young people to start up in business, writes Laura Slattery

If you're a busy teenager getting ready to go out on a Friday night, you could stand in front of a handmade mirror from Reflections, applying Freshin' Up facial spray, Rose Petals cosmetics or flavoured lip gloss from Lips for Life. You could clean your boots with a device from The Clean Machine and wear a Unique Designs T-shirt.

Or if you're tired after a study-filled week, you could pick out some music from an electric-guitar-shaped CD holder made by Sound Storage and lie back on a therapeutic, barley-filled cushion from Creative Cushions.

At least you could, if all the products mentioned above were established brand names with stock in every branch of Topshop or department store cosmetics counter. They're not - yet.

At the moment they are just some of the 92 businesses whose products will be on display at the national final of the Golden Vale Young Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES) in Dublin later this month, as they are all made by companies set up by second-level students at the beginning of the academic year.

"Half of the work is coming up with the idea. You have to be really sharp when you think of a business idea and get it before someone else does," says Ms Cathy O'Neill, a transition-year student from Loreto Abbey Secondary School in Dalkey, Dublin, where YES first began in 1991/1992.

Ms O'Neill and her transition year colleague and business partner, Ms Kate O'Donohoe, have reached the national final of the competition by setting up a business called The Bag Ladies.

"Really it was just by chance that during the summer I saw in the newspaper that they were bringing the levy in on plastic bags," explains Ms O'Neill, who is interested in environmental issues. But raising awareness about the levy proved difficult at first.

"Before Christmas, our reusable shopping bags weren't selling very well, people weren't really interested, so we decided to make gift bags and denim rucksacks as well. Then when the levy came in, we got so many phone calls from people."

This is Ms O'Neill's third time taking part in the scheme but the first time she has teamed up with a partner.

"The profits are split but it is much easier with two - two pairs of hands and two pairs of scissors," she says. "We know we can't compete with Dunnes Stores or Superquinn, that's why we've made the bags more decorative and painted them with flowers."

Mr Michael Flynn, a fifth-year student from St Declan's Community College in Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford, has this year joined forces with his younger brother, Paul, to form Get Slated, a business selling slate mirrors, lamps and clocks. He agrees that being in a partnership is better than being a sole trader, especially if the business is a success.

"It's all right being on your own when you're starting off and the business is small," he says. "We were at four different fairs before Christmas, all within a week of each other. If you sold all your stuff at one fair, it was really hectic making more for the next fair, so you really needed two people."

Mr Flynn originally became involved in the slate products business when he entered another student business competition run by Young Enterprise Ireland (YEI) last year with other students from his school.

"Then last summer, the lads weren't making any more slate mirrors but there was an order through our website from a man in Manchester. I went up to the shed and made it for him. He was impressed and he ordered a second one," he explains.

Get Slated is bringing all its stock to the final in Dublin and Mr Flynn hopes to attract more orders through its website, www.getslated.8k.com, by handing out business cards at the event.

YES is organised by the Young Entrepreneurs Association, a voluntary group of teachers and parents, and is supported by city and county enterprise boards who run the county finals. This year is the first year that county winners in the junior, intermediate and senior categories are progressing directly to the national final, which will be held over two days on May 14th and 15th in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght.

In previous years, about 35 winners of regional finals took part in a one-day national final.

"We're making it more of an event this year. The idea is to give more students recognition for their work by giving them the opportunity to take part in the national final," says Ms Catherine McCarthy, national co-ordinator of the scheme.

The scheme is designed as an extra-curricular activity but students often enter when setting up a mini company is an option in the transition year programme in their school and they are supported by their teachers. The businesses are judged on their research and development methods, the effectiveness of their marketing strategy, the quality of the product or service, and the presentation of their business in a written report, exhibition display and interview.

"Profits are taken into account, but it is not the most important factor," stresses Ms McCarthy. "We're mostly looking for innovation - people who are getting out there and doing things," she says.

YEI, which organises the BUPA Company of the Year award taking place in Cork this month, is even more adamant that keeping out of the red shouldn't be considered the most important achievement by the students.

"It is not judged on turnover or profits at all, anything but," says Mr John Cashell, development manager for YEI. "There are difficulties and triumphs in running a business. The important thing from YEI's point of view is that students put their own ideas into actual companies, invest money in shares, develop products and manage the company over the course of the academic year."

The enterprises in both the Young Entrepreneurs Association and YEI schemes tend to focus more on products than services, although last year's YEI winner, CorkWeddings.com, is an internet service providing advertising space to local businesses like jewellers, florists and photographers that might be required by couples on their big day.

"The programme gives great insight into running a business and could help the students to maybe consider self-employment as an option when they leave school," according to YEI's Mr Cashell.

Similarly, according to the Dublin City Enterprise Board, the YES exhibition helps develop an enterprise culture that will ensure more young people view setting up their own business as a serious career option. And, as Mr Liam Barry from the enterprise board notes, "the turnover also gives them a bit of an incentive".