What started as an eighth-grade project could soon turn into a multi-million-dollar company thanks to a 14-year-old entrepreneur from Alabama and his diligent work ethic.

A decade of playing baseball as a first baseman and pitcher inspired Opelika High School freshman Taylor Rosenthal to create a first-aid vending machine.

“No one could find a Band-Aid when someone got hurt,” Rosenthal said.

When the Young Entrepreneurs Academy — a program designed as a class for students interested in learning how to start their own small businesses — asked his class to brainstorm ideas for a company, Rosenthal’s mother and father, who both work in the medical industry as an x-ray technician and sports medicine trainer, respectively, helped him develop his idea for the machine, which they called RecMed.

Rosenthal’s RecMed pitch went on to win first place in his class, which earned him assistance from startup incubator Roundhouse to develop the pitch for a regional competition in Boca Raton, Florida, where he won third place last year, Rosenthal said.

“Have you ever been to an amusement park, and your child falls to the ground and scrapes their knee?” Rosenthal asked in his original pitch. “Then, you had to walk all the way to the front of the park to get a Band-Aid?”

From there, the red, black and white machines, which Rosenthal modeled off his high school’s colors, took off. Rosenthal has earned a total of $100,000 in investments and even turned down a $30 million offer for his idea, he said, but was unable to discuss who offered him the deal due to a nondisclosure agreement.

Click here to read the entire article posted May 10, 2016 – By JULIA JACOBO