Junior Noga Raviv started her business selling hand-decorated polymer clay bowls over spring break of last semester.
Noga Raviv is building a community, and she’s doing it by selling glass bowls.
The junior hearing and speech sciences major started a for-profit business called Towards the Sun in March selling polymer clay bowls that are accompanied by positive messages that she posts on the business’ Facebook and Instagram profiles.
“Our mission is to inspire people to see their inner strengths and to support this mission with a sustainable, thriving business,” Raviv said.
Raviv said she hopes customers will feel inspired by the messages on her social media pages. Positive people notice those around them and reach out to create a network of goodwill, she said.
“On a college campus, it’s so easy to walk by someone. There’s a chance you can get to know someone but overlook it,” Raviv said. “When you buy a bowl, you’re part of a community.”
Meenu Singh, an innovation specialist for the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship who mentored Raviv, said finding a target market for the product was a challenge.
“She wants to be able to connect with people with her work,” Singh said.
They brainstormed audiences that would be drawn in with positive messages and that would be able to connect with each other through the messages, Singh said.
Raviv had experimented with sculpting in high school and was looking for a way to continue the art through college without the need for a kiln to bake ceramic clay.
“I wanted to get my hands on something, but I was limited here,” Raviv said.
Instead, Raviv bought polymer clay, which only requires 15 minutes to bake in a kitchen oven, over winter break.
When she went home over spring break, Raviv started to notice glass bowls covered in polymer clay around her house, which were hand-made gifts from her aunt in Israel. Inspired, she went out to a dollar store to buy her own bowls to decorate.
“I woke up at eight [every day] over spring break and worked straight until 12 [a.m.],” Raviv said. “By the end of that week, I had started the company.”
Raviv purchased a pasta maker, which she uses to create designs in the polymer clay, and soon set up a website, shoptowardsthesun.com. Raviv sells her bowls on Etsy for $35 each. “When people look at you like you are doing something crazy, you know you are doing something right,” Raviv said. “I knew I was doing something right last semester when my roommates asked, ‘Why do you have 20 different sized hammers and a pasta machine?’”
While it used to take half a day to create one bowl, Raviv said she now has the system down to an hour and a half can complete projects between classes.
Olivia Zicchinelli, a friend of Raviv’s, purchased the first Towards the Sun bowl in March.
“Not only is it just a one-of-a-kind handmade [piece], but it comes with this feeling of positivity and a happy, uplifting message,” Zicchinelli said. “Towards the Sun is about always reaching for the light.”
Raviv said her project involves passion and entrepreneurship. She got involved with the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurs last fall and reaches out to the Academy for guidance on Towards the Sun, Singh said.
“She’s always struck me as being energetic and creative,” Singh said. “It’s really awesome that she has an outlet translating that into the world.”
Raviv also joined Startup Shell this semester for more resources to build her company and her community.
“The dream is to build a long-lasting community and essentially to bring people together,” Raviv said. “A lot of us are very selfish these days and in and of ourselves. If we can get people to break those barriers of social norms to come together and build a community, I would be the happiest person ever.”
