In the day of the dot-com millionaire and mobile app moguls, we are seeing entrepreneurship present at increasingly younger ages. Being business savvy is going well beyond the street corner lemonade stand and today’s youth are turning bright ideas into legitimate operations.

Sydney Brazil is a 16-year old girl from North Little Rock, she’s lived there her entire life. Since she was a small child, she always had a fondness for donuts…especially donuts with sprinkles. She frequented her favorite donut shops with her family and even learned a bit about making donuts at home with her grandmother. But transforming her love for donuts into a business was “never in the plans,” Sydney says.

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But when her high school challenged students to develop a business concept as part of a social entrepreneurship class, Sydney saw an opportunity, and she took it. After visiting one of her favorite donut shops, Sydney wondered why there was no one specializing in donut holes. She got the idea to open a gourmet “donut holery,” the first of its kind to her (and my) knowledge. And so, “The Hole Thing” was born.

She’s got some interesting flavors on the hole menu. Options include lemon poppy seed, fudge brownie, blueberry cheesecake, red velvet, pumpkin, apple fritter, Mexican hot chocolate, peanut butter cookie, and more.

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The business is still in the early stages of development, but things are moving along nicely for Sydney and her team. She’s partnered with Copper Grill and they are developing a schedule in which she will be able to sell her donut holes alongside their house-made ice cream. She will also be taking over The Green Corner Store soda fountain periodically, selling her donut holes alongside Lob
lolly ice cream. She’s taking orders through email (theholethinglr@gmail.com), and will soon have an online ordering system up and running on her website. For updates, you can follow The Hole Thing on Twitter.

Sydney is already dreaming of bigger things for her young business, but for now she’s busy getting The Hole Thing off the ground. But she notes, “Ideas run the world and I hope to be involved in ‘pushing the flywheel’ of successful young entrepreneurs however I can.” There’s certainly a lot of that going on in Central Arkansas right now and I expect we’ll see (and taste) great things from Sydney in the future.

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