During high school, a few friends and I launched a small student startup in Switzerland called RecArt - a mix of records and art. Our product were custom made wall clocks made from old vinyl records.
We designed and built everything ourselves. We went to a local Vinyl shop, and got about a 100 records they had sorted out for about 50 CHF. On of us had a brother that was an electrical engineer that showed us how to solder LED lights to the back, and we got the clock motor and pointers online shop. At the school assembly we got about 50 preorders for clocks at CHF 50 each - CHF 2,500 in pre-sales in one day.
We then looked into partnering with a local sheltered workshop to help with larger-scale production, but after some practical challenges, we kept manufacturing in-house. Later that year wereceived a micro-acquisition offer of about 2000 CHF, which we turned down because of how the acquisition was conducted.
RecArt was part of the YES — Young Enterprise Switzerland "Company Programme", a national initiative where secondary and high-school students build and operate a mini-company for one school year.