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Key Takeaways Two years ago, Darrick Ramsey and Alexis Jordan were given a challenge: Turn $1 into $100 in a week using all of the resources at their disposal.
Jordan surpassed the goal by providing cleaning work for local small businesses and creating an in-demand snack.
Ramsey offered pressure washing and car detailing services and ended up making $2,065 in a week.
When Darrick Ramsey first held the single dollar bill he’d been given, anxiety hit him hard. “I was very nervous, like I was anxious,” he recalls in an interview with Entrepreneur.
Alexis Jordan had a similar reaction: “For me, I was very nervous,” she says.
In February 2024, a documentary film team tasked these two students, along with about two dozen of their then-high school classmates, with an unusual challenge: Turn $1 into $100 in a week using all of the resources at their disposal. They started the challenge terrified of failing, then used their businesses, networks and hard work to turn $1 into far more than $100 in a week. A documentary film released last month called Learn to Earn: A Student’s Journey From $1 to $100 chronicled their experiences.
Both Ramsey and Jordan initially grappled not just with the math, but with the reality of trying to build something in “this economy,” as Jordan put it, where “what can you get for $1?” is a genuine question. The time frame added pressure: They had roughly a week, layered on top of school, sports and other commitments, to turn $1 into $100. “We had other stuff to do, so it was very time-consuming,” Jordan says.
How Jordan flipped $1: services and Kool-Aid pickles
Once the shock of the $1 challenge wore off, Jordan went directly to the community she knew best. “My strategy was, where do people give the most money?” she says. “So for me, I was raised in a church; my church is like a big family. So I said, let me go to my number one supporters.” With that single dollar and her existing relationships, she offered labor and creativity instead of products she couldn’t afford to buy.
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