{"id":52127,"date":"2020-08-15T01:46:36","date_gmt":"2020-08-15T07:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-high-school-junior-starts-hand-sanitizer-business\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:58:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:58:48","slug":"durango-high-school-junior-starts-hand-sanitizer-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-high-school-junior-starts-hand-sanitizer-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango High School junior starts hand-sanitizer business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Samantha
Samantha Newcomer, 16, bottles her \u201cSamitizer,\u201d a hand sanitizer that she is manufacturing and selling from her La Plata County home, on Tuesday. She started the company when COVID-19 restrictions eliminated her summer job at Alc\u00e9 restaurant.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When COVID-19 restrictions eliminated Samantha Newcomer\u2019s summer job at Alc\u00e9 restaurant in Dalton Ranch, the Durango High School junior decided to take her parents\u2019 advice: She started her own company.<\/p>\n

The result is SAMitizer, her firm that makes citrus-scented hand sanitizer she sells in 1-ounce bottles, five to a box for $19.95 on Etsy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents encouraged me to start my own business. They wanted me to know everything that was involved, taxes, marketing,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were brainstorming ideas and I shouted \u2018Samitizer\u2019 as kind of a joke, but then we thought about it, and it seemed like it might work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samantha said she was looking for a product that was useful, and in April, she began experimenting in the family garage getting down a formula, the right amount of essential oils to mask the alcohol smell.<\/p>\n

\"Samantha
Samantha Newcomer&#x2019;s SAMitizer, a citrus-scented hand sanitizer, sells in 1-ounce bottles, five to a box for $19.95 on Etsy.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

With the help of her family \u2013 her parents committed $3,000 for seed money, and her 11-year-old brother Henry is helping mix the sanitizer and ship packages \u2013 she met her goal to begin sales in June.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s had more than $1,000 in sales, mostly on Etsy to family, family friends and teachers.<\/p>\n

Marketing to get word out is the next step, but Samantha said that will require a heavy investment. For now, marketing is handled largely through world of mouth, a poster in the mailroom at Dalton Ranch and social media touts.<\/p>\n

The difference between owning your own company and working as an employee, she said, creates a profound mind shift.<\/p>\n

Last summer, when she bused tables at Alc\u00e9, she rarely thought about work after she finished a shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I worry my shipment of bottles is going to fall off a truck somewhere, and I won\u2019t be able to fill orders the next week,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Once SAMitizer becomes profitable, Samantha said she will look to add a different scent. Currently, SAMitizer is offered only in citrus. She may also look to add different products like soaps and bath bombs.<\/p>\n

Samantha said her younger brother is pushing for the next scent to be watermelon.<\/p>\n

\"In
In addition to the citrus-scented hand sanitizer she&#x2019;s currently selling, Samantha Newcomer is considering adding more scents and products such as soaps and bath bombs.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Jenny Newcomer, Samantha\u2019s mother, said she and her husband, William, owned and operated several businesses over the past years including a paper products company and an event-production company.<\/p>\n

Currently, Samantha\u2019s parents operate Commit 30, which makes planners and helps people with goal-setting, out of their house in the north Animas Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are abundant lessons to be learned with entrepreneurship \u2013 perseverance, commitment, self-confidence \u2013 so many that we encouraged her to give it a try. The risks were low and the opportunity large, and its been a great learning experience for her and her younger brother thus far,\u201d Jenny Newcomer said. \u201cShe has the added benefit of our knowledge and assistance, but 95% of what is happening with SAMitizer is all her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samantha said she\u2019s surprised at how much she\u2019s enjoyed operating her own company. She watches the locations of where orders come in from.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had one person order on Etsy from Wisconsin. We don\u2019t have family or a family friend in Wisconsin. It was just someone who found me, and they wanted the product. Those are my favorite orders,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The hardest part of opening the business is handling accounting, setting aside money for taxes and other mundane daily tasks required of a business, Samantha said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe what could go wrong conversation was pretty scary,\u201d she said. \u201cWe tested the product. We had to make sure it would work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelli Moore, Samantha\u2019s fifth-grade teacher, said she was not surprised to hear Samantha had started her own company.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe some day she\u2019ll give me a job,\u201d she said. \u201cShe was always a self-starter. She was a hard worker and innovative.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COVID-19 closing restaurants, Samantha Newcomer created her own summer job<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[338,685,1928],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-enterprises","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-teenagers"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88047,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52127\/revisions\/88047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52127"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}