The Griggs Center for Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy launched The Collective, a new storefront for student-run businesses, at its grand opening on Monday.

The Collective features a mix of vendors, from students and alumni who all run out of the Collective at once. The vendors rotate every three weeks, allowing a new set of businesses to be featured.

“The idea behind the collective is it is featuring different student-run businesses…there’s not really one specific fit that we’re looking for,” Sanchez said. “Whether you started a business or you’re looking to start one, this can be a location that students look at like ‘oh, I want to put my projects there.’”

In the past, the space in the College of Business Administration, now filled by The Collective, has held various student-run businesses, said Bella Sanchez, a student employee at the Griggs Center. Sanchez, junior marketing major from Keller, and Paul Roswell, senior finance major from Hurst, were given the task of finding a way to fill this space.

Each business will pay a flat fee based on the type of business and its income. For example, Sanchez said, businesses that sell clothing pay a higher fee than those that sell baked goods, because they typically earn more per item sold.

“It just depends on their business specific[ally] and what they are selling,” she said. “It would be unfair to charge a jewelry company or somebody that makes sourdough… a $50 fee whenever a clothing company can make that back with just one item.”

Ellie Meredith is the owner of Keepsake Modern, a permanent jewelry business currently in the Collective. Before putting her store in COBA, she had only worked with pop-up vendors and markets.

“To be honest, that’s a lot of effort trying to find events constantly to set up my stuff, and the setup is a lot of work to begin with,” said Meredith, junior management major from Argyle. “Being able to have somewhere that my stuff is set up every single day and I don’t even have to be there in order to sell it has just been wonderful.”

While Meredith said she isn’t sure if she wants to continue her business after graduation, having a storefront has made her think about her business long-term.

“The doors just keep opening for me to get my inventory funded or blessings l with the Collective, being able to open a storefront… I keep thinking it’s going to not go much further, but then it has,” she said. “Doors keep opening for me to go one step further with this so, we’ll see.”

The Collective is not only a place for vendors. It also features a coffee bar for students to use on the go.

“Let’s say you are in between classes and don’t have time to go to Starbucks; we have a Nespresso machine,” Sanchez said. “So you can make your own coffee for only the three to four dollar range.”

Sanchez encouraged student-run businesses to reach out and get connected.

“We want it to be an invitation for people seeing the store to continue to ask questions,” Sanchez said. “Whether you just stop in one day and are like, ‘How do I get a part of this?’ or emailing me our Paul directly or the Griggs Center…We want to work with the students to see what their business idea looks like.”

The Collective is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is located in COBA 114.