TURNERS FALLS — Frontier Regional School graduate Porter Clancy says the entrepreneurial spirit that inspired him to head up a group of student painters was kindled by making bracelets.
While studying finance and management during his freshman year at Babson College in Wellesley, the Turners Falls resident was asked to create a product with his classmates.
Clancy and his friends launched a brand called “Worry Watcher,” offering bracelets that feature a fidget attachment for people to reach for when they are stressed or anxious. In selling these bracelets, Clancy and his classmates raised more than $1,000 for AJ’s Army, an organization that provides financial support for AJ Quetta, an Attleboro resident who suffered a spinal cord injury playing hockey in January.
Clancy said his experience working the finance and day-to-day operations of Worry Watcher inspired his interest in entrepreneurship, which in turn drove him into a management position with Student Painters, an organization that hires college students as regional managers. The company started in Ontario, Canada and made its way to the United States in 1987.
“With (Worry Watcher), I became very interested in entrepreneurship and especially management,” Clancy said. “I took that with me and I found Student Painters through a friend who did it last year and it catered to that.”
He has hired his childhood friends for this year’s summer painting season and Clancy added “there is nothing harder than managing your friends,” but he welcomes the challenge as it helps him become a better manager.
Clancy never envisioned himself as the type of person to sit in an office and “do the same thing 20 other employees are doing.” He sees himself as a self-starter, and enjoys the creative and critical thinking aspects of management.
“I like the idea of being my own boss,” Clancy said. “I like the idea of being able to creatively think and critical think on the job. … I also like the idea of building something from the ground up.”
The experience and success of Worry Watcher only reaffirmed those ideas for Clancy.
“Especially with Worry Watcher, I found the most satisfying and rewarding part of it all was actually seeing the bracelets being sold,” he said. “I think that’s something I want to stick with through my academic career and in the job market.”
The Babson College rising sophomore said his schoolwork has taught him important lessons about dealing with employees and maintaining optimism in the face of rejection.
“Those kinds of topics have helped me a lot moving forward, even just learning them as a freshman from the get-go,” Clancy said. “It’s really easy to get discouraged in the business world. Even with Student Painters, in the pre-season most of it was knocking on people’s doors and hearing ‘No’ thousands of times. … Applying those concepts I learned in school helped so much.”
Not everything can be taught by a textbook, though. Clancy said “only experience” can help build trust with customers and employees.
“When someone is upset or there’s a misunderstanding, school learning won’t help you with that,” Clancy said. “Sales, they can’t really teach you in school. They can do the best they can, but at the end of the day it comes down to your people skills. You have to be honest and communicate to the best of your ability.”
Clancy said it’s been a “great experience” thus far, but he isn’t sure if he will be managing a Student Painters group again next summer because life takes many different paths. His post-college plans are murky as well, but his ultimate goal is to work in the financial sector of a start-up company in Boston.
“Depending on if I come up with an idea of my own, maybe see how that goes,” Clancy said. “Worry Watcher is still in the works, so who’s to say where that will be in a couple years. … There’s still a lot more to be learned.”
Clancy and his team are available to paint or stain decks, sheds or garages. He can be contacted at 413-992-7501.
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder or 413-930-4081.