“One who believes that the power of love overcomes hate, will then achieve the prosperous mind” is the slogan that seniors Rawand Ali and Lawan Rasul have created for their own startup business, Believe & Achieve Prosperity. Selling merchandise such as t-shirts, sweatshirts, phone cases, socks and hats, the two seniors have already invested over $500 into the startup. While the main reason for beginning all of this was to help pay for their college tuition, Ali and Rasul also found this as a chance to send a reminder out to everyone.

“We wanted something that had a message behind it, something that people should strive to do. The world would be such a better place if it was filled with more love than it would be with hate. We didn’t want to do something that was random, like a random word that popped into our head. We wanted some sort of message to be behind it so that people could follow that message,” Rasul said.

The design on all of their merchandise consists of a heart over an X, symbolizing love over hate, with the word “believe” written on the top. On the sides of the symbol, “believe” is also written again, but in Japanese. Located on the back of the t-shirts, either the words “prosperity” or “achieve” are written. The addition of adding “believe” in foreign letters to the merchandise was inspired from other famous brands.

“We also got that main purpose of the design and ideas from [brands] such as Nike and Adidas. The more and more Nike releases, the more and more Louis Vuitton, or Supreme, what they release nowadays is more centered around foreign letters,” Rasul said.

Taking their advertising to the next level, they enlisted the help of senior Randee Rose Joven as the photographer for the business, and modeling their clothing line is senior Lucie Rutherford and junior Jenny Nutter. Ali and Rasul have also pushed their business out to other schools in the county and to other areas outside of Harrisonburg. Most of the merchandise prices ranges from $20 to $40. The higher prices are for limited edition products.

Before even releasing their first batch of products, Ali and Rasul have been close friends since freshman year, being a bonus to working with each other. Both seniors are familiar with the business world after being members of DECA and taking other marketing classes. Ali and Rasul both have jobs, which contributed to the startup of Believe & Achieve Prosperity. In terms of whether they would want to continue working in the business world, Ali hasn’t made a clear decision whether he would like to go down the engineering path, but for Rasul, his mind has been made up.

“At first, I thought it’d be a really cool experience, especially if I’m trying to get a degree in business, but the more and more I think about it, this could become something big, and this could be something we take full-time eventually in the future,” Rasul said.

Starting Believe & Achieve Prosperity wasn’t easy for Ali and Rasul. From finding a manufacturer, balancing out school and work and then creating advertising platforms, there have been ups and downs for them. While they did come across challenges during the whole process, the two seniors hope that the end game will go far.

“Finding a design that you know people will like, and that is cheap and that you can make profit off of, is really hard, especially when you’re doing t-shirts,” Ali said. “T-shirt brands are really big nowadays. The ones that will sell and the ones that go big are the ones that will attract attention and eyes from all around.”

All products will be available for purchase Apr. 2 when the website releases the first batch of inventory.