photo by: Joselyn King

Local small business owners address students at Wheeling Park High School Friday on what it means to be an entrepreneur. Pictured from left are Jessica Barclay of Play N’ Stay Pet Camp and Thrive Wheeling; Brad Becca of BB Athletics; Andrew Hollis of Wheelcraft Bicycles; and Sarah Lydick of Sarah’s on Main.

WHEELING — Local entrepreneurs sought to dispel one often-held myth when they addressed students at Wheeling Park High School on Friday.

When you own your own business, you really aren’t your own boss, they told the students. Instead, you have to be responsive to your customers, and to the employees you hire to serve them, they explained.

Last year, WPHS was designated as an “Innovation Demonstration School” — a school designed to serve as a practical model for applying new educational ideas, methods, and technologies to improve teaching and learning. The distinction permits WPHS to take advantage of a partnership with the Education Alliance, a program designed to strengthen school and business partnerships in the state of West Virginia.

One of these offerings is a speakers program that will bring in business leaders from different fields to speak to students at the school. The discussions are set to take place on Friday mornings in the Phyllis A. Beneke Theater at WPHS.

The first event in this speaker’s program featured local entrepreneurs Sarah Lydick, owner of Sarah’s on Main; Andrew Hollis, owner of Wheelcraft Bicycles; Jessica Barclay, co-owner of Play-n-Stay Pet Camp and Thrive Med-Spa; and Brad Becca, owner of BB Athletics and Level Up Athletics.

“If you are thinking of starting your own business, find a real job first,” Barclay told the students. “Find a job that will pay the bills and take care of you while you figure out the rest of your life’s passion, and your life’s dream.

“A lot of times people want to follow the line of the ‘fun jobs’ – the jobs they want to create. But if you are starving in the process, it really doesn’t do you any good.”

Becca, before starting his sports training business, had worked for Barclay at Thrive. Before that, he was employed in the gas and oil industry. He went on to found the online fitness training site BB Athletics in 2020, and co-found Level Up Athletics in 2025.

Becca described himself as a “husband and father, a digital creator, a high performance coach and an entrepreneur.”

He encouraged the students to be “a creator of online content, not just a consumer.” He suggested they create content and treat social media “like it’s a job” and not a hobby. He also added that “consistency” in their efforts and “showing up” for work is important.

“If you want to be successful at anything you do … it’s all about consistency, putting in the work every single day and being consistent with it. Over time, you will see results,” Becca said.

Hollis noted that finding your passion is important when considering the start of a business. He first became interested in cycling with his family when he was a child, and he even had the opportunity to ride along Lance Armstrong “for a couple of miles.”

He took a job at Wheelcraft Bicycles in 2015, and would then purchase the business from its former owners during COVID in 2020.

At that time there were only three bikes in the shop, no new bikes could be ordered and the owners decided they would retire.

Hollis admitted 2021 was tough, but buying an existing business still “was a good idea.”

“It would have been significantly harder for us to get going from scratch,” he said. “We already had built-in customers, and those people come back. They might not come everyday. They might only come in once every 10 years when they remember that bike they bought back in 2015.”

Lydick told students for a time she really didn’t know what she wanted to do as a career.

“After college, I took a job (in sales) that I really despised,” she said. “Then I convinced my roommate we should go to culinary school.

“We figured out how to make it work, and we went to Paris, France. We lived there for a year.”

During her time there, Lydick fell in love with the cuisine – especially croissants.

“What I love about being an entrepreneur is you can define your own priorities,” she said. “Working for somebody else, you have to go in line with whatever they think is important.

“For me, I wanted to create a place that worked well for my family … I wanted to create a place that served food I wanted to eat and that we made from scratch. I wanted something we could be proud of,” Lydick continued.