Designing for Focus: A Wharton Youth Launches a New Line of Fidget Jewelry
What if a simple classroom habit that many students share — fidgeting — sparked a real business idea? In this episode of Future of the Business World, Wharton Global Youth speaks with Roxanne Goldman, a 16-year-old entrepreneur who turned her personal experience with ADHD into Stim Stacked, a jewelry brand designed for focus, empowerment, and impact. Roxanne’s experience during Essentials of Entrepreneurship in summer 2025 helped her think more deeply about brand identity and market differentiation, preparing her to begin selling her rings at the end of 2025.
Click the arrow above to listen to Wharton Global Youth’s 20-minute conversation with Roxanne.
An edited transcript appears below.
Wharton Global Youth: Hello, and welcome to Future of the Business World. I’m Diana Drake with the Wharton Global Youth Program at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Our monthly podcast is all about the next generation of business leaders, many of them developing a keen entrepreneurial mindset and discovering ways to make lasting change in their high schools and communities.
And I can say with complete conviction that they are often having fun along the way. I suspect that is the case with today’s guest, Roxanne Goldman, a high school student from New York City who spent some time with Wharton Global Youth last summer in our Essentials of Entrepreneurship program.
Roxanne, welcome to Future of the Business World.
Roxanne Goldman: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve loved listening to the podcast, and I’m so excited to be a part of it.
Wharton Global Youth: First and foremost, I would love for you to tell us about yourself. Where do you live and where do you go to school? Anything you want to talk about.
Roxanne: Okay, so I’m 16. I’m a junior at Riverdale Country School in New York City, and while I’ve lived in New York for most of my life, I did live in London for three years. I also have a puppy and a younger sister, and my favorite subject in school is math.
Wharton Global Youth: Very nice. What’s your puppy’s name?
Roxanne: His name is Luca, and he’s a Maltipoo.
Wharton Global Youth: I guess have to ask your sister’s name too.
Roxanne: Her name is Harriet.
Wharton Global Youth: Let’s talk more about your entrepreneurial energy. Your startup is called Stim Stacked, and I’m interested to hear more about it. First though, could you talk about what led to this inspiration? As a neurodivergent teen, you often found yourself fidgeting with whatever was close at hand. Tell us more.
Roxanne: Okay, so I have ADHD, and I’ve always found that it was helpful to fidget with something to help me focus in class. But as I got older, and when I started high school, I realized that there was a gap in a product for me. When I would click a pen in class, it was loud and distracting to people around me, or a neon Stress Ball was just a toy that everybody wanted to play with. So, I started thinking about how I could solve that problem.
I’ve always liked to play with my jewelry, and I thought about how I could employ that to make it even better and make a great tool. I started brainstorming and thinking, and rings seemed like the perfect solution, because they’re super accessible and right on your hand, and you can wear a bunch of them at once. That’s also where the name Stim Stacked came from. Stim like neurological stimulation or stimming and stacked, like how you wear a jewelry stack.
Wharton Global Youth: That’s so interesting. And I noted that you discovered in your research that one in every seven women in the U.S. are neurodivergent. How did that spark your entrepreneurial mindset?
Roxanne: I’ve always had an interest in business. My dad works in the business world, and I’ve loved hearing about different deals and what makes a good company. And when I had this idea, I was excited to take it and make it something of my own. So, I started researching, and I realized that all of the studies for ADHD, up until the late 1900s, were just based on men, and that same research was just applied to women. I really wanted to see a change there. And I thought that by starting this business, I could help people and also give back. So, a portion of all of my profits go to the Duke Center for Girls and Women with ADHD, in order to make sure that I’m not only providing a new tool, but also helping to fund future research.
Wharton Global Youth. Great. So there’s a social aspect to your startup. Tell about your jewelry line. Is this your first experience as a jewelry designer, and how has that process unfolded? Can you describe your jewelry for us?
Roxanne: Of course. In middle school, I used to make beaded bracelets, and I made a Tiktok, and I tried to advertise them. But when I downloaded Etsy and tried to open an account, it was so confusing and I couldn’t figure it out, so I never ended up selling. That failure helped me to stay determined when founding Stim Stacked, because I wanted to get through it and have a final product. To get there has honestly been so fulfilling. For anybody trying to start a business, I would say the most important thing is to stay determined and really keep going, because in the end, there’s so much that you can get from it.
But [about] my process. I started by sketching different designs, and once I had done that, I picked the three that were my favorites. I thought about all the details of them and everything about them, and once I had those, I was really excited, but I didn’t exactly know where to go next. So luckily, I have a family friend who works in the jewelry industry, and I emailed him, and he was very kind enough to set up an appointment with me. He helped me to create 3-D CAD models of my designs and create initial prototypes. So, we worked together, and it was amazing.
While he was so generous for his help, when it came time for manufacturing, that wasn’t really something that he knew as much about, because he works more at a higher-end place than where I’m working. So, I needed to figure out how I was going to make my rings in a manner that was cost-efficient and also high quality. So, I took a visit to the Jewelry District in New York City, and I visited representatives from different workshops. After speaking to a bunch of them, I got different quotes, and I came home and looked at them, and I realized that still It wasn’t really cost-efficient. So then I started researching about other manufacturing methods, and I started whatsapping and emailing and looking through the websites of different manufacturers overseas, but due to the language barrier, it was really hard to communicate with them.
After not getting a response, my Uncle Alex, who lived in China for 10 years and is fluent in Mandarin, offered to help me out. He helped me to make some phone calls to different warehouses we had selected and get quotes. Based on those quotes, I ended up choosing the warehouse that was both cost-efficient and also would have high quality product and also a manufacturer that had a gold license, because in the future, when I am able to, I would like to work in gold. It’s just expensive right now.
Wharton Global Youth: So, it has been a process, but it sounds like you’ve had some great family partners and really worked your network to get where you needed to be.
What is the price point?
Roxanne: The swivel ring and the spinning ring are both $100 and then the gear ring is $115., I priced my rings at this place based on what I thought would be the best to make sure that I was all covering the cost of manufacturing, because it’s quite expensive. And then also I wanted to have free shipping, so shipping is part of that cost. And then I wanted to have some portion that I would be able to donate. And then also, obviously making a profit.
Wharton Global Youth: Yeah, so you just mentioned your gear ring. I know those who are just listening to us won’t be able to see it, but you’ve called that your favorite piece. Can you describe it?
Roxanne: So, this is the gear ring. It features two interlocking gears, and when you spin one, the other one spins around. When I’m sitting in class, I can just twist it and play with it, and it’s been a great tool for me to to have and to play with. [That is the] same with all of my rings. When I originally made those CAD designs and original prototypes, I wore my rings for about a month, and I made sure that I was really happy with the designs and if they actually were tools that were helpful to me and they didn’t just look pretty. That was really amazing to be able to test it out before I went and made the product, because I know what it’s like to be fidgeting and how I could help other people.
Wharton Global Youth: You’ve talked a little bit about this, but where are you right now in terms of business development? What energy have you put into branding and marketing? You mentioned a lot about manufacturing, but also selling to customers?
Roxanne: So, while I was working with the manufacturing and trying to go through that process, since I had my prototypes, I was able to take pictures of them and make beautiful photographs to use, and I started building my website. I wanted to make sure that I had a cohesive brand, and I didn’t just have a beautiful product. I wanted to make sure that my website was beautiful and my packaging was beautiful, and everything just came together. I was working on that a lot in the background. Then I started sales right at the end of 2025, and once my rings arrived, I was ready to go. And now when I send out a package, I have custom packaging and a box, and it all gets sent to [my customer].
Wharton Global Youth: Have you had some customers? That was really recently — the end of 2025 Yeah.
Roxanne: I’ve already had some customers. It’s been so exciting to see that I’m actually selling my product to somebody. Word of mouth and telling people about my product has led to more sales, but also I’ve been marketing on Instagram. I did get some traction on social media, but I noticed that that attention didn’t actually have the same results I expected. While I got a lot of likes, it didn’t always lead to someone clicking on the link and buying my product, which was really interesting for me to see. That’s definitely something that I need to work on in the future. It’s not just advertising and having my website but figuring out how I can employ social media to get the word out.
Wharton Global Youth: You’re learning as you go along, which every good entrepreneur does. Can you share a moment when someone’s feedback really affirmed why you started Stim Stacked?
Roxanne: I have two examples I’m excited to share with you. The first one is after I first launched Stim Stacked. I reposted it on my personal Instagram account, and the next day at school, a bunch of my friends asked me about it. I hadn’t even told them about it, but so many people asked me about it. I got to show them my rings, and they tried them, and they liked them. It was just super cool to see that I actually made something that people liked and that I was able to show people about it, and they were excited.
Then the other thing was actually a few days ago, I received an order for three of the gear rings in a size five. My first thought when I saw this order was, oh no, she made a mistake in the website, and it made her buy too many. I freaked out, and I emailed the customer. She replied, and she said, actually, I wanted to get one for me and one for each of my daughters. And I thought a size five would be perfect for all of us. That was so exciting to see that somebody wanted to buy three of my products. It was amazing.
Wharton Global Youth: A multiple order. That is very exciting. Your first of many, I’m sure. So do you have competitors? I guess we would call this market the fidget jewelry market, or the anxiety jewelry market.
“It has been amazing for me to share about my journey having ADHD…and show that it is not something to be ashamed of…It is something that we can embrace as a superpower.” – Roxanne Goldman
Roxanne: I guess you could say, in the sense of the jewelry market, I have so many competitors, because it’s giant. There [are] so many different price points. But really, my product I haven’t really seen. I first looked around for something similar, and I really couldn’t find what I was looking for. And that’s why I started this.
Wharton Global Youth: You needed to fill that gap in the market.
You say Stim Stacked isn’t just about the accessory, even though they are lovely. It’s about self-acceptance, focus and empowerment. Can you talk a little bit about how you’re embracing that mission and bringing it to life?
Roxanne: Yeah, of course. The first thing is, of course, that I’m not selling simply accessories, but something that really helps with focus and helps as a tool for women with ADHD. And then the self-empowerment part is [that] this has been amazing for me to promote, for me to share about my journey having ADHD, and how I’ve found something to help and show that it’s not something to be ashamed of. I think that that’s one of my missions: is for it to be something that people are proud of and something that we can embrace as a superpower.
Then also, of course, I want to make sure that I am partially giving back to research for women with ADHD, because the existing research was really done on men and applied to women, and giving back to the Duke Center will help to fund research and find exactly how ADHD shows in women and how we can better cope.
Wharton Global Youth: Last summer, you attended Wharton Global Youth’s Essentials of Entrepreneurship program on the Wharton School’s Philadelphia campus. Was Stim Stacked the motivating factor for your interest in our pre-college program? What are some specific ways [that experience] helped build out your idea?
Roxanne: Stim Stacked was definitely my motivation for this program, and I’m really glad that I had that motivation, because it helped me to develop my business more. I learned a lot, but one thing that I learned is really having a brand identity and a narrative, and I think that’s something that even helped me today in this interview, really thinking about why I started this. And then the next thing that we learned a lot about was having your product be either starting a new market, or if you’re in an existing market, making sure that you are creating something that was different. And that’s really what I’m doing here in the giant market of jewelry. I’m creating something new, and that’s the new realm of fidget jewelry. Everything I learned there has helped me to apply to Stim Stacked and make it something real.
Wharton Global Youth: Well, I wish you luck with this. I know you’re just starting out with your sales, and I know you have big plans, so we’ll be watching.
Roxanne, how can people find out more about your jewelry line?
Roxanne: If you go visit stimstacked.com on any browser and enter code podcast10, you can get a 10% discount on any of our rings.
Wharton Global Youth: Thank you for sharing. Alright, so let’s end with our lightning round. Please answer these questions as quickly as you can.
What is something about you that would surprise us?
Roxanne: I don’t wear that much jewelry.
Wharton Global Youth: Now you do!
Roxanne: Yes, now I do. I wear my rings all the time, but I don’t really wear any bracelets.
Wharton Global Youth: Okay, well, maybe that will be something you add to your line in the future.
Roxanne: Yes, definitely. Because also, something I’ve seen is [that] rings seemed like the perfect idea. I’ve learned that when you have to create sizing with rings, it becomes a little bit more complicated, because you have to think about how many of each size are people going to order, and then of each model. So, I guess something like bracelets might make sense. It’s one size fits all.
Wharton Global Youth: Do you sketch first or prototype first?
Roxanne: Definitely sketch first.
Wharton Global Youth: One word your friends would use to describe you?
Roxanne: Kind. That’s something I really value is kindness. It’s surrounding myself with kind people.
Wharton Global Youth: Who is your dream collaborator?
Roxanne: My dream collaborator would probably be either Taylor Swift, because she’s just so famous and everything she does seems to be successful, or Paris Hilton, because she has been an amazing promoter for embracing ADHD and seeing it as something that is a superpower.
Wharton Global Youth: Your favorite place to brainstorm?
Roxanne: Probably a café.
Wharton Global Youth: What music do you design to or gets you inspired?
Roxanne: Normally, like ADHD-focused sound waves.
Wharton Global Youth: I love that. You are starting a business-themed talk show. Who is your first guest and what is your first question?
Roxanne: Well, I would have Sarah Blakely on my talk show, and the first thing I would ask her is, are you wearing Spanx?
Wharton Global Youth: And I bet she would be very happy to tell you!
Roxanne, thank you so much for joining us on Future of the Business World.
Roxanne: Thank you so much for having me.