Kevin Corey spends his weekdays teaching high school students about real-world examples of the ups and downs of running a business, including his own side hustle.
Corey, 41, teaches business courses at Uniondale High School in Uniondale, New York. He’s also the co-founder and president of Stall Mates, a flushable bathroom wipes brand that brought in more than $3.8 million in 2025 revenue, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. And his students have a front-row seat watching Corey and his co-founder Greg Schipf run the business.
“Every high and every low, including the tariff situation now, is certainly a learning lesson that ... I can take back to the classroom and talk to them about,” says Corey. “When they’re talking about, like, ‘Why [are prices] going up?’ It’s certainly a lot easier for me to explain, because I can actually pull up my invoices.”
Corey and Schipf launched Stall Mates in nearby Islip, New York, in 2013, and Corey started teaching at Uniondale the following year. His students have tracked the successes and setbacks of growing a packaged goods brand that began with a $14,000 seed investment — which went toward an initial run of 100,000 units of individual wipes that Corey stored in his house and took nine months to sell, he says.
