Archive for Bootstrap Business

Matthew Mullenweg: Internet Powerhouse

Matthew Mullenweg is a beast. He is co-creator of many open course organizations, including WordPress, a program that powers over 31% of the entire internet. However, this idea didn’t come out fully baked. Back in high school, Matt noticed that there were few news websites on the web. Matt would instead read blogs written by various professors and write some blogs of his on using Movable Type. This program became costly, so he ended up switching to b2/cafelog. b2, an open-source blogging tool. Matt enjoyed coding, so he decided to build something that would combine the utility of Movable Type and cafelog, so him and a friend both put together the first iteration of WordPress in January of 2003. In May of 2004, WordPress was fighting to get a bigger audience, and they received much attention after a competitor changed pricings for their service. This drove many people away to look for other options for internet platform providers. WordPress was there, ready to help the thousands of people that were searching for a more affordable service. After CNET saw the great success Matthew was having, they invited him to come work on their site that was using WordPress. Matt, obliged, but eventually left to focus his attention on the program itself. The years go by, and Matt was doing great. He added many new features onto WordPress, and it catapulted in popularity over the next few years, and powers over a quarter of the internet today.

Jacob McQuarrie: Standing for morals in a moral-less world

During his years of playing basketball in high school Yakkem apparel founder and CEO, Jacob McQuarrie, found himself wearing such brands as “Nike” and “Adidas”. One day it occurred to him that the athletic wear market was lacking a company that stood for more than just hard work and determination. In addition, there were no companies in the market that also prioritized values such as faith, family, country, and morality. So, with no money in his bank account McQuarrie instead founded his company on “hard work, grit, and determination”. Truly starting from ground zero, the South Jersey based company has grown into a very profitable business, that has been endorsed by several big-name Christian and conservative athletes, speakers, and influencers. Yakkem has amassed over 40k followers on Instagram alone since its launch in April of 2020 and is continually growing.

People wear this brand because it stands for positivity, faith, family, and country–all things bigger than oneself. Yakkem also seeks to price their products reasonably while at the same time providing the most trendy and stylish clothing. Thus, Yakkem competes with big brands such as Lululemon and Gymshark. “We believe that this company can be the next big brand for people who want to rock a clothing line that stands for American Values and integrity” states their website. The Company is wanting to one day be 100% made in America. Although this is seemingly an ambitious goal for such a young company, they have already launched several products made exclusively in the USA with much success.

As a customer of Yakkem apparel, I appreciate the quality and attractive pricing of the product. More important than this, there is a peace of mind that comes with knowing that my money is going toward a brand that upholds the same morals and values that I find important.

Elon Musk: Modern-Day Model for the Entrepreneur

Elon Musk is a modern-day entrepreneur and visionary. He is the founder and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink. He is also the chairman of SolarCity and OpenAI. Musk is known for his ambitious goals and his innovative approach to solving problems.

Musk’s entrepreneurial journey began in the early 1990s. He co-founded Zip2, a web software company, which was sold to Compaq for $307 million in 1999. Musk then co-founded X.com, an online financial services company, which merged with Confinity to form PayPal. PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company. SpaceX has developed a number of innovative rockets, including the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy. In 2020, SpaceX became the first private company to launch astronauts to the International Space Station.

In 2004, Musk joined Tesla as chairman and product architect. Tesla is an electric vehicle and clean energy company. Tesla has developed a number of popular electric vehicles, including the Model S, the Model 3, and the Model Y. Tesla is also the leading supplier of solar panels and energy storage products.

In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company. Neuralink is developing brain-computer interfaces that could connect the human brain to computers. Neuralink has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with technology and the world around us.

Musk is a visionary entrepreneur who is changing the world with his innovative companies. He is a role model for entrepreneurs everywhere, and he is an inspiration to anyone who dreams of making a difference.

Brian Chesky and Airbnb: Providing Cereal and Homes to Rent

Brian Chesky - Airbnb NewsroomBrian Chesky created Airbnb in his own house, supplying an Airbed and Breakfast to guests for only $80 a night. Being unemployed, this allowed him and Joe Gebbia to pay for their rent. Chesky believed the idea of Airbnb could evolve into a digital platform. After launching it the first time, he and Gebbia noticed it struggled to gain trust and traction. Chesky has publicly shared this was a stressful time for him. He remembers having a binder full of credit cards, an enormous amount of debt, and trouble attracting investors. During the Democrat National Convention in Denver, however, Airbnb started to gain success. This was mainly because a level of trust existed between Obama supporters opening up their homes for other Obama supporters.

As bookings started coming in, Gebbia and Chesky contemplated what their hosts should provide for breakfast. They decided on their own branded cereal: Obama O’s and Cap’n McCains, which were the two presidential candidates at the time. Chesky contacted a variety of cereal companies, including Kellogg’s and General Mills. Yet, they were uninterested. To improvise, Chesky and Gebbia bootstrapped the cereal by handling the designs, supplies, and logistics independently. This endeavor had decent success, amassing $30,000 for Airbnb.

The climax of Airbnb’s beginning was their first round of funding from Y Combinator: an incubator that provides mentorship and financial support for early startups. Since then, Airbnb has grown to become a $100 billion-dollar company. When sharing his story, Chesky confesses this success did not come easy. Many people told him Airbnb was the worst idea ever. Chesky has said:

We had really smart, credible people out their telling us “No.” Had we listen to them, there might not be Airbnb today.

Airbnb shows how an entrepreneur must be flexible, persevere, and learn from failure. If an entrepreneur neglects these attitudes, their business may not last.

Sources


https://getpaidforyourpad.com/blog/the-airbnb-founder-story/

https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-chesky-30-billion-startup-2016-8

College No. Six figures YES!

What started as a plan to earn money for candy, turned into a 6 figure/ year income for a teenager from Colorado. RJ Duarte was 8 years only when he began his entrepreneurial journey, with a red wagon, a lawnmower, and 5 neighborhood clients RJ began his business. Over time the venture grew, and soon he had a whole trailer park worth of clients. At this point RJ could not keep up with the work on his own. That is when a friend named Owen Johnson became the second member of the workforce. Now on weekends RJ could do more work which increased his income.

For marketing RJ relied on a simple “word of mouth” technique to get new customers on board. And in 2014 the two decided they would take it to the next step and create a legitimate business. They named it GreenWorx. After the hire of another employee, and another big season coming up they decided to try a new marketing technique. After many failed attempts, their story was picked up by a local newsletter that was sent to over 19,000 residents in the area. Let us just say it was a good season for them after that!

By the end of 2016, Green Worx was 300% bigger than the year before. Going into 2017, Green Worx has expanded its team, adding two new labor consultants to help with increasing demand. At this point the two were making six figures a year and growing. After more than five years of working with Green Worx Landscaping, Owen decided to part ways with the company in order to go off to college, but RJ had other plans. He had built something far more than that young 8-year-old in need of candy ever imagined. He decided not to go to college and stuck with the business.

Now with four trucks, and fifteen employees during season the company is bringing in annual revenues close to $750,000/ yr. Thanks to his work ethic, and some strokes of luck, RJ has built a business that will support him for years to come.

Nic Bianchi’s Candles

Candles are becoming increasingly popular today, especially at this time of the year.  Yet many candles are made from paraffin wax, which releases carcinogens into the air when burned.  Natural candles made from soy or beeswax are on the rise and Nic Bianchi is capitalizing on this trend.

When he was twelve years old, his parents gave him a candle-making kit because he had always been interested in crafts.  He soon learned the art of candle-making and began selling his candles to family.  Over time, relatives began asking him to make more and when he sold 125 candles his first day at a craft fair, he knew he needed to market his product to a wider market.  They created a website and sold his candles in two stores: Bel’ Angelo and Twisted Sisters Salon.

He said in an interview that there were some hectic weeks like when he did a fundraiser for the late Omaha Police Officer, Kerrie Orozco.  He sold about 125 candles in 12 hours, he said, and they all needed to be finished in five days.  He ended up calling his cousins to come help him finish the orders in time.

Nic says his dream is to one day have a store-front for his candles, but for now, he’s taking the process slowly while he’s in school.  Nic is now 16 years old and is still selling his all-natural soy candles on his website, bianchicandleco.com.

GORUCK – Jason McCarthy

Image result for jason mccarthy goruck"

After the events of 9/11, Jason McCarthy decided to join the Army.  He was eventually deployed to southern Iraq in 2007 and realized humility.  “War was most humbling not for its costs, but for its clarity. I’m a better person because I went to war, because I served in Special Forces, because of the guys to my left and right who expected and demanded more of me than I knew I had. It’s not the revenge I sought after 9/11 that has endured, it’s the love in my heart for those I served beside. If there’s a nobler way to live a life than in service to others, I’ve not yet seen it.”

Image result for jason mccarthy goruck"

During this time, his wife, Emily, was a diplomat in Baghdad, and when they were together, he decided to make a go-bag (or go-ruck) for her just in case.  It was when he began organizing a second ruck that Emily suggested he should do more this.  However, their marriage did not last and he soon moved back to New York City with their dog, Java.  During this time, McCarthy said he lacked purpose in his life outside the Army.

He credits his recovery to his dog forcing him to get out of the house every day and also to deciding to go back to school.  While he slowly adjusted to civilian life, he continued thinking about go-bags.  “What lived on was the idea for a bag that you could use in Baghdad or New York City, that would be tough enough for Special Forces, but that I could use in NYC without looking like I was still in the military. GR1 would have to build a bridge between the military world I was coming from, to the civilian world I was in.”

According to McCarthy, being an entrepreneur had never occurred to him and was out of his comfort zone.  “I never even had a lemonade stand as a kid.”  In February of 2008, he finally founded GORUCK.  Not knowing how to build a backpack, though, McCarthy was stumped.  So, he placed an ad on Craigslist for a backpack designer and connected with a design team in Montana who were searching for a new project after being laid off in New Zealand.  The new team went through 6 prototypes, eventually settling on a usable design in 2010.

Image result for GORUCK"

 

The process of designing, scaling, and preparing to sell all but destroyed his savings, eventually causing him to partner with his Dad.  To market the product, McCarthy and some of his old buddies packed up and headed to Allentown, Pennsylvania to go rucking with the bags.  They were surprised by how many people wanted to join them.  In the summer of 2010, he did not sell many of his bags, but it gave him a new idea: the GORUCK Challenge.

He realized that people want a challenge and they want to push themselves.  He discarded his old plan of selling his bags in local men’s or sporting shops and instead marketed a challenge.  The GORUCK Challenge focused on people wearing the bags, not the bags themselves.

In 2011, he graduated from business school and focused more on GORUCK.  During this time, he and Emily remarried and now live in Florida.  GORUCK continues to grow, as well as the GORUCK Challenge where people push their limits with others.  McCarthy is not a typical entrepreneur – he never really wanted to be one, but with an idea and an earnest desire to help people and bring them together, he ended up creating a thriving business and finding a new purpose in his life.

Cameron Johnson- The Steps Of Becoming A Young Entrepreneur

Cameron Johnson started his business venture at the age of nine. While his piers were playing and being kids, Johnson had his mind on something else.

Young Venture

When Cameron Johnson was just nine years old he started making cards for his family on special occasions. Friends and neighbors started showing an interest and he was soon taking orders on to make cards for them. His first business was called, Cheers and Tears Printing Co.

After making $300 he started another business called Cheers and Tears Beanie Wholesale. With his second business he bought Beanie Babies whole sale and sold them making 10x more than he invested. He made $50,000 at the age of just 12.

A year later he started working on something else, but this time it was online. He created a service that forwarded emails to a specific account without showing any information about who sent it. He was unable to do the coding himself, so using his resources, he hired a coder to make it for him. This online service is called My EZ mail. This business made him $3,000 a month at the age of 13.

During his teenage years he decided to partner up with another teenager to make a online advertising company, called Surfingprizes.com; they would show advertisements on top web browsers for $.2 an hour. They started partnering with some big names making $300,000 a month. Before graduating high school he successfully led 15 start up businesses. He also wrote his own book about being a 15 year old entrepreneur.

Looking at what Cameron Johnson was involved in just before graduation can inspire anyone at any age. It is impressive how young and successive he was going through his business ventures as a kid. At this point in his life all of his assets added up to a over a million dollars, not too bad for a teenager. I also think its impressive to see what he started with and compare it to what he has now. He just started with a $300 dollar card making company and in 9 years he makes that into over a million dollars. Then it makes you ask the question, what can I do with the resources that I have?

 

Melonnial Entreprenuers

Brian Keller (left) and Zachary Quinn (right)

Seeing beyond the facade of grades and GPA’s, Brian Keller and Zachary Quinn took their college entrepreneurship project as more than just an academic endeavor. An assignment given on the second day of class was transformed by these two men into tangible hope, love, and support for pediatric cancer patients nationwide in less than two years. Love Your Melon is a social enterprise which personally delivers knit beanies to children fighting cancer upon each sale. The company’s immense success forced them to evolve from donating the hats on a buy-one, give-one basis, to donating half their profits to other nonprofit organizations fighting pediatric cancer and working alongside afflicted families because sales exceeded patients to donate to. 

Heavily involved in serving the homeless with his parents as a child, and inspired by the philosophy of Toms Shoes, Quinn conceived the idea of Love Your Melon. To begin $3,500 was raised in loans from friends and family, the first round of beanies were bought, patches chartered from a local embroiderer, and only one weekend with a booth outside a restaurant later 200 beanies had been sold and 200 more distributed to oncology patients. Spreading like wildfire, sales grew exponentially and supply was quickly trampled by demand. To go beyond financial participation in the cause, Keller and Quinn expanded their enterprise to incorporate customers directly through a college ambassador program. It began with a bus tour across the nation stopping at college campuses to sell, and then transport the students to local hospitals to deliver the gifts first hand. On top of this, product offerings have broadened to blankets, apparel, accessories, even bling for pets, and beyond.

Overwhelmed by the realization that  health is not a guarantee, but a blessing, Keller and Quinn desired to come alongside their afflicted peers- aware that they could just as easily be in the opposite position.  The co-owners continue to be inspired by the fighting spirits they meet every day. With over 170,000 hats and 6.2 million dollars donated since just October of 2012, it is evident that these mere students identified a clear need that others are eager to support. Working within the simple means and limitations of college students, Keller and Quinn were able to see past themselves, refusing to take a class assignment for granted. Now thousands of children are surrounded by an entire community of beanie-wearing supporters. Hair or no hair-no matter-fashionable head wear is a uniting force.

 

 

Kevin Plank

Kevin Plank used to play football back in the day. Noticing his football teammates’ sweat-soaked shirts, Plank came up with a lightweight, sweat-wicking shirt using fabric from women’s undergarments. In the mid 1990s he sold his first shirts from his grandmother’s basement, exaggerating to early customers to make the company sound bigger. Plank was pretty much broke when he started selling signature clothing under the Under Armour brand. He took all the cash he had saved, about $20,000, and racked up an additional $40,000 of credit card debt to fund the company. Soon after, he made a landmark sale of $17,000 to Georgia Tech University, and in a wave of momentum, made sales to two dozen NFL teams. From there, he went on, in just a few years, to cultivate millions in sales and hire hundreds of employees. Today, Under Armour does nearly $2 billion in retail sales, and has around 6,000 employees. It is so crazy to see people come up with these ideas in such a small setting and turn it into millions and sometimes billions of dollars. Today, Kevin Plank’s net worth is just over $2 billion. From “messing around” with women’s undergarments to having one of the most recognizable brands on the planet, it is safe to say that Kevin Plank really knows how to invest his money efficiently and run a business. You can spot the logo anywhere and immediately recognize what it is and what it stands for. You know that Under Armour makes athletic wear, and most of the time it is over priced. But with all that being said, people still continue to buy the products because they like the quality and style of the brand. As of 2017, Under Armour had 166 stores in the United States alone. If every store sold at least $100 worth of product every day, that is about $16,000/day… not a bad living huh? Under Armour will continue to grow and satisfy their customers for many years to come.