Archive for Millennial Entrepreneurs

Moziah Bridges-Mo’s Bows

Moziah Bridges loved to dress to his best even at nine years old. Now he believes that a well-dressed man says a lot about them. At nine years old Moziah wanted to make his own fashion company with help from his grandma he moved how to sow his first bowtie. After a while of perfecting his craft, his company started to catch wind after an appearance on Shark Tank. In the six years since creation Mo’s Bows surged in popularity. Moziah even signed a deal with the NBA to supply every team with bow ties. His mother is his business manager that helps him every step of the way. Moziah is very frugal with his money, and often donates to numerous charities. He broke the mold for fashion designers as being a 15-year-old kid and continues to grow his brand up with the greats like Neiman Marcus.  Mo’s Bows: Meet Moziah Bridges, the teenage king of bow ties who just inked an NBA deal – CBS News

Ryan Hickman-Founder of Ryan’s Recycling

Ryan Hickman fell in love with recycling at just 3 and a half years old when his father took him. He wanted to continue to do it, and eventually created his own company called “Ryan’s Recycling.” He spends most weekends as CEO of the company with his father picking up materials needed to be recycled from residents and taking them to the recycling centers. He has collected over 1.6 million bottles and cans since being in business.  All of the money earned from this recycling company is going towards his recycling fund, but he plans to have this business as a career long after his college graduation. Apart from the commercial enterprise Ryan has started a nonprofit called “Project 3r.”He uses from donations to promote beach cleanups and environmental education. Ryan also makes hats and t-shirts that the profits go to the Pacific Marine Mammal center. Through his company he has promoted environmental efforts that even got attention from Ellen DeGeneres and Jennifer Aniston. This young entrepreneur has clearly made a large impact on his community and environment by doing what he loves.  Ryan’s Recycling Has Recycled 1.6 Million Bottles, With 12-Year-Old CEO (greenmatters.com)

Fraser Doherty- Creator of SuperJam

At fifteen-years-old Fraser Doherty loved to cook jam from one of his grandmother’s old recipes. He began to sell local to neighbors and such. His infant company soon began to grow too large for neighbors, and Fraser set his sights on bigger objectives. He borrowed his father’s suit, and he set his mission to pitching his idea to a well-known supermarket in his local area. They rejected Fraser, but that did not kill his spirit. He took improved upon their critiques, and searched his country for a factory that would take a chance on him. All but one said no. Fraser came back the next year with all of his improvements, and he got the deal to distribute his product across all the supermarket’s stores. His company blew up from there. He quickly increased his production to over 20,000 units of jelly. Everyone can take note of his dedication and persistence to never give up on his entrepreneurial goals. The Story of SuperJam: How Fraser Doherty Built a Multimillion-Dollar Jelly Empire (web.com)

Matthew Mullenweg: Founder of the WordPress

Matt Mullenweg was born in Houston, Texas. Matt went to a performing arts highschool where he studied Jazz saxophone. He later went on to attended Houston University majoring in political scientce. He later dropped out to pursue a job at  CNET. In 2003 Matt and his friend Mike started the beggining of wordpress. At the time matt was just 19 years old. After Matt took the CNET job he designed a brand called automattic. Now Automattic has around 1,100 employees working from more then 67 countries. Automattic is a company that works with the web so it can be done from all around the world. This company was the bases of many brand sincluding wordpress.

Word press  is now used by over 40% of the web. WordPress is a company that created a way for people to build their own blog websites with little to no experience. This was a big deal because back in the day creating a website would take a ton of time and skills like coding and designing. Now with WordPress many more people can blog on their own website. Matt’s story teaches us alot about following your dreams and pursuing them. Matt was so into Blogs and websites that he dropped out of school to pursue his job. And in doing that he created a massive company from his own hands. To think that only 19 years old Matt thought of an idea this complex is truly increadible.

Adelle Archer: Eterneva

Through researching young entrepreneurs, I came across Adelle Archers. Archers is the CEO and co-founder of Eterneva. This start up company helps honor the lives of loved ones by turning their cremated ashes into diamonds. On top of being a CEO and co-founder at the age of twenty three, Archers has been featured on Shark Tank, was named the Consumer Startup of the Year in 2019, and was featured on Forbes coveted ’30 Under ’30 list. Archers also earned her MBA in Entrepreneurship from Acton School on Business. She was the valedictorian of her class, graduating at age twenty three. Archers idea for this product came to her when she lost her close friend to cancer. After their passing, she realized that there are not a lot of good options for memorials when you lose a loved one. That typical urns, caskets and funeral homes “fell uninspiring and morose.” She also came to the realization that ashes don’t last long and are often thrown out after a generation or two. Her company allows for loved ones ashes to be passed down from generation to generation and celebrate and remember their lives. The market for this business is very large and growing as 50% of the United States chooses cremation. Eterneva’s goal is to change the way that thinks about grieving and to create more lines of communication in times of loss. Eterneva has provided its customers with a to feel close to their loved ones that they other wise would not have.

Raelynn’s Materials

Raelynn Heath is a young entrepreneur that had her hit idea at the age of 4. I don’t know about you but that is insane to me that at the age of 4 she had her own business! I can tell you that that was not what I was doing at the age of 4. She is from Raytown, Missouri and started her business selling her own jewelry. Her business is called Raelynn’s Materials. She focuses on creating her own jewelry along with repairing others. The piece of jewelry she specializes in are bracelets. Her main platform for selling her product is on Facebook and Etsy. For her different types of jewelry, she makes it out of various materials. It varies from plastic beads all the way to polymer clay. Additionally to that, she even recycles different materials to add into these lovely pieces of jewelry. From this business she hopes to expand into the fashion industry. With her products she even donates back to the community by donating jewelry to those that have went through some sort of traumatizing event. Not only is she a talented individual she is also caring to the community. Just like any kid she has big dreams. She hopes to someday have a storefront in Paris and believes she will be a millionaire at the age of 16!

Zev Shapiro – The Social Activist Entrepreneur

      Zev Shapiro is no ordinary college student. His childhood was unlike his peers. Born and raised in Cambridge Massachusetts, he is currently a sophomore at Harvard University. At the age of 10, he helped manage Senator Elizabeth Warren’s campaign. In 2014, he was invited to the State of the Union Address as Elizabeth Warren’s guest. He enjoys reading academic law and public policy journals for fun and discussing politics. He always has had an entrepreneurial spirit, especially with his visionary personality; he often looks ahead as to what can be solved and improved in our society. Before graduating high school at Cambridge Rindge and Latin in 2020, he launched TurnUp (in 2019), a non profit application dedicated for young activists to increase voter turnout. TurnUp targets Generation Z progressives by having the capability to connect with other progressive individuals for specific causes. Zev wants to provide his peers with a network to organize events, marches, and protests for teenage activists. He specifically focuses on increasing voter turnout in all U.S elections but there are some other causes such as social justice, racial inequality and educational rights issues. The use of TurnUp proved to increase 36 million young voters nationally in 2020. Additionally, TurnUp made it possible for 17,000 people to make connections with one another and attend progressive events and it has over $2,000 individual donors. This new progressive activism app has grown in such a short amount of time. Through TurnUp, Zev Shapiro brings together a new generation of young activists for leftist causes. 

      Despite Zev Shapiro’s political beliefs, as Christian entrepreneurs we should be inspired by his entrepreneurial spirit and dedication so that we can create some kind of innovation which spreads Biblical Truth, the Word of God, and conservative thought to Generation Z.  So what are we waiting for? 

 

To Learn more about Zev:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/zevshapiro 

https://www.turnup.us/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zev_Shapiro

Smells Like a ManCan

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Hart Main, age 13

When Hart Main was 13 years old, his little sister Camryn was selling candles for a school fundraiser. He remembers teasing her for the “girly scents” and saying that only women would buy her candles. This jovial teasing turned into a business idea later on when Hart was saving for a $1500 bicycle. In order to reach a larger crowd Hart created ManCans, candles scented to appeal to men as well. Instead of flowery, sweet scents, ManCans candles smell like a “fresh new baseball glove.”

Hart’s business idea was like no other, it was unique, and appealed to a new genre of people; for this reason, ManCans rapidly took off selling more than 300 candles a week.  “It started as a Joke; it really wasn’t meant to turn into anything serious” says Hart. Thanks to his mother’s encouragement, his jokes became reality. “Even if it sounds like they’re joking, if their idea sounds like something they can do, by all means, I tell them to go for it,” Amy, Hart’s mom, says. Hart’s little sister also has a dog-walking business of her own, which was sparked by a simple conversation in the car.

Starting off, Hart had high ambitions, a little too high for a startup business; however, he was encouraged by his mom to stick to his main scents and branch out as expenses allow. Right now, ManCans offers eight unique scents such as: NY Style Pizza, Grandpa’s Pipe, Sawdust, Campfire, New Mit, Fresh Cut Grass, Coffee, and even Bacon. Along the way ManCans featured the scent “Money to Burn” but because of low sales has since been discontinued.

See the source image

Variety of ManCan Scents created by Hart Main

Hart makes all his candles in soup-cans, and although it is a for-profit business, he donates soup to local soup kitchens with a portion of the proceeds. This is a prime example of how you can make a positive influence in the world, without necessarily donating all of your earnings to charity.

ManCans has been a business of trial and error. Hart took something laughable and made it sellable. ManCans serves as a perfect example that products don’t have to serve just one audience, and there is always a way to make things marketable to different groups. Young entrepreneurs should be encouraged by Hart’s story to not reject a product, until they attempt see it from a different angle; in Hart’s case, this meant making masculine scented candles.

ManCans — Beaver Creek Candle Company (bccandle.com)

Mo’s Bows

Moziah Bridges grew up in a home in Tennessee, where fashion had a huge roll in his upbringing. His father used to walk around the house in suits, even when not going out in public. He was always taught to dress nice and present himself in a professional way. It was very rare that you saw a Bridges family member in a sweatshirt.Mo's Bows

When Moziah was 9, he remembers going to the mall and seeing very overpriced, low quality bow ties. Moziah begged his mom to buy one for him, but she said that they were way too expensive.  Moziah, who now goes by the name Mo, decided there to create his business, Mo’s Bows.

Mo’s grandmother was a skilled seamstress who taught him how to sew his own bows. This rocketed Mo’s interest in the fashion world. Mo’s Bows are high quality and affordable bow ties. Each and every bow is hand crafted and unique. While Mo is at school, his mother keeps the business going, and when he gets home from school, he helps her to package and ship the bowties.

The duo appeared on the hit television show, Shark Tank. While on the show, they gained the support of Daymond John who offered not only an investment but also an entrepreneurial mentorship. Starting off by selling bow ties on Etsy, Mo’s Bows are now featured on Amazon, ebay, and Mo’s personal website. Additionally, Mo has worked with the NBA becoming their personal fashion correspondent; many of Mo’s Bow’s feature the NBA logo.

Next year, Mo looks forward to graduating high school and going to college for fashion design. Mo’s story serves as an inspiration to other entrepreneurs, and he is a role model to young kids. He teaches the lesson that when there’s a passion, there’s a successful business to be unveiled. Mo’s business is something that he loves doing; so in a way, he never really works. Young entrepreneurs should take his business as a model of how they run their own businesses, find a passion and run with it.

Erin Zaikis and Sundara

We don’t think much about soap. It’s just a simple necessity for us to wash our hands and keep ourselves clean. But would you be surprised that there are people in the world that have never seen a bar of soap before? Probably not, but in many impoverished countries today, over 800 children under the age of 5 die from diseases as a result of compromised hygiene and sanitation. Erin Zaikis hopes to change all that with her company, Sandara.

Erin’s company Sandara recycles used hotel soap to redistribute across Uganda, India, and Myanmar in an effort to increase hygiene and education as well. She knew that children around the world were dying without access to sanitation products, while big corporations like hotels were throwing out old soap after just one use. Erin saw what a big problem this was and founded Sundara in 2013 to combat this current issue. Sundara first started as a non-profit business recycling used hotel soap, but it evolved into a bigger company that now works across different countries and provides education and work opportunities to single mothers, domestic abuse victims, and widows. Their main values include fostering dignity, building sustainability, agility, and female empowerment. This is shown through Sundara’s two different programs, Rise Fellowship and Emergency Aid. Rise Fellowship provides “mentorship, seed funding, and resources to female entrepreneurs living in low to middle class income countries.” In addition, Emergency Aid is a program dedicated to providing urgent, short-term relief to those who need it immediately. Erin’s company has impacted thousands of women and children around the world and over the past 8 years, has recycled over a million bars of soap and reaches 200,000 people with serious hygiene education every year.

Erin has worked with Sundara for the past several years to help fight the rampant issue of sanitation and hygiene for women and children in poor countries around the world. Her company has changed the lives of many, giving dignity and respect back to those who need it. Erin Zaikis is a true entrepreneur with her company and let’s hope she continues to change the world with her innovative ideas.