Archive for Online Companies

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

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

Brittany Canty: Co-founder of Comfort Eats

Brittany Canty is the co-founder of a brand called Comfort Eats. This business idea came about when she was visiting her best friend and co-founder, Reina in New Zealand. When Brittany visited, she came with her suitcase full of snacks from back home that her friend had missed so much. The joy that it brought her friend made them think- how can we ship comfort food to people that can’t find these foods where they live?

Brittany Canty

This is exactly what Comfort Eats does. Brittany and Reina have an online shop where people can have their favorite American snacks shipped to them while in a different country. They said they have seen people from other cultures become interested in their business too, not just Americans who are traveling. Brittany says her past experience as a product manager has given her lots of experience with their business. She tries to set one goal to accomplish a day, giving her freedom while also getting something important accomplished for the business.

Brittany says that she would give her younger self the advice of “trust your gut!”. She explains the world has a way of putting insecurities on young people and making them triple check everything. Her and her friend started this business as young entrepreneurs and they succeeded by being passionate in this one area.

Brittany says that listening to their customers is most important in running Comfort Eats. Their voice is most important in getting the right food delivered that will bring joy in so many ways. Brittany and Reina will continue to grow their business, reaching many people who miss the taste of their hometowns.

Brittany Canty – Co-Founder of Comfort Eats (ideamensch.com)

City Bonfires-A Mini Mobile Bonfire

City Bonfires was created and is still produced in Maryland.  It was created by Chris McCasland and Michael Opalski when both of their jobs were impacted because of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Because of this, they were both at home a lot more than they were used to and started looking for something to do with all of this time they had recently acquired.  I think that it is really great that they make everything right in Maryland and with American made materials.

City Bonfires sells several different product packages on their website.  They sell just the “portable firepit”, three different smore packs (which include smore ingredients since these are safe to cook over, and scented ones which interestingly you can also still cook over.  I think this is a very interesting concept and something that has been missing on the market.  Yes there have been other little fire makers out there, but none that are made out of food grade wax and plant based materials that makes them perfectly safe to cook things like smores over.

I really like the idea and execution of City Bonfires.  I believe that with innovation cool niche products like this can really make a go of it.  There is nothing quite as perfect and well thought out as this product on the market.  I think it is very fun that this whole company came from the pandemic.

Shop Page – City Bonfires

The Cook Siblings

In 2005, sophomore Catherine Cook and junior Dave Cook were looking through their high school’s yearbook. The siblings realized that it really didn’t give much information about the students, making it difficult to learn more about their peers. They thought that the yearbook would be much more useful if it were online, so they decided to launch it themselves. They convinced their older brother Geoff to invest $250,000 dollars in their venture. Geoff was no stranger to entrepreneurship, having founded two websites while attending Harvard, and then selling them a couple years after he graduated. So, Dave and Catherine created myYearbook.com, a platform which would allow students to meet and socialize with each other. Geoff left his current job and became the site’s CEO. When it launched, myYearbook was a huge success, quickly expanding to other schools. They made sure to continue improving the sight by adding new features, such as quizzes and games. Many features were added as a result of them engaging with the site’s users so they could find out what they wanted. By 2006, the website had a million users, and had raised $4.1 million in venture capital. But, myYearbook soon had a new competitor to deal with: Facebook. Facebook was rapidly growing, and was on its way to quite literally “rule the world”. The Cooks realized that to survive, they would have to differentiate their services. They promoted myYearbook as platform for making new friends, while Facebook was about interacting with your current friends. This allowed the website to live on in spite of the great competition. In 2012, myYearbook merged with Latino website Quepasa, with its name changing to MeetMe. This new name shows that myYearbook has now gone beyond yearbooks, so who knows where the Cooks will end up next?

See the source image

Blake Ross

Blake Ross’ interest in software development began at an early age. He used America Online to create his first website when he was only 10. Some years later, Ross discovered Netscape, an open-source web browser that was fighting a losing battle against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Motivated by his mother’s frustrated experience with Internet Explorer, Ross began contributing to Netscape. When he was 16, Ross became an intern at Netscape Communications Corporation. While interning there, he became disenchanted with the browser they were having him work on. He and his colleague, Dave Hyatt, decided to make a new version of Netscape that would be more simple and user-friendly. They then created the browser, Mozilla Firefox. which was released on November 9th, 2004. Calling Firefox a huge success would be underselling it. In a month, Firefox had been downloaded 100 million times, and in a year, it became the most preferred browser in the whole world. After leaving Netscape, Ross would work on developing Parakey, a user interface designed to bridge the gap between the web and the desktop. In 2007 Facebook would purchase Parakey for a supposedly multi-million price. Ross then joined Facebook and was their Director of Product until he resigned in 2013 to pursue other interests.

Mozilla Firefox was a success because it was innovative in how easy-to-use it was. Ross recognized how complicated other web browsers were, and sought to fix the issue. Ross also knew that he could not succeed alone, which is why he worked for other companies and/or with partners. A key skill to being an entrepreneur is knowing what you are capable of and what you should assign others to do. Blake Ross benefitted enjoying his work as well. He didn’t make one of the most popular web browsers ever just for the money.

CEO of Stripe – Patrick Collison

Background:

Patrick Collison was born September 9, 1988 in Ireland. He was the eldest of three boys and took his first computer course when he was eight years old at the University of Limerick and began learning computer programming at the age of ten.

Ever since he was young, he was interested in science and technology. In 2005 at the age of 16, Collison was the recipient of the 41st Young Scientist of the Year for his work with Lisp. His brother and co-founder, John Collison, scored the highest-ever score received by a student for the Irish Leaving Certificate. Before Patrick’s last year of High School he left early to attend MIT.

During his first quarter of freshman year, Patrick founded Auctomatic and joined Y Combinator. Its path would not last long, however, because ten months after incorporating, the company was bought by Live Current Media for $5 million where Patrick became the Director of Product Engineering in 2008.

The Beginning of Stripe:

In early 2010, John and Patrick began working on Stripe together. Stripe came into existence when Patrick was working on several side projects and saw that it was difficult to accept payments on the web. They sought to solve the problem and see if it was possible to make online payments very simple and easy to use. For the next 6-months they played with it, showed it to friends, saw how people interacted with it, and made changes along the way.

Within 2-weeks of building the prototype they had their first transactions with a company called 280 North. Eventually its founder, Ross Boucher, would join Stripe as one of the first employees.

Some Trouble:

In the beginning they weren’t sure how big the market was or if they could provide the user experience that they wanted. They also didn’t have the answers to whether or not they could fully address issues like fraud, foreign payments, or credibility. They needed an investor to help give them the credibility they needed by investing in their company.Pricing & fees | Stripe

So that’s what happened. Their first funding came from Paul Graham who worked with Y Combinator that set them down a path of success.

Stripe’s Success:

After solving the technical issues with an online payment service, Stripe took off. Today they are receiving about $380.1 million a year and the company is valued at $36 billion.

I find it interesting that this company became so successful in the environment of a lot of competition. There were a lot of other online payment options before Stripe (like PayPal) but the Collison brothers found a way to make theirs easier to use and more appealing to the market.

This goes to show that if you are invested in your idea and willing to endure through the hardships, you will be successful.

 

 

Cameron Johnson: An Entrepreneur Since Nine

When Cameron Johnson was 9 years old, he started making invitation cards for family celebrations. Cameron then realized that people really liked his cards, so he decided to start selling them. His little business was surprisingly profitable. At 12, he used his money to buy Beanie Babies, which he then sold online at higher prices. This venture was much more successful, making $50,000 dollars in under a year. Just a reminder, he was only 12 years old! Cameron then came up with My EZ Mail, an online service that would forward e-mails to a specific account without showing the recipients’ information. In just a few years, it was making $3,000 dollars monthly in advertising revenue. Another business of his was giving him $300,000 a month. In total, Cameron Johnson started twelve successful businesses before he graduated from High School, . When he was 15, he became the youngest American to join the board of a company in Tokyo. After graduation, Cameron went to Virginia Tech, but he soon realized that business was his true passion. So, he left after less than a semester to pursue a new company, CertificateSwap.com,  with his friend. This business sold gift certificates for lower prices than those on eBay. He and his partner eventually sold the business for a six-digit account. While he has sold all of his internet businesses by this point, Cameron still invests in many other start-ups, and he now gives lectures on entrepreneurship.

One thing that really impressed me about Cameron Johnson was his ability to adapt to the internet, which was still in its early years when he started working. Him choosing to be an entrepreneur instead of going to college also taught me that you should follow your passions. But personally, I think he was most impressive at coming up with products and ideas that people would want by considering their perspectives.

Timothy Armoo – Fanbytes

Fanbytes CEO Timothy Armoo displays that in the world of entrepreneurship, age is truly just a number. He began his professional career at the age of fourteen by creating a tutoring company and later sold another media company at seventeen years old. Armoo’s experience in that company exposed him to various social media platforms and the advertising on them. This helped him to formulate a unique buisness idea: advertising on social media platforms.

Timothy Armoo created Fanbytes at the age of twenty years old with the intention to innovate upon the advertising industry. In an interview with Forbes, Armoo stated “for too long ads have represented an interruption or intrusion on our daily lives rather than a seamless part of them.” Fanbytes aims to target younger audiences by promoting advertising on social media platforms. They also use the popularity of social media influencers to enhance the effectiveness of their ads. When asked why he focuses on social media for his advertisements, Armoo stated “for me and my age group, our smartphones are where we get all our information, so deciding what industry I wanted to be in was a pretty easy decision.”

Socially Challenged: Timothy Armoo of Fanbytes on community engagement | The Drum

Timothy Armoo, CEO of Fanbytes

Fanbytes has been very successful at reaching younger audiences through social media. They currently advertise for large companies such as McDonald’s, Warner Brothers, Tidal, and more. Their primary areas of social media influence extend to Snapchat, Instagram, and most recently Tik Tok. Forbes shows that 60% of people skip native Snapchat advertisements. Fanbytes boasts a 90% completion rate when they are involved with Snapchat ads. Timothy Armoo said in an interview with Forbes that many companies are giving up on advertising in Snapchat while he sees opportunity in that area, simply stating “their mistake.” Fanbytes hopes to take on AR (Augmented Reality) in the future by aiding companies with advertising on the platform. Armoo finished his interview with Forbes by saying “we are a group of 19-22 year olds who are reversing the code of Snapchat and are building a large underbelly business on it.”

Sources:

About Us

https://www.forbes.com/sites/montymunford/2018/01/31/fanbytes-cracks-the-code-for-snapchat-ads-and-augmented-reality/#2c7c5c895f63

https://www.forbes.com/sites/edmundingham/2015/10/02/meet-the-millennials-at-fanbytes-redefining-how-brands-market-to-other-millennials/#1acefee172de

 

 

Office Chair Empire

Sean Belnick was your average fourteen years old buying, trading, and selling Pokemon cards. Sean found out that he could sell his most expensive pokemon on eBay. This sparked Sean’s interest in selling things online, he started selling things online and started to make some good money for a fourteen-year-old. One summer Sean went to go work with his dad at his furniture store. When he was there he realized that he could sell furniture in a fast and easier way. When he discovered this he locked himself in his room for three days and made the website we know today as Bizchair.com. He did this with five hundred dollars for advertising and one hundred dollars for the website. He started by selling a handful of office chairs by drop-shipping them to his customers.

With his advertising, he started to gain more tracking as a company and when he was twenty years old he mad thirty-eight million in revenue. He has sold over twenty-five thousand office chairs to  Microsoft, Google, and Abercrombie and Fitch. Sean was really a pioneer in the office chair industry. He was one of the first companies to sell large amounts of office chairs to consumers online. This made the buying process easier for companies by being able to buy large amounts of office chairs from one website. By doing this it streamlined the process of getting office chairs to the customers. Today Bizchairs has so many options for office chairs it appeals to a wide variety of people. Sean Belnick really changed the way people bought office chairs and has made some good money doing it.