Archive for Social Media

FireflySlime: A very bright idea

Angelina Ly is a young woman blessed with a raw talent for entrepreneurship. When she was just 14 years old, she recognized that the slime industry was starting to gain traction in America, so she wasted no time in getting her foot in the door. She began to make her own slime and marketing herself on Social Medias like Instagram and TikTok. She quickly began to receive orders and FireflySlime was born. While her business is her official job (developing new slimes, packaging them, and continuing to grow her social medias), Ly is still a full-time college student. I loved Ly’s ability to see the future of her business and take full advantage of it. Today, Ly has nearly 380 thousand followers on Instagram. Her online store is similar to her Instagram page: it is filled with bright colors, fun names, and awesome graphics. Another great feature is that she is constantly refreshing her store’s variety; proving that she is still always creating and providing new products for her customers.

Angelina Ly carries a box in her brand's studio

https://fireflyslime.com/

Catharine and David Cook and their idea of MyYearbook

Catharine and David Cook (brother and sister) were 15 and 16 respectively when they came up with the idea of MyYearbook.com in 2005. MyYearbook.com is basically Facebook for high school students to create their own yearbook profiles on. The idea to create an online version of a high school yearbook came to Catharine and David as they were flipping through their high school yearbook and wanting a more realistic way to see and connect with their fellow students. Rather than the inaccurate photos taken for the traditional yearbook, MyYearbook would feature more normal and natural pictures that students chose to post of themselves. Although I presume that an occasional student would still post an inaccurate picture of themselves, the general goal was to not do that in order to get to know other students better through their profiles. Catharine and David also added a place for students to name their extracurricular activities just like a yearbook would.

The idea of MyYearbook took root pretty quickly, and soon the Catharine and David’s little entrepreneurial undertaking was making them millions of dollars.

When I saw MyYearbook, I immediately thought it was interesting because it’s much like an idea that I’m creating for an upcoming entrepreneurial competition that I’m entering into (The Elevator Pitch Competition). I think Catharine and David did a great job in following the entrepreneurial process (whether that was their goal or not) because they saw a problem and were able to come up with a solution that didn’t just impact their high school, but high schools all over the country by making them see something has been a tradition for decades under a new light.

 

To read more about how MyYearbook took shape and took off, check out this article: Catherine Cook: The brainwave that made me $10m by age 18 | MoneyWeek

Catherine Cook, Creator of MyYearBook.com

Catherine was 15 and her brother, David, was 16 when they started myYearBook in 2005. Showing the true colors of an entrepreneur, they identified a problem and created a solution: they were flipping through their school yearbook and wanted a way to better get to know people. So, they created “Facebook for high school”. Her older brother Geoff was actually already a successful internet entrepreneur, so he financed his younger siblings’ startup.

myYearbook ideally connects friends together online, similar to a lot of social media now, and then keeps them connected. It can also make users new friends and network you with potential employers. In contrast to Facebook, this site had more of an emphasis on connecting you to new people instead of just befriending people you already know.

In 2008, myYearbook was the fastest-growing social networking site in the United States.  It had more than 11 million members with 40,000 more joining every day. And, in 2011, it boasted $17 million raised in financing, more than 20 million members, 1.2 billion monthly page views, and $20 million in revenue.

Olivia Dunne- Queen of NILs

Olivia Dunne is a 20 year old gymnast from Louisiana State University(LSU). She joined TikTok in 2020 and quickly gained a big following. With over 6 million followers on TikTok and another 1 million on Instagram, Livvy is the most followed NCAA athlete on social media. In July of 2021, NCAA allowed athletes to make money using their name, image, and likeness. With her already huge following, Livvy was in a prime spot to make a lot of money. To help spread her entrepreneurship, she signed with the major talent agency, WME Sports(now Endeavor Group). With the agency, Olivia is able to post sponsored content and promote many different brands. She signed her first exclusive brand partnership with the athletic clothing brand, Vuori. Livvy’s net worth is roughly $2.3 million, mainly from her partnership with Vuori. Although she isn’t the traditional entrepreneur, Olivia uses her platform in a unique way in order to create an income. In fact, per post, Livvy makes around $10k for sponsored videos. Olivia’s older sister, who is also at LSU, handles a lot of Livvy’s NIL deals and sponsorships. She tries to post on TikTok everyday to keep up with her fans. She has been quoted as saying that she wants to focus more on her brand a become an entrepreneur.

Jake Guidas – Entrepreneur

Jake Guidas is a recent graduate of Grove City College. Jake was an entrepreneurship major and has just recently got a prestigious job in Silicon Valley. Jake is working as an SDR, selling technology software for a company called Skyflow. This type of position at that kind of company does not come to just anyone. Jake is an extremely motivated individual with a clear vision of what he wants for his future. He is an example of young entrepreneur in the early stages of developing his idea.

At the age of 10, Jake was diagnosed with Lyme Disease. This restricted his ability to play the sports and do the activities that he loved. Although his life completely changed, Jake still persevered and did not let his health drag him down. Jake has done countless trial and error research for 12 years, with little success. He came to realize he found most of his improvement in dieting and doing various holistic, health-conscious activities on a daily basis and staying consistent.

So many people in the world have health issues, especially Lyme Disease. Jake has begun his Entrepreneurial journey on the side, while he continues to build success in the sales world. Jake has recently started a TikTok page called limitlesstitan. His mission of the page is to help young people live healthier lives, with a niche audience of young individuals trying to overcome Lyme Disease. He began this past summer and has continued to produce quality content on TikTok. Like all great things, it is a process. Jake has already seen growth in the short amount of time he has been producing content. He plans to expand upon his brand and eventually form it into something huge in the future.

Jake Guidas is also an avid student of self-development. Jake has completed the 75 Hard Challege (a mental toughness challenge that I discussed in detail in my last blog) and Phase 1 of the Live Hard program. If you asked Jake, he would tell you that doing these self-development challenges really pushed him to be the best form of himself and not worry about the opinion of others.

Jake is a prime example of a young entrepreneur going out and taking action on what he wants. He could easily hold in all of his knowledge on health and living a healthy lifestyle, but he decided to share it with the world. Our world needs more people like Jake who are willing to take risks and improve our world with the knowledge they hold.

Zhang Yiming | Founder of TikTok

Zhang Yiming is the founder of Beijing ByteDance Co. This includes Tik Tok and Toutiao (very popular platform in China). Zhang was boring in 1983 and began a job at a startup company after college called Kuxun. He started as an engineer, but then during his second year he managed the people responsible for the back-end technology. Zhang learned a lot about perseverance and responsibility because of his first job and how he quickly was given a large role. In 2009, Zhang had started up his first business called “99fang.com.” It was a property search site; however, he quit after three years because he didn’t have enough drive for his business. In 2012, he found that Chinese smartphones were inefficient when it came to providing information and news that was relevant. His goal was to create something that gave users relevant content and gave them recommendations. ByteDance was created in a four bedroom apartment. Toutiao, a news app, was created first and gained over 13 million users daily. In 2015, Zhang created TikTok with the goal of having an app that had news, social media, and a place where young people can spread their ideas. ByteDance bought Musical.ly, basically buying the competition. TikTok boomed and became very successful. Zhang’s employees commented about how his leadership is “soft-spoken” and “charismatic”.

Bradley Kraut- Academic Warrior

Brad Kraut is a popular tiktoker who goes by the username @name_is_brad. With over 9 million likes, Brad uses his following and popularity to spread positive messages about how to be a good college student. He encourages people to become an “academic warrior” with his company Kicking The Sheets. In addition to making money off of TikTok and his company, he is also a partner in the company Jerpa, which specializes in comfortable clothing mainly for college students. Brad is taking advantage of the current popularity of TikTok and consumers need to buy merchandise. The entrepreneurship doesn’t stop there, he also uses his fame to sell videos on the website Cameo.com. The Penn State celebrity uses his popularity to spread positive messages and encourages students to become more involved with their schoolwork; these messages allow him to generate a revenue through his personal merchandise or through other sites like Cameo.

Bonnie Chiu

In 2013, Bonnie Chiu launched her social enterprise Lensational to help underrepresented women share their stories. Since then, Bonnie and her team have taught photography to a thousand women in 23 different countries. The Lensational program provides women with practical vocational skills as well as emotional and financial support and training. These women’s stories invite the audience to see the world through their lens. Bonnie’s success is Lensational launched her career in global development and gender equality.

More recently, Bonnie has been appointed to the board of LHA London, writes as a Forbes Senior Contributor, and serves as a member of the Expert Review Committee of the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Gender Benchmark, a member of Steering Group of Big Society Capital’s Women in Safe Homes Fund and as a Non-Executive Director of City to Sea.

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

Garrett Gee – The Scanning Millionaire

Garrett Gee is one of the founders of Scan Inc., a company focused on the QR code industry from a new and innovative angle. The company began out of an idea Garrett and his classmates came up with for a project in his entrepreneurship course at BYU. They decided to put their idea into action, which ended up making them millionaires. Scan is a downloadable app that allows people to make their own QR codes that can link to more than just a website. It also allows you to scan a barcode to check a price on an item. With a wider variety of codes you can scan, this company was immediately very popular to multiple large investors. The app blew up as soon as Garrett and his team launched it, and he went on Shark Tank to pitch his idea. Although he did not secure a deal with a shark, the additional publicity for his business only made it that much more popular. Garrett ended up selling Scan Inc. to Snapchat for $54 million.

These young and successful entrepreneurs are perfect examples of true innovators. They saw that the QR code system had more potential than it was being used for, so they decided to do something about it. Although they very well could have moved on from this idea, especially since it was an idea for their class, I am inspired by their follow through with the project. I am especially inspired by Garrett because he demonstrated his determination throughout the building of the company through his passion and drive to “connect the real world with the digital universe”.

I have learned that we have the power to “change the world from our college dorm rooms”, as Garrett said. With technology advancing, it could be any second that a million dollar idea comes to us. When approaching innovation, it is important not to limit yourself by self doubt because the world truly is at our fingertips.