Author Archive for Byerbm1

Ashes to Diamonds

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Adelle Archer is the 27 year old co-founder of Eternva, who helps people cope with loss in a different way. Cremation is becoming a lot more popular these days over the traditional burial. After losing a close friend to pancreatic cancer, she wanted to honor her friend by doing something special with her ashes. Archer looked at her different options on the internet and didn’t find anything quite right. However, at the time she was working with a diamond-growing lab, where a technician told her that it is possible to create diamonds from ash. Ashes contain carbon, which is the key ingredient in processing stones.

Here we see how two completely different ideas or hunches came together to form a business. Through an 8 month process, Eternva turns ashes into a customer’s chosen weight, color and cut and mounts it onto a piece of jewelry. Although this seems to be a strange concept, Archer is very smart, as she is waking up a sleeping industry and bringing customization and specialization to the table.

In addition to creating a special product for customers, Archer is able to connect with many different people and learn about their stories. She loves being able to help others with dealing with a loss of a loved one. This is definitely a trending business that will likely grow a lot over the next few years.

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Thrifting Her Way Into a Successful Business

Susan Gregg-Koger, a CMU alum, is the CEO and co-founder of Modcloth.com. She began this business over 15 years ago in 2002 by collecting and selling vintage clothing online. This company all started the summer before her freshman year of college, as a way to support her passion for thrifting. Here we see the idea of how one can use their passion to start a unique business.

Throughout college, Susan continued to develop her website and process orders. This requires a lot of discipline and hard work, 2 qualities of a good entrepreneur. Her current husband/boyfriend at the time really helped transform the business by enhancing her website. Modcloth.com grew tremendously over the past several years. In fact, now the site has over 300 designers, creating unique clothing. The business has reached $100 million in annual sales.

In an interview, Susan and her husband discussed the difficulties of being an entrepreneur. From their experience, they learned that it is important to try or test new ideas before committing to them. For example, when they decided to expand from 2 to 3 cities, they didn’t realize how expensive and complicated things would get. However, they learned from their mistakes and made things work. It is important to understand that entrepreneurs will experience obstacles and hard times that they have to overcome.

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Beeleiving in your dreams

Mikaila Ulmer is the 13 year old founder and CEO of Me & the Bees Lemonade. The idea of her business started when she was just four years old. Her family encouraged her to create a product for a local children’s business competition. During this time, she became fascinated with bees and their role in the ecosystem. She also received a cookbook from her great grandmother, which included a special recipe for flaxseed lemonade. Somehow, in this little girl’s mind she decided to blend these two items together to create her product.

Me & the Bees is a company that sells lemonade that uses flaxseed and local honey as a sweetener. This recipe is the same on that comes from her great grandma’s cookbook. The flaxseed also provides individual with many digestive benefits. These products can be found online and in retailers, such as Whole Foods and Wegmans. A portion of the profits goes to organizations dedicated to saving honeybees.

As a 13 year old, Mikaila is very determined and driven. She is always attending entrepreneurial events and selling her products. Her goal is to be a social entrepreneurs and teach others about entrepreneurship. She hopes that after saving the bees, she will have found a new problem to solve.

Her story is truly an inspiration, as she took two unrelated ideas and put them together to create a successful business. Mikaila also proves that if you dream big and follow through with your plan, then you can make a difference in this world. Mikaila is changing people’s perspective on bees, so that others may see their importance as well.

19 year old millionaire estate agent

Akshay Ruparelia Doorsteps.co.uk

Akshary Ruparelia is a 19 year old millionaire estate agent who owns the largest estate agency in the UK. His company is called Doorsteps.co.uk. Akshary revolutionized the “archaic and backwards” UK housing market by becoming an online estate agent and offering a 97% discount on home-selling.

When he was younger, he experienced moving houses and was baffled by the amount of commissions real estate agents were charging for simple tasks. Here, at a young age he identified a problem and followed through with it by taking the necessary steps to solve the problem.

Doorsteps.co.uk uses modern technology and the innovative web to offer agency services. Some view this as an adaptation of Uber, as it has been described as the “Uber of the property world.” The company hires self-employed local property consultants to perform the necessary tasks. This process decreases overhead costs and allows buyers to have more control and involvement in their process. Due to this customer focus, Doorsteps.co.uk was rated in the top 5 for customer service in the UK.

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The Determination of a 15 Year Old Girl

At fifteen years old, Catherine Cook and her brother came up with the idea of building a social media website that would build an online version of a yearbook. They launched MyYearbook and later merged with another site that allows users to post and complete online quizzes.

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At her young age, she did not know how to program, so she worked with a team of developers to help build the website. This process took a lot of dedication and Catherine and her brother sacrificed many things. While attending high school, they worked on the program and stayed up extremely late chatting with the developers, which truly shows their determination. After a lot of hard work, they were eventually able to launch MyYearbook.

Their website grew very rapidly to over 5 million members. Catherine claims that they were successful because they listened to what their users wanted and implemented the new features and changes. It is important for entrepreneurs to get feedback from the consumers and recognize their needs and desires.

Catherine Cook did eventually decide to sell MyYearbook to focus on other new entrepreneurial ideas and school. Unfortunately, the new owners changed the name to MeetMe and also changed the objective of the site. However, Catherine is a great example of a young entrepreneur, who had an idea, implemented it, and became successful within a few years.

GCC Student to Full-time Entrepreneur

   Connor Grieb, a 2018 graduate of Grove City College is already self-employed, as the owner of SEO Vineyard, a digital marketing company. He first discovered his entrepreneurial mindset when he was twelve years old and started a snow removal business. This led him to buying a truck and plowing commercially Connor Grieb SEO VINEYARDthroughout his high-school career. This experience showed him how much he loved working for himself and he developed a growing desire to be an entrepreneur in the future. He also decided that he didn’t want to do work that relied on weather or a lot of physical strength. Some other things that drove him to be an entrepreneur include the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others, the opportunity to be extremely successful, the uncapped financial opportunity, a flexible schedule, and less risk in the long run. During his college career, he discovered that through digital marketing, he could meet all of his needs and desires.

      He launched his company, SEO Vineyard during the beginning of his junior year of college. While taking classes, he was also providing services for 3 clients. Unfortunately, he could not manage any more clients with all of his school work. Therefore, he focused on maintaining a good relationship with his few clients. Since graduation, Connor has quadrupled the size of his business. He now has over 12 clients, which he has acquired in 4 short months. However, Connor notes that obtaininSEO Vineyardg new clients was not easy. There was an 8 week span where he didn’t add a single client or make an extra dollar, but through the support of friends and family, he continued to work hard and push through this hard time. He encourages other entrepreneurs to do the same because God has a bigger plan and things do get better. Also this past summer, he became an LLC, partnering with an accountant and an attorney. He did this to create a veil of protection for himself and his business.

From Connors experiences, he has learned a lot about himself and entrepreneurship. The biggest thing that he has learned is patience. He had to wait to graduate to expand his business. He had to wait for prospective clients to return phone calls. He has to wait to become successful. Through the process of starting and building his company, he has become more reasonable with his expectations and is taking things one step at a time. Connor also discovered that one of his strongest entrepreneurial traits is competition. This trait pushes him to improve and make adjustments to the mistakes he has made. He hopes to continue to attract new clients and expand his business.

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Email: seovineyard@gmail.com

Phone: 724-987-2881