Pavel Durov is widely known as the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia. This 31 year old is worth over a quarter of a billion dollars thanks to his resilience and genius. He made his initial fortune from a social media website called VKontakte. He was eventually forced to resign from being CEO of this company. However, he did not allow this to slow him down. After being accused of running over a police officer and being sought after by the Russian government over privacy issues of his website, Durov moved to New York and started another business called Telegram. Telegram is a non-profit organization that provides a better way to message people. Pavel Durov said he started Telegram to provide people with a service that he felt they wanted and didn’t do it for the money. He backed that statement up by putting 1M dollars every month into the business in the beginning just to keep it from shutting down. Overall, Durov is an excellent businessman and seems to care more about other people than himself.

Jack Parsons is the entrepreneur best known for creating Yourfeed, which is now being called “LinkedIn for millenials.” Yourfeed connects 2 million young people to a business based on their skill set. To date, Yourfeed already has 200 brand partners including Twitter and Facebook. This company also teaches these young people many valuable lessons and skills that they will need once they begin to enter the workforce.

Although Jack Parsons is a very successful entrepreneur, he certainly didn’t start that way and wasn’t handed anything for free. He was the son of a cab driver and would have been homeless after he graduated if his father hadn’t allowed him to stay at home for a while. He received his first job simply because he told the CEO he would prove his worth by working for the first 3 months for free. From there, he faced many more ups and downs before finally hitting it huge with Yourfeed. As you can see, Jack Parsons is a dtermined entrepreneur that was willing to do whatever he needed to to become successful. He persevered and didn’t give up when times got tough.

Fraser Doherty began making and selling jam from his grandmother’s recipes at the age of 14. He called his business SuperJams and they are made purely out of fruit and fruit juice.  At the age of 16, he had to leave school completely in order to meet the demands of his customers. Just a few years after that, the demands were so great that he had to begin renting out a warehouse to produce the jam and was approached by Waitrose in 2007 to sell his product in their stores. After just one year of being in this supermarket in the UK, SuperJams had done $1.2 million in sales. 

Considering the fact that he began with a simple loan of $9,000 and has turned into this successful business shows how hard working and dedicated he is. However, he doesn’t let the success go to his head and has even said he doesn’t do it for the money; he does it because he loves making jam. All of his success has actually prompted him to help others. In 2008, he started a charity that hosts tea parties for elderly people that live alone. At the end of these events, there are usually people crying from the pure joy and happiness they experienced thanks to Fraser Doherty. Doherty is a huge inspiration not only as an entrepreneur, but also because of what he does for others.

In need of $1,200 to buy a new bike. Hart Main decided to start a business in order to come up with these funds. His idea was to create masculine scented candles. His idea came to him when his sister had to sell candles for a school fundraiser. He believed the candles she was selling were too girly and thought there should be some that appealed to men as well. This is where his opportunity was. He originally invested 100 dollars into the company to buy some supplies and set up shop in his kitchen. With the help of his family, Hart would clean soup cans out and begin the process of making candles from his kitchen table. ManCans are now sold in 150 stores across the US as well as online. Some of the scents available for purchase are Fresh Cut Grass, Campfire, and Bacon.

Main also had a few more entrepreneurial ideas because of ManCans. His first was that he decided to release a line of feminine-scented candles in order to appeal to more consumers. This line was called SheCans. He then decided to give back to his community by donating 75 cents from every candle sold to help homeless people in the northeast. He has given 100,000 cans of soup and over $35,000 to 25 soup kitchens in 4 states. Finally, Main, along with his dad, published a book called “One Candle, One Meal,” which talks about what he learned in his time being an entrepreneur. At the age of 17, Main is a huge inspiration in being an entrepreneur as well as giving to others.

Ola Orekunrin was driven to make a necessary change when a tragedy struck her family. When her 12 year old sister was in need of immediate medical attention in Nigeria, she went to the nearest hospital but was unable to be treated there. They proceeded to call the air ambulance but since it was a few hours away, Ola’s sister had died by the time it got to her. Because of the anger and sadness within their family from this event, Ola started an emergency based air ambulance company called the Flying Doctors in the Nigerian city of Lagos.

Ola started the business by simply leasing aircraft and hiring pilots in order to keep costs down. The company now owns twenty aircraft and even employs seven if its own pilots. They were able to expand thanks to new partnerships with many hospitals throughout Nigeria. With the company’s rapid expansion, they are now looking to help citizens in many other ways including; improving medical care across the country, giving medical attention to the poor, and offering access for emergency evacuations in dangerous situations.

Ola was driven by her deep grief to start a business based on rapid medical attention. Through this business, she has displayed great work ethic and a desire to give people the basic needs they deserve to have. One of her early business partners said Ola was able to “think outside the box,” which is a huge part of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Overall, Ola is a great entrepreneur and even better inspiration.