Four years ago, a young Austin Dunham began his calisthenics fitness journey, and recorded his progress to put on YouTube. Calisthenics is the art of working out solely with one’s bodyweight, such as with push-ups and pull-ups. The idea of using one’s bodyweight and being able to exercise in almost any location intrigued him. Dunham was 5 foot 10 and weighed around 150 pounds when he began uploading, slightly on the smaller side. Still, he posted video after video of his progress and slowly became a master of some very difficult moves, all while going through college.

His YouTube channel steadily gained a following, and currently has amassed an audience of over 784,000 subscribers. Although he was not a masterful instructor when he started, Dunham’s passion for calisthenics and his consistency made it easy for people to support him and want his success. Eventually, he learned tricks and techniques that he was able to share with his audience, adding value to their calisthenic journey. Dunham also set himself apart by incorporating weighted calisthenics into his routines. Typically, calisthenics athletes are smaller and lean like Austin was when he started. However, Dunham now sits at around 175 pounds with just 10% body fat. By achieving this physique, he countered many common beliefs about calisthenics and showcased its value in a new way. After reaching a substantial following and proving himself to be one of the top calisthenics athletes on the YouTube platform, Dunham decided to further monetize his abilities by establishing the AD Workout brand where he would sell workout plans, equipment, and apparel. By starting this business, Dunham was able to turn his passion into a company. His loyal fan base became loyal customers, and continued to support him in his endeavors. Austin Dunham is a prime example of an entrepreneur who saw success by putting in hours of hard work into something he cared about.

In the wake of an ever-increasingly health-conscious society consumer are searching for new, healthy alternatives to sugary beverages. The old go-to’s such as Coca-Cola and other similar soft drinks are seeing a decline in sales due to this rising health trend, and a young entrepreneur has decided to step in the space to provide a more nutritious choice. Mikaila Ulmer at just 11 years old started her company “Me & the Bees”, a lemonade company that uses flax seed and honeybee honey alone to sweeten her beverages. Currently, her Me & the Bees brand is the number one ready-to-drink lemonade growth market in the country. Ulmer has her product in stores such as Whole Foods and Wegmans and can also be purchased online. In addition, she provides recipes for various drinks, foods, and deserts on her website. She also promotes a social aspect of her business in which she advocates for bee conservation initiatives due to the dwindling bee populations. Overall, Ulmer is an extremely well-rounded entrepreneur at such a young age and is seeing success not only in her for-profit initiatives but also in her social causes.

In 2012, Jake Loosararian and a few other Grove City College engineering students set out to solve a problem that a local power plant operator had brought to them: how do you get an accurate and reliable reading on the corrosion of boilers, tanks, and other pieces of industrial equipment? The traditional method of testing requires manual labor, scaffolding, and does not capture a high amount of data points. The team figured out that they could make a robot climb up the walls of these pieces of equipment to gather thousands of data points. This idea eventually sprouted into the start-up company Gecko Robotics. Jake Loosararian is the founder and CEO of Gecko Robotics, and found a way to create a viable business out of a school project.

This technology is revolutionary in an industry that has been dormant for decades. Loosararian found a way to utilize robots that not only got the job done quicker, but captured over 1000x more data points. He did not stop there, and also built a user-friendly interface that allows plant operators to understand their assets inside and out, saving them millions of dollars by avoiding outages and decreasing downtime.

Loosararian succeeds as an entrepreneur due to his ability to understand what the customer really wants. He lives by the business philosophy that to prosper, you need to make something people want, and continues to deliver results that exceed his clients expectations in an industry that was once dormant and lacking innovation.

Over the past few decades, there has been a clear shift in people’s interest towards health and fitness. As demand for customized workout plans and more variety rises, a plethora of supplements, diets, and styles of exercise constantly gaining popularity. Some dietary or fitness plans turn out to not have substantial supporting scientific evidence and are more novelty. However, bodyweight training, or calisthenics, is a time-tested form of physical fitness that can be used to achieve a variety of health goals.

Chris Heria has established himself as a high-level bodyweight master, as he has competed in and won multiple global calisthenic competitions. In addition to this, he has pioneered some of the most difficult movements in the discipline. Most notably, he has used these achievements to create a powerful brand that fits snugly in the world of online workout apps and websites, THENX. Through the use of his YouTube channel, Heria established his brand as a hub for bodyweight exercise knowledge. He posts hundreds of videos all dedicated to explaining and demonstrating the different movements of calisthenics. In addition to this, he sells all of the equipment that might be needed, as well as various apparel items. Finally, he runs an application designed to help people progress through exercises of different difficulty levels. Through all of these mediums, Heria is able to establish a brand and seamlessly fit himself into the world of exercise training.

The music industry is always changing and has been impacted heavily by technology and social media. There are not many people who have a firm grasp on how to successfully build a following on the internet, but 19-year-old Harvard graduate Ryan Leslie is one of them. Through his text-based marketing application Superphone, which allows artists to send mass texts to their audience, Leslie garnered the support of 15,000 fans. Although a small following compared to those of associated acts such as Kanye West, Chris Brown, Cassie, Fabolous, and Rick Ross, Leslie earned over 2 million dollars in a one album cycle. This is a huge revenue stream, especially when considering how much more Leslie will be able to pocket due to him being independently signed.

Leslie also provides 1,000 fans with a song every for subscribing to an exclusive list that he approves of. Contrary to many public figures, who hide their phone numbers and keep communication to a minimum, Leslie encourages fans to text him, and even gave out his phone number to anyone who wants to reach him. As a Grammy-nominated producer and well-respected creative director, Leslie is not only changing the music game, but also created a new way for creators to market to fans with Superphone. These are just the first projects of a young entrepreneur with a lot of potential.

Digital music production and audio processing are currently at an all time high in popularity. With the rise of streaming services and social media, there is an influx of talented producers uploading instrumentals and beats for other musicians to turn into full songs. In this over-saturated market, few producers have made the impact that Nick Mira has made. Mira is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist and at just 13 years old, set up his own website to begin selling beats to up-and-coming artists. Now, he has multiple Billboard Top 100 hits and a thriving website: “Internet Money.” To become talented enough at music production, Mira spent all of the free time he had perfecting his craft. Mira’s big break came when he utilized the power of online networking to get in touch with a young rapper named Juice WRLD, who at the time had just a 300 person following. Mira saw the potential of this young artist, and worked with him on numerous songs, eventually leading to a number 1 breakout single. Mira did not stop there, and further developed his website to provide tutorial videos, audio packs, and MIDI files to assist young producers. The key to Mira’s success was a combination of hard work, foresight, and an unwillingness to settle for a single success. He envisioned a structured approach to music marketing that was different from what anyone else had done in the past, and wrapped it up into an easily marketable package.