The music industry is a great place for young entrepreneurs to start. Andre Romelle Young, professionally known as Dr. Dre, has set a precedent for becoming successful in this competitive industry. Dr. Dre is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur who grew up in Compton, California. Dr. Dre started out as a rapper and quickly grew to fame. His music was unique, flavorful, and creative. Some time passed, and he had taken a few artists under his wing, including superstar and rap/hip-hop legend Eminem. The duo of Dr. Dre and Eminem were able to shake up the whole music industry and draw fans in like never seen before. Eminem was essentially an asset to Dre, and he helped him gain even more fame and profit. Over the years, Dr. Dre has really shown his entrepreneurial skills as well. His most popular product is the Beats by Dre headphones. When these headphones were first released, people went crazy over them. What they did not know was that they were basically getting ripped off. Dr. Dre charged over $100 for the cheapest pair of headphones, but they only costed around $14 to make. Dre continued to promote the headphones to be high-quality, bass-oriented, and overall a great investment. The Beats Pro headphone model sells for around $400, which is absolutely insane. You could buy a set of professional, studio-grade mixing and mastering headphones for around $180. However, Dr. Dre has continued to sell himself through his record label, Aftermath Entertainment, where he is the founder and CEO. Through that label, he has collaborated with and helped artists become stars. Some of those artists are Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, The Game, and 50 Cent. They have helped contribute to Dre’s wealth and continue to expand throughout the industry. Dr. Dre is a creative individual, and he will continue to sell, innovate, and transform many things to come in this inspiring industry.
Author Archive for colfleshdj17
YouTube has really helped people gain fame and fortune over the years, and that is nothing short for the members of FaZe Clan. FaZe originally started out as an online gaming community, and it has grown into so much more than that. The members of FaZe are comedic characters who post content on YouTube and live stream their gameplay through different services (mainly Twitch). In 2014, the big named members of FaZe Clan moved into a house together in New York. The house is now worth around $800,000. Little did they know, this is where their fame and fortune would start. They continued to post gaming videos on their YouTube channels and really started to gain a following. Mind you these guys were around 19 and 20 years old at the time. This really goes to show that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. After a little time had passed, they had begun to post vlogs on their channels too. This is where they gained more fans for their personalities rather than their content. To earn money through YouTube, you create partnerships with different companies and they pay you for add space. The members of FaZe clan are looked at a bunch of goofy gamer dudes, but really they are young entrepreneurs. They have upgraded to a new house in Los Angeles that is worth around $10 million. Through gaming videos, vlogs, and linking up with other big names in Hollywood, FaZe Clan has really grown to a much bigger scale. They have learned to sell their content, their merchandise, and most importantly themselves. They are always up to something, and it is very entertaining to watch. Looking at the history of FaZe Clan, not only is it a great story of young entrepreneurial men, but it is inspiring for younger viewers to help show them that anything is possible and you should do what you love.
Kevin Plank used to play football back in the day. Noticing his football teammates’ sweat-soaked shirts, Plank came up with a lightweight, sweat-wicking shirt using fabric from women’s undergarments. In the mid 1990s he sold his first shirts from his grandmother’s basement, exaggerating to early customers to make the company sound bigger. Plank was pretty much broke when he started selling signature clothing under the Under Armour brand. He took all the cash he had saved, about $20,000, and racked up an additional $40,000 of credit card debt to fund the company. Soon after, he made a landmark sale of $17,000 to Georgia Tech University, and in a wave of momentum, made sales to two dozen NFL teams. From there, he went on, in just a few years, to cultivate millions in sales and hire hundreds of employees. Today, Under Armour does nearly $2 billion in retail sales, and has around 6,000 employees. It is so crazy to see people come up with these ideas in such a small setting and turn it into millions and sometimes billions of dollars. Today, Kevin Plank’s net worth is just over $2 billion. From “messing around” with women’s undergarments to having one of the most recognizable brands on the planet, it is safe to say that Kevin Plank really knows how to invest his money efficiently and run a business. You can spot the logo anywhere and immediately recognize what it is and what it stands for. You know that Under Armour makes athletic wear, and most of the time it is over priced. But with all that being said, people still continue to buy the products because they like the quality and style of the brand. As of 2017, Under Armour had 166 stores in the United States alone. If every store sold at least $100 worth of product every day, that is about $16,000/day… not a bad living huh? Under Armour will continue to grow and satisfy their customers for many years to come.
Recently on the internet, there has been some conflict going on between two very close friends. Tati Westbrook and James Charles were super close friends and business partners, until James decided to release his own type of product. Tati had her own gummy vitamin line, and it was doing fairly well. In the past few weeks, James had released his own vitamin line that was essentially going against Tati’s product line. This caused the two friends to drift apart, and the whole internet knows about it. This may seem like some “beef” between two friends, but Tati figured out how to make it into MILLIONS of dollars. After James had released his vitamin line, Tati combated her friend James by releasing a YouTube video talking about how bad of a friend he was and how she basically viewed him as a traitor. Here is how Tati had flipped the whole situation into a profit for herself: she basically twisted the whole situation, made James sound like an awful human, and created EMPATHY for herself. People felt extremely bad for Tati, and what better way to support her than to go out and buy her product? Tati’s vitamins costs $40, and she got to advertise them even more in her video about talking down to James. When she did this, many people unsubscribed from James’ YouTube channel and joined Tati’s side. The video that was released obtained nearly 50 million views in a short period of time. If Tati had convinced nearly 1% (a very normal conversion rate, which is about 500,000 customers in this case) of those viewers to buy her product at $40 a pop, it averages out to over $19 million. I agree, this is not the best way to go about this situation, but Tati clearly knew what she was doing to James as well as collecting an insane amount of profit. This could have been handled in a much better, moral way, but people will do a lot of crazy things to make money. Hopefully the situation will be resolved soon so that everything can go back to being somewhat normal. This is an example of how somebody can take conflict between two friends and turn it into a huge sum of money.
It is such a pain to move someone in or out of their house. It usually requires a team of people who are close with the person that is moving, and sometimes not everybody is available. Sometimes moving companies are hired, yes, but they can consist of some old dudes that move really slow and are not motivated to get the job completed. If only there was a way to help people move in and out a lot quicker. Now, we turn to the people classified as collegiate men. They are full of energy and are usually looking for a chance to make a quick buck here or there, whether it be for textbooks, movies or going out to the bar. There is definitely a connection here.
“On a hot summer’s day in 2003, two college buddies borrowed a beat-up cargo van and dubbed themselves College Hunks Hauling Junk.” Withing a short period of time, College Hunks expanded its franchising efforts and took off across the United States and Canada. College Hunks is a moving service that will also haul junk out of your house if that is what plan you pick. This just goes to show that you can literally start a company off of anything and you really do not need any experience to make a living (for certain jobs, of course). Moving houses is definitely a pain in the butt, and it is awesome to see that a company with smiling faces and dedication to what they do is out there.
I think that this is one of the best company ideas out there, and it was created pretty much out of nowhere and without any experience. They had the concept of thinking about what people struggle with and decided to do the dirty work themselves. On top of earning a bunch of awards since the founding of the company, they have a very good reputation and always leave their customers satisfied. That is a critical part in the business realm; without happy customers, you will not get any business… no business, no revenue. The idea of College Hunks is very inspiring and creative. I would definitely consider using their business one day.
Resource: https://collegehunkshaulingjunk.com/about/
We Are the World
By: Daniel Colflesh
Music. What a way to help people. In 1985, a song titled “We Are the World” was born. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie (with arrangements by John Barnes) and produced by Quincy Jones. It is one of the fewer than 30 all-time physical singles to have sold at least 10 million copies worldwide. Not to mention, a lot of famous artists (37 artists) were featured on this track, including: Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, John Oates, Daryl Hall, Tina Turner, The Jackson 5, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. They all came together to produce this masterpiece of a song that would rake in $63 million (today, $141 million) for the humanitarian aid in Africa and the United States.
The United Support of Artists for Africa is best known for its recording of “We Are the World” and the “Hands Across America” event in 1986. In these 33 years, USA for Africa has raised more than $100,000,000 to help ease the pain an poverty in Africa and the United States. The main goal of this organization is to help people in poverty and give them a chance to have a better life. They have clearly raised a lot of money for the people in Africa and the United States.
One thing that I think is really awesome is that a bunch of different artists came together (regardless of their skin color, religion, or anything biased) and made this song that would impact a lot of people. I think that is is a really amazing thing that people can come together through a common interest (music) and create something that touches so many people’s hearts, minds and emotions. Even though that USA for Africa is essentially a non-profit organization, they have created such a great way to bring revenue to help people in such a positive way. One day, I hope that I can find a way to help people through making music. That would mean so much to me and be one of the best things that I could do. It would bring so much joy and happiness to me and would be a great goal of mine. Hopefully one day, I can help people through music.
Websites used:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_the_World