All entrepreneurs have an origin story about how they were able to overcome diversity and challenges and come out on top of difficult situations. Hearing stories like these can be very inspirational and motivating, and the one you are about to read about, Caleb Hammett, is no different. Hammett grew up in Hanover, Massachusetts where he participated in several sports from a young age. He mainly focused on football, hockey, and lacrosse. His journey as an athlete has been a dramatic one to say the least. During his youth years he quickly learned that out of all the sports that he was playing, lacrosse was the one he had the best chance of having a serious future in. He began to train very hard and developed to be a top player in his area and a popular college prospect. Hammett eventually ended up at the University of Massachusetts which is where the official journey of “The Drip King” began. When he was younger, Hammett started to wear eye black to all of his sports games with the sole reason for this being that he liked it and thought it looked cool. He didn’t continue this tradition he had at the beginning of college, but as he became more comfortable and proved himself on the field, he started wearing it again. With the popularity of NIL deals rapidly increasing around this time, he was able to take advantage of this and transform a fun tradition he had as a kid into a full business. The “Drip Stick” was later released and after some patience slowly started to sell for great numbers. Around this time Hammett also started to develop a social media following and used his influence to advertise his product. With the company and social media benefiting off each other Hammett quickly grew into a well-known celebrity within the lacrosse community as well as everyday pop-culture. Hammett would continue to grow his following by creating content around lacrosse and talking about other influencers. This all continued until he had a change of heart. Hammett realized how blessed he was and that it wasn’t from his own doing. Through this realization he found Jesus and now uses his influence and earnings to spread the gospel across social media and at different events!

Travel has been a part of society for as long as time and has continued to develop throughout history. Many new developments are in regard to transportation from one place to another and not where to stay once you get to a certain destination. Yes, there were hotels and inns before but often they would get filled up very quickly. Thankfully, Brian Joseph Chesky came up with a brilliant solution to this dilemma. Chesky is an American businessman who was born in Niskayuna, New York. He is known for being a co-founder and the current CEO of Airbnb. Airbnb is an online marketplace for short- and long-term homestays in local and foreign locations. Today the company is the most well known for its line of work and is used all across the globe. Before Airbnb became the super industry that it is now, it started off as just a side hustle to pick up a little extra cash. It all began in the apartment room of Chesky and his cofounder, Joe Gebbia. They were both broke at the time and in desperate need of some income. So, they decided to rent out air mattresses in their apartment to the attendees of a nearby conference because all the local hotels were fully booked. They called this “Air Bed and Breakfast”. It didn’t take long before this small idea became the nightmare of all hotel companies known as Airbnb. Chesky along with his partners now have over three million different lists in almost 200 counties! The company is worth thirty-one billion dollars, which is more than Hilton, Wyndham and is nearing Marriott. With Airbnb still constantly growing there is no doubt that they will surpass all Hotel company worths it is just a matter of time. It is incredible to see how a small idea initially created to just bring in a small load of cash is now dominating one of the world’s most profound industries.

Blog Post 2: Daniel Ek

Something that the majority of our current generation participates in is listening to music, especially on cellular devices. There are many apps that can be used to stream music, but there is one in particular that is probably the most popular and well-known in today’s world. That app is Spotify. Plenty of people have heart of this fun, easy to use music streaming app but not as many people have heard about the man we should be thanking for this product. The man’s name is Daniel Ek. Ek is a Swedish entrepreneur, born in 1983 in the city of Stockholm. He grew up in a near by town called Ragsved, where he began creating websites for business and running web hosting services out of his own bedroom. Ek became very good at this so he eventually dropped out of college and worked for multiple Web-based companies where he continued to learn and improve his skills. He used the knowledge and experience he gained to launch his first company, Advertigo. Ek would end up selling this product to a Swedish company called Tradedoubler. Keeping relations with Tradedoubler, Ek would launch his next and most successful company with its cofounder, Martin Lorentzon. This is when the birth of Spotify occurred. Ek’s idea for a business model giving access to music online was revolutionary to what had been experienced in the past and set him apart from other companies by not charging anything for song downloads. Spotify users could listen to online streaming music for free, only having to view or listen to digital advertising in the mix of their song choices. These advertisements could be removed if users chose to subscribe to a $5 or $10 monthly fee. At first people were skeptical to this new development especially the music industry since this would cause them to lose a great some of money, but over time investors and users alike began to see the value in this product and by 2018 Spotify was worth around $27 billion and were approaching 200 million user.

Gerard Adams is a young millennial entrepreneur who is responsible for the creation of Elite Daily. Elite Daily is a news content platform geared towards informing millennials of what is going on around the world such as politics, social justice, and sports. The online news platform was founded in 2012 and has reached up to around eighty million readers. The company was later sold to the Daily Mail for fifty million dollars. Clearly, Gerard Adams has had great success with his product regarding the revenue generated as well as the vast number of users he accumulated over the years. Although what Adams has accomplished is amazing, he wasn’t always this young entrepreneurial superstar. Adams story started off in New Jersey as being a part of a hard-working, lower-middle-class family with his parents and two sisters. He first learned about the stock market and business from his dad who worked at Prudential while he was growing up. Adams dad had a very big and positive influence on his life, providing him with knowledge, wisdom, and encouragement throughout his childhood. One small thing that he often did that ended up having a lasting impact on Adams life is that he would leave notes in various places around his house with quotes from famous leaders of different experience. Despite all of this Gerard Adams still went down a bad path throughout most of his high school career, and even ended up dropping out of college. Would it have been better for him to have been more responsible and productive in his early years, yes, but his story shows us that no matter what a persons background is like or what choices they made in the past, anything can happen and anyone can achieve their dreams and goals if they truly choose to turn things around in their life and work hard. Adams provides a word of encouragement and motivation to all the young entrepreneurs in the world. “Discipline will take you to places where motivation can’t”