In an industry that’s already incredibly crowded, 23-year old Grace Beverley has managed to create herself a niche in the form of sustainable fashion.  Beverley got her start when she was a student when she started to accrue a following on social media by posting fitness videos.  While in university, Grace became relatively famous, enough so that she started thinking of starting her own business.  In 2017, Beverley started B_ND, a company that produced vegan resistance bands.  Her brand largely found success through her personal social media following, her loyal followers supporting everything she does.  From there, she launched a workout app called SHREDDY, one that holds an algorithm that will create and tailor a workout program to every single user’s individual needs.  What sets her app apart is that it provides premium services without the premium price-tag, catering to Grace’s deeply held belief that good fitness doesn’t have to break the bank.

In May 2019, Beverley launched her biggest project yet: her own activewear brand called TALA.  TALA’s claim-to-fame is that all of its products, while on-trend and highly desirable, are made from 92% recycled materials (such as recycled bottles).  Along with this, her brand focuses inclusivity, catering to and flattering all body types.  Not to mention her products’ relatively low price – good fitness shouldn’t empty the coffers, and activewear is no exception.  Because not everyone can afford Lululemon prices, TALA caters to everyone who wants to work out in style, but on a budget.

Grace Beverley’s success has gotten her named NatWest’s Entrepreneur of the Year along with getting on Forbe’s 30 Under 30 in Europe.  She maintains her million-strong social media following, and her brand generated a profit of $5.2 million British pounds sterling in under a year.  From here, it seems there is nowhere to go but up for Grace Beverley.

Born in Texas in 2005, Mikaila Ulmer has had more success in her young life than most adults will ever have.  When she was four, Mikaila got interested in bees after suffering several bee stings in a relatively short period.  The more she learned, the more enthusiastic she got, until all she wanted to do was help the bees do what they do.  At the same time, Mikaila’s parents encouraged her to send in a product for a couple different competitions in her city, one of which was the Austin Lemonade Day.  After doing some thinking (and with some help from her Great Granny Helen), Ulmer’s idea was born: a lemonade sweetened with honey, not just sugar.  With the combination of her great grandmother’s recipe and the innovative addition of honey, Mikaila set about creating a business that would donate part of its proceeds to saving the bees.  Starting at a lemonade stand in front of her house, Ulmer’s catchphrase was “Buy a bottle, save a bee.”

As her business grew, Mikaila’s parents began to get involved.  In 2015, she appeared alongside her father on SharkTank, where Daymond John put up $60,000 to support her business.  Later that year, Ulmer was invited to meet President Barack Obama.  From there, things only sped up – in the ten years since the start of Me and the Bees Lemonade, the business has grown over 500%.  In February of 2020, Mikaila’s lemonade was being sold in 1,500 stores across the United states, and in March, Ulmer landed an $11 million deal with grocery giant Whole Foods.

Mikaila Ulmer is just 15 years old with an $11 million business to her name.  Along with being the lemonade giant that she is, Mikaila works hard in school and loves rock-climbing.  Along with this, she released her first book in August of 2020, called Bee Fearless, Dream Like a Kid, based off of her experiences as a kid in the business world.

Raised in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, Ben Francis became interested in business at a young age.  He got into the computing field with the launch of two original fitness apps, iPhysique and Fat Loss Abs Guide, both of which were in the realm of Francis’ greatest interest: physical fitness.  Ben’s passion lay in the gym, but as he got older, he couldn’t find a single fitness garment that he liked the design of.  With this realization in mind, Francis set about fixing the problem.

As a child, Ben’s grandparents had taught him to sew, so he set up shop in his parents’ garage designing and making his own clothes.  This was no small undertaking – Ben had to juggle both studying full time at Aston University in Birmingham and delivering pizzas for PizzaHut at night with the creation of his new business.  He was able to make around ten items per day, and over the course of two years, Francis was able to build up his brand to a relatively impressive size, amassing a profit of over 250,000 British pounds.  However, he was running himself into the ground trying to do everything at once, and Ben wanted to give his business all the attention he could.  And so, at the age of 19, Francis dropped out of college and launched Gymshark with his close friend Lewis Morgan.

Eight years later, Gymshark has taken the world by storm.  By exploiting social media and many large fitness influencers, Ben built up his brand following, with Gymshark being one of the first brands ever to primarily market through social media.  Following a recent investment from General Atlantic, the brand is now valued at $1.3 billion, with Francis owning 70% of the company.  Before General Atlantic’s investment, the brand was worth $700 million, an incredible sum when compared with the 250,000 pounds Ben started with.  In 2015, Francis stepped down as the company’s CEO to become the chief brand officer, a move he hoped would expand the brand even more.  As the most recent numbers show, his aims were successful.

At the age of fifteen, most kids are in their sophomore year of high school.  At the age of fifteen, most kids are in the midst of puberty, have absolutely no sense of self, and are a bit lost in the social strata of high school.  At the age of fifteen, most kids have done nothing of true relevance to the world (though, since fifteen is a relatively young age, this is absolutely fine).  However, at the age of fifteen, Andrew Sutherland launched a business that would change the world of studying forever.

In his sophomore French class, young Andrew Sutherland badly needed to pass his next test.  In order to do this, he created a web program to help him learn and study different French terms.  When he successfully passed the test, he decided to keep using his pet project, sharing it with his peers so that they could all pass French class.  After about two years of both using and building his product, Sutherland decided to release Quizlet to the world.

Andrew enrolled in MIT and lived for three years as both a student and owner of a fast-growing company.  He dropped out in his junior year of college to work on Quizlet full-time, six years after his first French test.  Now, more than a decade later, Quizlet has over 50 million monthly learners and 350 million different study sets, as well as accumulating over 3 billion study sessions over the years.  Helping both middle schoolers learning vocabulary words and med students trying to ace their MCATs, Quizlet has become a worldwide study tool.  Earning revenues of over 10 million dollars per year, Andrew Sutherland runs a multi-million dollar company, earning a spot on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list twice.  Since the age of fifteen, Andrew has been on top of the world, and it seems that there’s no way to go but up from here.

Born in Barbados, Robyn Rihanna Fenty became an American music icon at the age of 17 in 2005.  After signing with Def Jam, her music soon topped the charts, catapulting her into stardom.  Now 32, Rihanna has sold more than 250 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling artists of all time.  However, music isn’t the only place where Rihanna found success.  Not only a musical innovator, Rihanna has made her way into the beauty industry with her creation of Fenty Beauty.

Launched in 2017, Fenty Beauty was Rihanna’s reaction to an unfairly exclusive beauty world.  From the time she was a child, Rihanna loved using makeup to express herself, but as she got older, she began to understand how the beauty industry only targeted white skin tones and did not cater to other races.  Once she had the platform and power created by her success in the music industry, Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty, a line solely focused on catering to every skin tone and every shade.  The first line ever to be launched globally, Fenty went live in 17 countries with a foundation line featuring 40 shades (now expanded to 50), which completely revolutionized the way that beauty companies everywhere approach skin care and makeup.

Fenty Beauty was an immediate success and worldwide sensation. Within one month of its launch, Fenty Beauty was valued at $72 billion, and now, as of 2020, it is valued at $17 billion, a figure that is only expected to grow.  Named one of Time magazine’s best inventions of 2017, Fenty filled a variety of needs that had never been catered to before in the beauty industry.  Rihanna’s focus on catering to all skin colors and skin types set Fenty apart, and since then no other line has surpassed Fenty’s prominence in the role of inclusivity.  Fenty has also been praised in terms of advertising, for each and every campaign features several models of color, again setting a standard for racial diversity in the beauty industry.

At the ripe young age of 9 years old, Moziah Bridges looked at the fashion world and didn’t see a single thing that accurately fit who he was or in any way represented his personality.  Mo grew up in a fashion-forward household, and he was heavily influenced by his father’s sharp dressing.  As he sat in his grandmother’s kitchen in South Memphis, he brainstormed ways that he could change things up and decided to start his own company that specialized in bow-ties.  With the help of his grandmother, a retired seamstress, and the support of his mother, Mo began to sell bow-ties both online and in local retail stores.

Quickly, Mo’s spectacular handmade bow-ties began to catch the eye of the media.  He was featured on a wide variety of major networks, from the Steve Harvey show to Oprah Magazine.  To this day, Moziah is mentored by Daymond John of Shark Tank, which Mo was featured on at age 11.  Before long Mo’s Bows was an internationally recognized label.  Along with serving as the official NBA fashion correspondent for the NBA draft in 2015, Mo was also invited to the White House and gave former president Barack Obama the famed “Obama Blue” bow-tie.  He also wrote his own book, Mo’s Bows: A Young Person’s Guide to Start-Up Success.

Moziah personally chooses every fabric used in the making of his bow-ties as well as visually approving every design that is sold to the public.  With a net worth of $1 million, Mo has sold over $300,000 worth of bow-ties and men’s accessories.  Just recently graduating in 2020, Mo’s dream is to become a fashion mogul.  He plans to attend college to study fashion design, all while continuing to run his own business (with the help of his mom, of course).  Moziah Bridges is living proof that success has no age range, and that you can be anything that you want to be, no matter how young you are.