Author Archive for ensmingerej24

Alex Siegel: A Designer in the Music Industry

Alex Siegel, better known as HuhAlex, is a young entrepreneur whose brand has skyrocketed over the past few years. Growing up in San Francisco, he was like any other kid, interested in music and art. In high school, he even started making music, releasing a few songs. However, COVID-19 presented him with a unique opportunity to design visuals for artists. He saw potential for a creative career as a designer and switched from his previous music production focus.

With this new focus, Alex began working with smaller artists to improve his skills and build a portfolio. He learned that experience and exposure came from starting small, which prepared him for higher-profile opportunities. By 2022, at age 19, he achieved a breakthrough, designing album covers, music videos, and visuals for big-name artists like Drake, The Weeknd, and Justin Bieber. His hard work paid off, and he was soon offered a contract with a label, providing him with a steady income and assigned projects.

At only 21, Alex is recognized as one of the most promising young designers in the music industry. His visuals have been featured on numerous Billboard No. 1 hits, showcasing his unique style and creativity. Alex’s journey from a high school student experimenting with art to an industry-recognized designer highlights the power of dedication, opportunity, and entrepreneurial spirit. His story serves as a reminder that taking risks and pursuing passions can lead to extraordinary achievements, even at a young age. Alex’s path encourages others to embrace unexpected opportunities and work tirelessly toward their goals.

huhalex

Mad Rabbit Tattoo

In 2019, Oliver Zak and Selom Agbitor, seniors at Miami University in Ohio, had a hunch to create a tattoo aftercare product store after seeing the digital branding issues in other brands. This started as a test, marketing, and selling of products that still needed to be created. Their “test run” ended up being successful, selling many of these unproduced products. The pair had to cancel the orders since there was obviously nothing to give, but it opened up the idea that this business could actually work. They also wanted to differentiate the product by using clean ingredients since most traditional tattoo skincare products contain unnecessary ingredients that may be harmful.

Zak and Agbitor then established Mad Rabbit Tattoo as an actual brand. After this point, they went on the television show Shark Tank to pitch their idea to investors. The pitch was successful, landing a $500,000 investment from Mark Cuban. Now, Mad Rabbit Tattoo is valued at $56 million, which is a mind-blowing valuation for an idea that stemmed from two college students.

These young entrepreneurs teach us the need to jump on ideas that we may have, even if we are still determining how successful they’ll be because you never know what may happen. Even if it’s just the process of testing a product in a particular market (like Mad Rabbit Tattoo), taking advantage of a possible opportunity is crucial to be a successful entrepreneur. Even though they didn’t create an entirely new product, they identified a problem with only poor solutions, finding themselves a solid foundation for entering the market.

Edouard Freda: Talia di Napoli

In 2018, Edouard Freda, a 26-year-old college student from Italy, originally planned to join the Italian Navy, but that all changed after he visited his uncle’s shop. His uncle owned a pizza shop that made pizza and then sold it frozen for later consumption across Italy. Freda saw an opportunity in all of this and committed himself to success in this industry by selling internationally rather than in one country.
From this point, Freda had invested heavily in this idea and even recruited his Italian roommate, Ludovico Bassetti, to help with his efforts. The pair established the business and called it Talia di Napoli. This company sells frozen handmade pizzas to retailers and consumers that taste fresh and only need to be heated in an oven. At first, they were disappointed as they would only receive a few orders a day since e-commerce was slow. To their luck, Covid-19 came right around the corner. This period was crucial to their success, as they could scale their business to selling more than 2,000 pizzas daily. By 2021, Talia di Napoli had $5.6 million in revenue, finally reaching great success.
Fast-forward to the present. Talia di Napoli is still thriving in selling to consumers and businesses, being included in articles from major sources such as CNN, Forbes, and the New York Times. Freda and Bassetti exemplify to many entrepreneurs that you don’t necessarily need a completely new idea but rather a different perspective on how a product can be sold and distributed.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/entrepreneurs/15-young-founders-rethinking-everything-from-artificial/432612
https://taliadinapolipizza.com/about-us/

Tara Bosch- Smart Sweets

In 2015, Tara Bosch, a 20-year-old student from Toronto, Canada, acknowledged that she had an addiction to candy. She decided to research more about sugar, and she discovered that it is more harmful to people than she had known, driving her to look for a solution. Tara dropped out of college at the University of British Colombia, intending to revolutionize the candy industry by providing delicious candy without excess sugar. It took three months of experimenting with the recipes to find what she would later sell. What she identified was that she could use plant-based fibers and plant-based sweeteners to replace corn syrup and sugar.

Eventually, in 2016, Tara was able to commercialize her product, beginning to sell it in several Canadian stores and making the deliveries herself. In 2018, Tara expanded the flavors sold by Smart Sweets with two new flavors, which are now their most popular ones. By 2019, Smart Sweets sold its products in over 20,000 stores. Since then, Smart Sweets has added nine new flavors and expanded into over 120,000 stores. Most recently, Tara has upgraded the taste of her flavors while keeping the same amount of sugar, striving to satisfy the customer’s needs sufficiently. At 25, her business is thriving, with Smart Sweets bringing in $55 million in revenue.

Tara now inspires many young entrepreneurs, motivating them to seize an opportunity when they see one (such as a problem spotted within the candy industry) and how to scale a business to be widely known throughout many nations. Her business excelled because of her dedication to solving a problem she faced, and her solution will positively impact many people in the future.

Sources:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/this-young-entrepreneur-who-has-raised-6-million-is-on-a/332187

https://smartsweets.com/pages/our-story