Since childhood, Michelle Phan has embraced and nurtured what one would call an entrepreneurial mindset. Coming from a poor family, with no help from her father’s gambling addiction, Phan sold candy to her classmates in elementary school in an effort to purchase her family’s first computer. After purchasing the computer she worked so hard for, Michelle began blogging on different platforms. However, once YouTube was an established site with a significant userbase, the entrepreneur shifted her efforts and began posting beauty tutorial videos.

What started as a hobby became a passion, and eventually led to a job offer from prominent cosmetic company Lancôme. Phan made history by becoming “Lancôme’s first official video makeup artist,” and expanded her fanbase. Not long after accepting her job with Lancôme, Phan created ipsy, a subscription service that mails users 5 sample-sized personalized beauty products for $10 a month.

With extremely minimal marketing, ipsy caught like wildfire and gains nearly 100,000 users per month. As a [former] ipsy user myself, I can say that I never saw any ads about the company, but heard about it from my roommate. This company offers users the opportunity to use brands or products that they may not otherwise use with no real concern of waste of product or money.

Michelle Phan created an extremely successful business with hard work and perseverance. She is an inspiration to young entrepreneurs of this generation and shows that a strong mindset can take you anywhere.

Like many other students in America, Scholly.com founder Christian Gray was struggling to find ways to pay for a college education. Gray grew up in a single-parent, poverty stricken home in Birmingham, Alabama. As a student, he little access to necessary scholastic resources, such as computers. While the high school student faced more challenges than most, he did not allow these problems to stop him; in fact, he used them as motivation to earn what would eventually amount to 1.3 million dollars in scholarships. Out of his hardships and hard work, Scholly.com, the scholarship search engine, was born.

The idea for an organized search engine specifically for scholarships came from Gray’s personal experience tirelessly searching for scholarships. The process was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Gray, an entrepreneurial-minded high school student at this point, recognized the need for a more organized database that provided students with as many scholarship opportunities as possible. After finalizing and implementing his idea as a young adult, Christian pitched his business to the “sharks” on ABC’s Shark Tank and landed a joint deal with Daymond John and Lori Greiner. Almost immediately after Christian’s appearance on Shark Tank, the Scholly app was ranked #1 for more than three weeks.

Gray’s story is an inspiration not only to young entrepreneurs, but to less fortunate students who need to see someone in a similar economic or familial situation succeed. The businessman shows that despite your background, hard work and perseverance make just about anything is possible.

As a young woman in her mid twenties, Jen Glantz found herself constantly being the bridesmaid, but never the bride. However, instead of resenting the title of “permanent bridesmaid,” Jen decided to embrace it and even turn it into a business venture. At the age of 26, Glantz decided to post an advertisement on Craigslist as a bridesmaid for hire, which received a massive wave of responses within the following two days. Little did she know that this was only the beginning of what would turn out to be an extremely successful endeavor.

Glantz’s various services range anywhere from $500 to over $2000 and have brought her in enough money to allow what was once a side hustle to become her full-time job. What appeals to her (and I) the most about the entrepreneurial lifestyle is the freedom of being one’s own boss. While it can be difficult to manage time wisely when you do not have a “real boss,” having occupational and artistic freedom trumps the rigid idea of the 9-5 work day.

This decision to take a chance lead Glantz to more success than she had initially even imagined; the young entrepreneur has written two books, hosts a podcast series, coaches professional bridesmaids in training, provides multiple other wedding-related services, and sells online courses, all while still offering her personal services as a bridesmaid. This woman identified an issue from a personal experience, saw that there was a genuine need for it, took the opportunity of a lifetime, and created a thriving business.