Author Archive for Katherine Gish

3D Printed Manicures

Posted by Katherine Gish 
· Monday, December 9th, 2019 
· 5 Comments

Grace Chiang, 25, cofounded Mani.me with while getting an MBA at Stanford. She’s still working... [+] toward her degree.

At 25 years old, Grace Chiang is changing how women get manicures. Instead of a traditional salon process, which is extremely time consuming, expensive, and painful, you can have nails shipped to your doorstep.

Grace Chiang’s company, Mani.me, is a subscription service that sends 3d printed nails to members for a reasonable price compared to a traditional manicure. A consumer can purchase 2 sets of nails a month for $50, or 3 for $70. Chiang started this company as a MBA student at Stanford, and had two friends later join her.

The magic of Mani.me is how the nails are curated for each customer. The company uses an app to allow users to upload photos of their nails and create measurements to send a unique set of custom fitting nails to every subscriber. From there the customer can pick a design from the app for the color and drawing on the nails.

The nails differ from traditional acrylic nails, because they simply stick on your finger nail beds, and can be removed without any sort of painful process.

You can visit the company site at https://www.manime.co/

5 Comments
Categories : Beauty, Costmetics

Mealshare- A Company Making An Impact

Posted by Katherine Gish 
· Sunday, December 8th, 2019 
· 5 Comments

Image result for Andrew Hall and Jeremy Bryant mealshareIn 2013, cousins Andrew Hall and Jeremy Bryant aspired to create a business based on a simple idea: help restaurants donate meals to the people who need it most.

That’s how they created Mealshare, a company that allows restaurants to put the Mealshare logo next to dishes on their menus, and commit to donating towards providing a meal to a person in need in the for every dish purchased. For every dish purchased, one is donated to a a person in need, using a buy one get one model.

The company is based out of Canada and present in the United States, where they have provided 3,326,107 meals to people in need. They make an impact both locally and internationally, with half of their meals being donated throughout the world partnering with WE Charities. Mealshare goes beyond only providing meals though, their partners provide shelter, education, counseling and/or opportunities for youth in need to access life-changing services. They also partner with the Central Texas Food Bank to reach out locally in the United States.

They have partnered with restaurants such as Original Joes, a Canadian restaurant chain in 63 locations, and many smaller local restaurants.

5 Comments
Categories : Food, Redemptive Entrepreneurship, Restaurants

Two Millennials + Instagram Stories = $$

Posted by Katherine Gish 
· Sunday, December 8th, 2019 
· 2 Comments

H/O: Unfold

Andy McCune and Alfonso Cobo didn’t know that when they teamed up to create the app Unfold, they would create one of the most widely used apps this year, with over 9 million users and recently acquired by Squarespace.

It all stared with Alfonso Cobo being a design student at Parson’s School of Design in Manhattan, where he created a preliminary app to display his portfolio work. Later he pivoted his idea, realizing the potential of Instagram stories for his app. The app was still struggling however, until he partnered with Andy McCune over Instagram DM’s.

Andy McCune had created another very successful app, called Earth, which displays the most liked photos from all over the world based on location.

After he partnered with Cobo, their new project began to get traction from influencers on Instagram. The app became an overnight sensation when Instagram released question stickers for stories, allowing followers to ask influencers what app they used to create their stories.

The app relied on word-of-mouth marketing to grow, which was very successful. They had a lean marketing budget, and were able to keep costs down by using influencers to recommend their product.

Unfold was recently valued at over 10 Million dollars, and acquired by Squarespace to expand capabilities. Now users can subscribe for full access to the app for $19.99 a year.

2 Comments
Categories : Uncategorized

Is your phone just an expensive calculator?

Posted by Katherine Gish 
· Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019 
· 7 Comments

Daniela Perdomo realized that without a cellular connection, your phone is basically useless after Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012, leaving her without power or internet connection.

Seeing how real this problem was, Daniela began a tech startup called goTenna. Her devices are candy-bar sized transmitters that can send text messages even if there is no cellular connection.

goTenna’s technology has a much broader application than people living in the aftermath of a hurricane. Recently these devices have been used by first responders, the military, and even the Department of Homeland Security.

The company uses what is called “mesh networking” which expands by connecting users on a peer-to-peer basis. These small devices are built to be portable and can be attached to a backpack using a small clip. The  price of one of these transmitters is $179, and is becoming more accessible than ever to consumers with a constantly expanding network.

7 Comments
Categories : Smartphone, Technology, Women Entrepreneurs

Loren Gray- the famous girl from Musical.ly

Posted by Katherine Gish 
· Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019 
· 2 Comments

“What does this girl actually do that requires any talent?” Well, apparently a LOT of people think she’s talented, because she has over 33 million followers on Tiktok, 17.7 million followers on Instagram, and 3.5 million followers on Youtube.

Loren Gray entered the social media world in 2015, when she began to create lip syncing videos to popular songs on Musical.ly, an app that later re-branded as Tiktok. Her estimated net worth is $300,000, which is only the beginning for the social media influencer. Recently she signed a record deal and has been releasing songs on her own that are not lip synced (hopefully).

Loren is an example of a new career field that has become a possibility in the rise of the digital age. Now people can make money from creating content online and being paid from ad revenue on their pages. Loren gets paid by Youtube for her videos, which at this time are averaging at $450 a day in revenue. She has also used her social media platform to do sponsored partnerships with companies, such as Nickelodeon. She’s one of the first stars to make a living from Tiktok, and with the growth of the app it looks like she won’t be the last.

2 Comments
Categories : Social Media, Women Entrepreneurs, YouTube

World’s Youngest Bitcoin Millionaire

Posted by Katherine Gish 
· Monday, September 16th, 2019 
· 5 Comments

Erick Finman, at age 11, invested $1000 into bitcoin, which is now worth millions.

Erik Finman was 12 years old when made a bet with his parents; if he could make a million dollars from investing $1000 in bitcoin, they would let him drop out of school. You could say his bet paid off.

Now Erick is 20 years old, and his thousand dollar investment in 2011 became a net worth of $4.5 million. The approximate value of each bitcoin is $10,320.00, and Erick owns 446 of them. He says he first heard of bitcoin from a hippie wearing a bitcoin t-shirt during an occupy wall street protest in 2008, which convinced him and his brother to invest in bitcoin.

In 2018 he worked with NASA to launch a satellite into space carrying a signed copy of Taylor Swift’s “1989” album and other pop music memorabilia in a digital time capsule.

Erick’s latest endeavor has stemmed from his love for cryptocurrency. He is partnering with a company called Metal to launch a new kind of cryptocurrency to rival Facebook’s Libra (www.metalpay.com). He created a real life Dr. Octopus suit, which has robotic octopus arms intended to be used as prosthetic arms for a young boy with hyper mobility issues.

Another one of his key achievements is an educational start-up called “Botangle”, which paired students with teachers for online schooling. This was a very unique project for Eric, stemming from his bad experience in traditional school. He hopes to enable students to create for themselves the perfect educational system according to their needs. He sold the company for 300 bitcoin, which was a gamble at the time because of the volitility of bitcoins value. Later he bought the company back because he “liked the name too much”.

You can follow his Instagram account @erickfinman for more updates on what he’s been doing with his money lately. He likes to post satirical photos of  “new money” stereotypes from time to time. One of his first splurges was on an Audi A8, with the caption saying “My GPA back in High School was 2.1. Now it’s going to be my license plate. (2.1 GPA)”.

 

5 Comments
Categories : App, Cryptocurrency, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Technology