Furqan Khan became the founder of KicksOnFire when he was still in college at the age of 20.  Khan was always attracted to the sneaker culture, and his passion led him to great success as an entrepreneur.

Khan simply wanted to spread the knowledge he gained about sneakers to anyone who was interested.  His website gives followers updated news and coverage as well as upcoming release dates.  He identified a niche that needed to be filled as the sneaker community really had nothing like Kicks on Fire before Khan founded it.  It became practically an encyclopedia for sneakers.

Furthermore, Khan’s success with Kicks on Fire led him to create a business in the sneaker world while also giving other people an opportunity to do the same.  Khan founded Kixify.com which allows users to post their own shoes for sale and gives people the tools to find the exact shoes they are looking for.  Kixify charges a small fee for being the intermediary and this gives them financial opportunity.

Any entrepreneur can learn a lot from Khan who turned his passions into business ideas.

Evan Spiegel is the co-founder of Snapchat, and he is a great example for any upcoming entrepreneur.  Spiegel was only 24 years old when he co-founded Snapchat, now a multi-billion dollar business!

After high school he went to Stanford University and studied product design.  Snapchat actually started as an idea he had for a class project during college.  Even then it quickly became an instant hit.  Right before he was about to graduate Spiegel dropped out of school and pursued his Snapchat idea.

Snapchat presented the world to a new, innovative idea that many people took a liking to.  The idea of having a conversation with someone over a mobile device using pictures that disappear was very creative.  Millions upon millions of Snapchats are sent every day!

At the age of 23, Spiegel was able to turn down the opportunity to have Snapchat be bought for $3 billion by Facebook because he believed the company could get even bigger.

It is quite clear that Evan Spiegel showcases many great entrepreneurial traits like boldness, innovation, and creativity among many others.  Any new entrepreneur can certainly look to him as an example for themselves.

William Zhou has certainly helped out many teachers.  Only is his early twenties, Zhou came up with a fantastic idea to help out teachers keep track of almost everything they do.  His idea, Chalk.com, allows teachers to deal with their lesson plans, assignments, attendance, and other things in an efficient manner.  His idea has been used by thousands of schools.

Zhou was always passionate about computer technology throughout his life and he used this passion to enter into the entrepreneurial world.  He founded a company while in high school and started his own internet business in 2010.  In his first year at college, he sold that business for a large sum of money.  Through his education experience, he came to realize how difficult it was for teachers and professors to organize all of their material which was the origin of his idea for Chalk.com.

Will Zhou showed how anyone can turn a passion into a successful business and also exemplified how finding a niche can lead to good things for an entrepreneur.  Those new to entrepreneurship certainly can learn a lot from this young man!

Blake Ross was born in Florida and throughout his childhood he took an interest in computers as well as web design.  At age 10 he created his first website through American Online, better known as AOL.  Then, in his middle school years his interest in video games led him to create some computer games of his own.  While attending high school he was able to work for Mozilla, based in California. He also interned at Netscape Communications Corporation at the age of 16 and then attended Stanford beginning in 2003.

Ross took note of his mother’s frequent complaints about the internet browser she was using, Internet Explorer.  While he was an intern at Netscape, who is most well known for its web browser, he became disenchanted with the browser he was working on.  He envisioned a new browser that was smaller and easier to use.  Thus, he decided to work toward making his vision a reality by creating Firefox.  His project was open source and it quickly gained momentum.  Mozilla devoted nearly all their resources to furthering the Firefox project.  When Firefox officially released in November 2004, Ross was 19.  In less than a year Firefox grabbed a large part of the market share from Internet Explorer with over 100 million downloads.

Blake Ross’s story is a great entrepreneurial example because he solved a problem through innovative and creative thinking.  He identified a problem within the web browser industry and he decided to do something about it.

Nick D’Aloisio is just 21 years old, and several years ago he became one of the world’s youngest self-made millionaires.

Nick has made his money by using innovative and creative thinking to design apps for smartphones.  In 2011, Nick created the Trimit application for iOS.  Apple took interest in this app and featured it as a noteworthy application on the App Store.  Later, the app gained attention from billionaire Li Ka-Shing who provided Nick with a large sum of money in venture capital funding.  Nick was able to completely redesign the app and re-launched it as Summly.

The app aimed to solve problems with the way that news articles were presented on smartphones.  Initially, the app was downloaded by over 200,000 people.  Because of its initial success, Nick received even more money in funding.  Then, in March 2013, Summly was sold to Yahoo for over $30 million.  The app has received praise from all over and been featured in many publications.  It won Apple’s award for “Intuitive Touch” in 2012.  Nick has been acclaimed greatly for his work and now he is employed by Yahoo continuing his innovative work.

Nick D’Aloisio showed many great entrepreneurial traits by creating his new, unique app and being able to turn his creative thinking into a business venture.

While in high school, Catherine and Dave Cook created a social media site known as MyYearbook.  That was in 2005 and now the company is known as MeetMe and is worth millions of dollars.

The idea came to Catherine’s mind as the siblings were flipping through their yearbook.  She thought it would be interesting if there could be a free, interactive version of a yearbook online.  The pair were able to convince their older brother, Geoff, to invest in their idea as he had already had experience with other web startups.

Over several years the company expanded and the need for additional investors became apparent.  The investors wanted to make significant changes, but the Cooks stuck to their vision and were quite successful by doing so.  The company has millions of members and makes millions of dollars.

The social media is clearly dominated by certain sites like Facebook and Twitter, so how does a company like MeetMe continue to be successful?  It is because they have found a perfect niche that works well for them.  The site is specifically for high school students.  Moreover, the Cooks made sure to mine that niche by really listening to their members’ suggestions.

I think that potential entrepreneurs can learn a lot from the Cooks’ story.  In particular, sticking to your vision is an important thing to do as your ideas continue to grow and your business expands.  Also, finding a niche that you can take advantage of could be pivotal to your venture being as successful as it can be.