Ever been frustrated with hair products that promise to leave your hair soft but end up leaving it a damaged mess? What about chemical-infused hair products that promise growth? Ever wish you could find one product that does both of these things (because none of them seem to offer both)? Want natural products so fresh that you have to refrigerate them?

Muhga Eltigani (Meem) decided it was about time that the world could get their hands on such products. She started off her career with a small YouTube channel called PictureMeNatural. The channel focuses on hair and how to treat it with natural products. She began a challenge in 2013 where she stopped using shampoo and conditioner all together. She began using all-natural, man-made products only on her hair. Originally, it was a 6-month challenge just for herself. Her cousin and roommate convinced her to share her journey on YouTube. 6-months ended up turning into 3 years.

With support from her subscribers, she began selling the all-natural products she had created. The business is called NaturAll Club. The main ingredient in the products is…AVOCADO! Avocado is a product that is well loved by millennials-from face masks, to guac, to toast, everyone has some sort of love for it. Meem discovered that it is a great product for promoting hair growth. Her business offers an easy subscription model for customers to get a fresh supply of products every month.

Her website is www.naturallclub.com

Leanna Archer was just 8 years old when she had the idea to start her own business. She used her great grandmother’s recipe for an all-natural hair product to make small samples to give out for free to friends. Over 11 years, she developed a line of hair and skin products that are all natural, paraben and sulfate free products. Her business is called Leanna’s Essentials and it operates worldwide. The business was started in 2003. Her products include hair cleansers, nourishment treatments, and growth solutions, as well as face cleansers and masks. At 22 years old, she is the CEO of Leanna’s Essentials.

Her products can be purchased at www.linneasessentials.com/shop

Sabrina Natasha Habib was just 25 years when her eyes were first opened to the hardships that babies in Kenya face. When she first entered the “babycare” facility, she was horrified by what she saw. Children were laying on the floor under the influence of sedatives to keep them from crying. The room was dark so if one did not know what was on the floor, one could trip over a child. The smell of the room was overwhelming.

One visit to one facility was enough to show Habib that change was needed. In the past four years, she has opened two, soon to be three, facilities to change the game of babycare in Kenya. They are high-quality, low-price facilities called Kidogo that run on the mission:

“Kidogo is a social enterprise that improves access to high-quality, affordable Early Childhood Care & Education in East Africa’s low-income communities. We seek to unlock the potential of young children and transform the trajectories of their families.”

Kidogo provides preschool services and childcare with trained teachers and caretakers in a clean, play-friendly environment meant to stimulate young minds. They follow a break-even operation model in order to offer all of this at around $1 a day (8+ hours).

Kidogo has been very successful, so much so that Habib was named winner of the Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Award 2017.

You can find out more about Kidogo at their website www.kidogo.co

Connor Blakely is a 17 year old entrepreneur. Throughout his childhood, Connor knew he had a different way of thinking. After being inspired by a TedTalk from Cameron Herald and a Skype call with him, he began working on his first business. At the age of 14, he founded Utpec. This was a social media management business that eventually partnered with 25 small businesses. It was also around this time that he began sharpening his public speaking skills

Connor observed something especially unique that started his next venture YouthLogic. This is a youth marketing consultancy for businesses trying to reach Generation Z. He observed that his generation was so difficult to reach because of the way they’ve grown up. The realization that businesses had no way of truly knowing how to reach young people. Connor now travels and speaks to businesses about how to do just that.

Hubble is a brand of contacts that you buy online and ship to your door. The company was founded by Ben Cogan and Jesse Horwitz in 2016. The pair (26 and 28 respectively) saw a need in the contact industry because the product is so expensive. Hubble sends subscribers boxes of contacts that cost less than a dollar a day. According to their website, Hubble.com, they say that they want to eliminate the difficult decision for contact wearers as to whether they should “overpay or overwear.” They want to make contacts as affordable and accessible as possible without compromising quality.

What is unique about the pair is that they are innovating a business that is already innovative in itself. They are allowing contact wearers to get their product off a website sent to them and at a cheap price. They are driven by the idea of cheap and accessible eye wear. Their idea is great because they are following the footsteps of businesses like Warby Parker, who send boxes of glasses to their customers so they can have the convenience of ordering glasses online, while still being able to try on their glasses before picking a pair to keep. Hubble is just the next step in putting eye wear online. An entrepreneurial trait that they demonstrate is the ability to see a problem that people have and giving them an answer they did not know they needed. Meaning, they initially wanted to give people contacts at a cheaper price, and ended up making them cheap and accessible by putting them on an online store.

Cogan and Horwitz inspire me because they took an issue and gave it a two-part solution. This helps me because it reminds me that there is not one way to solve a problem. Also, that one can never stop searching for more answers. I also admire that they could look at a business like Warby Parker and make it into solution for a different problem.

Check out their website: https://www.hubblecontacts.com/