In a world as competitive as business there can be a win at all cost mentality. From meeting deadlines to negotiating the best deals it can be easy for businesses to overlook ethics or forget to ask themselves if what they are doing is right. Blame it on selfishness, the stress of competition, or whatever it may be, doing the right thing in business is not always easy. We can all think of many examples of businesses that got ahead by shading dealings or taking advantage of other people, whether it is illegal or not. In a market as competitive as the ride sharing business this can be extremely apparent. As Uber has come under fire for its recent scandals how has its competitor Lyft responded? From allegations of a culture of sexism and bullying to a department of Justice federal investigation, Uber has been under fire recently for its way of doing business. Enough so that the CEO resigned. While its competitors are under fire co-founder and president of Lyft John Zimmer says “there is nothing to celebrate in this situation. But it does shine a light on the importance of values and ethics.” Zimmer has no intentions to bash his competitors on the way to the top, instead he will let his business’s culture do the talking. Zimmer believes that providing a great service and treating people right will result in a great business and in turn beat the competition. Lyft is a major donor to civil liberty groups and has started a where riders can choose to round up their fare and that money will be donated to various pursuits. It is refreshing to see an entrepreneur who has not compromised his or her values to become successful but is using his success to help others.

“As long as you are moving a half step forward, a quarter step forward everyday, that’s fine”. This is what Peter Cashmore said about starting his business Mashable, the social media news outlet.  Any entrepreneur can learn a valuable lesson from this sentiment. How often do we see these success stories and expect our own ideas to take off immediately and then get discouraged or give up on them when we don’t see the immediate success we were looking for. Entrepreneurs can learn a valuable lesson by looking at how Cashmore succeeded with Mashable. In Scotland and at 19 years old when he launched his site Cashmore did not expect to ever reach 20 million plus readers. And he did not do it over night either. As he started his site he would wake up and write at strange times in the Scotland time zone so he could blog about American events and news. This meant that he would go to bed at 6 am and wake up around mid day and blog as much as he could. This technique lasted 18 months. With such a driven approach, we can see why he eventually succeeded. This is a great example of an entrepreneur knowing he had a great idea and having the drive and fortitude to stick with it and put a crazy amount of time into it, even if it was in the middle of the night. One of Cashmore’s guiding principles in his early days was that if he had more readers than the day before than he had a good day. This approach is what I think allowed him to have success. He was focused and was okay with a slow progress as long as he was seeing progress. He was determined and used his drive to reach over 20 million people. We all could learn from his persistent attitude.

It seems like it would take some serious ingenuity to make staying in strangers homes a normal occurrence. However it came from trying to solve a pretty simple problem. Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia lived in San Francisco and as industrial designers. With the Industrial Designers Society of America coming to San Francisco, the two roommates saw an easy way to make some rent money. With the hotels in the area completely booked they bought three air mattresses and marketed the idea as “Airbed and Breakfast”, and actually had three guests the first night. By 2015 Airbnb had a valuation of $20 billion. From such humble beginnings came one of the biggest companies in the world. Chesky, who at 36 years old, is one of the youngest yet most influential entrepreneurs right now but is not content with where the company is at. Airbnb had partnered with the reservation app Resy to expand their services and help solve more of their customers problems. It is great to see how much can come out of a simple solution to a problem. I think this shows how important problem solving is to entrepreneurship and what can happen if you do it well.

How do people meet today? In a society that is so tech driven and on the go, you might not even have to take the time to leave your couch. Try to tell your grandparents you got a date this weekend by using your phone. They might not understand this but we just call it Tinder. The app has changed the way people, especially young people, see dating and meeting people. What some may see as weird or maybe even creepy, to most it is just a normal way to meet people. Swiping right has become apart of the every day lexicon of millennials. Sean Rad, one of the cofounder of Tinder said the idea of Tinder came from getting his friend and cofounder a date even though he didn’t like to leave the couch. This semi joke pretty accurately describes why Tinder has become so popular, you can connect with people anywhere. Another characteristic Rad attributes the success to is how it keeps bringing people back. It almost feels like a game at times. One thing i found interesting was that the founders said that computers are a dying breed, mobile is the way to go. Tinder is definitely not the first online dating service but its creative genius was that it turned online dating mobile. This shows that the founders are looking ahead to the future which is imperative to entrepreneurs, especially in the technology business. So no matter your thoughts on the app itself, you must recognize the entrepreneurial attitude of the men behind the app.

When you think of the biggest and most important cities in the music industry, what comes to mind? LA, Nashville, New York, heck maybe even Atlanta if you’re a trap fan. What if I told you that the city changing the music industry the most is Stockholm Sweden. Stockholm is doing more to save the music industry than any other city in the world. How is this you ask. Spotify. The music streaming company based in Stockholm is changing the way people listen to music while getting customers to actually purchase it. The man behind this is Daniel Ek, the co-founder and CEO of Spotify. The 34 year old has had two passions throughout his life, music and technology. By the age of 23 he had already sold multiple tech businesses for over 2 million dollars. He also plays multiple instruments. What better way to blend the passions than to create a social music provider. Ek combined his technology prowess with his passion for music and the result was an amazing success. As Spotify has grown into the largest streaming service in the world, Ek is still driven by these two passions. This is a great example of how combing two passions can lead to great innovation.

With the ever increasing presence of social media in today’s world people are able to communicate and share ideas faster than ever before. It is a fascinating time that pushes news and media away from traditional outlets. Among this trend is the app Bumpers. Started by Jacob Thornton and Ian Ownbey, 30, and 26, Bumpers is an app that allows any user to create their own individual podcast, with no additional set up required. No longer do you need expensive recording equipment or a knowledge of where to upload your podcast, all you need is an i phone. Simply download the app and anyone is on their way to releasing the latest and most popular podcast. All of the recorded podcasts are hosted on the app, which creates “great distribution and solve the discovery problem by keeping things in network” says Ownbey. The duo are no strangers to the social media world, as the Twitter alums have already raised over $1 million in funding from investors. This is a great example of young entrepreneurs who are continuing their success and changing the market as they go.