Fraser Doherty is a young entrepreneur who created two successful businesses: a jam business and a craft beer business. When Doherty was only 14 years old, he started to make jams using recipes he had learned from his grandmother. The jams, he made were unique because they were 100% fruit, there were no unnecessary and unhealthy ingredients added. Doherty began selling his jams to his neighbors in Edinburgh, Scotland, and then made a stand at a local farmer’s market to increase his sales. Doherty’s jams became very popular, and the demand soon greatly exceeded the amount he could supply. As a result, Doherty dropped out of school and rented a factory to keep up with demand. In 2007, the supermarket Waitrose offered to sell Doherty’s jams in their stores, and he agreed. This put Doherty’s jams in stores throughout Europe. In 2012, Doherty expanded his market by selling his jams in Korea and Japan, which was a very successful decision. Queen Elizabeth II gave Doherty an MBE, which is a medal that rewards someone for exemplary service to the business of the United Kingdom.

Doherty was not satisfied with just his jam business, so he co-founded a craft beer making company called Beer52. Beer52, the world’s largest craft beer club, ships craft beer to subscribing customers on a periodic basis. In order to make sure their beers have variety and uniqueness, Beer52 imports beer from a new country every month. Fraser has visited breweries in South Africa, Europe, South Korea, and California as part of his work on Beer52. Beer52 is based in Edinburgh, and Fraser has over one hundred employees who ensure that the company runs smoothly and that customers get their craft beer as quickly as possible. In addition to his two companies, Doherty organizes free tea parties for the elderly and has created beekeeping projects to help the community.

I find Doherty’s story to be inspirational because it seems simple, like anybody could do it. He began selling jams to his neighbors, and decided to take initiative and quickly expand his market, and had the guts to drop out of school, in order to make his business more successful. I guess if you have a good idea, and you’re willing to take risks, you can become extremely successful. I also like that Doherty actively gives back to his community, rather than just hoarding all his wealth and ignoring the people around him.

Cory Nieves is a young entrepreneur who started his cookie-making business when he was only six years old. When Nieves was six years old, he and his mother moved from the Bronx to the city of Englewood in New Jersey. Nieves and his mom did not have a car at the time, so Nieves decided to do his best to make money and buy his mom a car. To do this, Nieves started selling hot chocolate at a restaurant that belonged to a friend of his mom’s. Nieves made a lot of money from the hot chocolate sales, so he decided to try venturing into the cookie-making business. Nieves and his mom launched Mr. Cory’s Cookies, where they sold homemade chocolate chip cookies from their home and multiple pop-up stands in Englewood. Mr. Cory’s Cookies became very successful, so Nieves and his mom started baking in a commercial kitchen instead of their home in order to meet demand.

Mr. Cory’s Cookies has only continued to increase in popularity. Nieves expanded the company’s operations to online sales, which opened up the cookie company to a global market. Canada, and, surprisingly, Saudi Arabia, are some of the highest consumers of Mr. Cory’s Cookies products. Mr. Cory’s Cookies also expanded its menu to include chocolate chip pumpkin, smores, and bourbon pecan flavored cookies. Because of their success, Nieves and his mom have been able to give back to the community around them. They support organization that help young people and single mothers, and put on workshops for young pregnant mothers and people who suffer due to drug abuse. Nieves believes it is very important to help others and make the community around you better, and he believes that the power of positive thinking has allowed him to be so successful. The fact that Nieves was only six when he started Mr. Cory’s Cookies is crazy to think about it, and its inspiring to see how much good Nieves and his mom have done for their community of Englewood through their work.

Daniel Ek is a Swedish entrepreneur, and billionaire, who is the CEO and co-founder of the highly popular music playing platform Spotify. Ek was born and raised in Ragsved, a district in Stockholm, Sweden. At the age of 13, it was clear that Ek was already exceptionally gifted. Despite being so young, Ek was very proficient at coding and building websites, and he was obsessed with technology and all things digital. After graduating from high school, Ek enrolled at the KT Royal Institute of Technology, where he studied as an engineering major. However, Ek decided to drop out of college so he could spend all his time and energy on his IT career.

After dropping out of college Ek worked at a Nordic auction company called Tradera, until Tradera was bought by Ebay in 2006. Ek then started a company called Advertigo, which was an online advertising company. He later sold Advertigo, and became the CEO of μTorrent, which he ended up selling as well. Advertigo and μTorrent were so succesful that Ek became wealthy enough to retire after selling them, which he did. However, Ek quickly became bored by retirement and decided to create Spotify. Ek had been observing the music industry for years, and had noticed that illegal streaming/piracy websites always became more successful than legal, legitimate, online music platforms. He concluded that: “you can never legislate away from piracy. Laws can definitely help, but it doesn’t take away the problem. The only way to solve the problem was to create a service that was better than piracy and at the same time compensates the music industry – that gave us Spotify.” In 2006, Ek partnered with Martin Lorentzon to crate Spotify, and in October of 2008, Spotify was officially launched. Spotify was an incredible success and completely revolutionized the music industry. In 2017, Billboard called Ek the most influential person in the music industry. Spotify is currently the most popular music streaming platform in the world. I think that Ek’s realization about music piracy was very interesting and pivotal to his success. I use Spotify, and I love how convenient it is. Everything in the app works in a very intuitive and convenient way, and I can’t see myself ever not using Spotify, unless it gets downgraded or worsens in the future.

Nic Bianchi is the 20 year-old founder and CEO of the candle making business Bianchi Candle Co. Nic started his candle company when he was only 12 years old! From a young age, Nic showed signs of being an entrepreneur. When he was 7 years old, Nic created a business logo out of construction paper and put it on the outside of his bedroom door. On Nic’s 12th birthday, his mother decided to pay a graphic designer to turn the logo into a real logo. In elementary school, Nic sold toys to his classmates during recess and hired some of his fellow classmates as salesmen for his toy business. Nic then moved on to trying several things, including woodworking and making leather products, until he found his passion in candle making.

Nic specializes in making hand-poured, all-natural soy wax candles. At the age of 15, Nic sold a whopping 165 candles in one day at his first craft fair. Nic started his candle making company, Bianchi Candle Co., in his family’ s garage, but now works at a large manufacturing space in Papillion, and has multiple employees. Bianchi Candle Co. proved to be very successful, and the company now has 20 locations. You can also buy Nic’s candles from the Bianchi Candle Co. website. In 2017, Nic created a line of themed candles that were very popular. The candles’ themes included themes like bravery, perseverance, and gratitude. He created another series of candles each with a hero on it. The heroes included health care workers, first responders, police officers, and members of the military. Nic says this line drew inspiration from his father, who is detective with the Omaha Police Department.

While Nic has been extermely successful with his candle making business, it was not without sacrifices. Nic gave up playing basketball and track and field, and all other extracurricular activities during high school to focus on his business. Despite this and the lack of free time, Nic believes that it was absolutely worth it. Nic continues to grow his company, and he believes that: “If people are going to tell you, ‘you can’t do it,’ that should inspire you to do it that much more.”

Chris Ruder is the founder of the company Spikeball Inc., which popularized the game of spikeball. The game of spikeball was originally invented in 1989 by Jeff Knurek. Jeff Knurek was a toymaker from America, but  he did not patent spikeball, and it was not very popular. Spikeball is a game where a small net-covered trampoline is used by players to bounce the ball off the net towards their opponents. Spikeball is a really fun game and I have played it since middle school.

Chris Ruder bought a spikeball set and played it when he was growing up. In 2007, Ruder and five friends pooled $100,000 and decided to start Spikeball Inc. Ruder purchased the rights to the spikeball product and paid a manufacturer in China to produce the spikeball sets. Ruder was employed at Microsoft during the creation of Spikeball Inc., so he had to all the work on it in his spare time. However, in 2013, Spikeball Inc. had become so successful that Ruder left his job and worked on Spikeball Inc. full time. In 2013, Dick’s Sporting Goods contacted Ruder and asked him to let them sell Spikeball equipment at their stores. Big 5 and Modell’s Sporting Goods, two other sporting goods companies, followed suit and asked Ruder to allow them to sell Spikeball sets at their stores. In 2014, the government granted Spikeball Inc. a patent. In 2017, Spikeball Inc stated that they earned $15 million per year in sales of the spikeball sets.

I find Ruder’s story very cool because he did not invent the spikeball game himself, but took an idea that already existed and made improvements on it to make it successful. Spikeball could have remained a very niche game that a toymaker invented, but Ruder’s efforts absolutely exploded the popularity of Spikeball throughout America. I guarantee every college campus has at least one person with a spikeball set, and tons of families have sets.

Ryan Trahan is a 24 year old American entrepreneur who was born on October 7, 1998 in Eagle Lake, Texas. He is most famous for being a Youtuber, but he is also a vlogger and has created multiple companies. Ryan ran cross country and track and field in high school, and competed at the D1 level in cross country and track and field as a freshman at Texas A and M University. He started his Youtube channel in high school, and made videos about his experience as a runner and gave tips and advice to other cross country and track and field runners. In 2016, Ryan, along with his friend Caden Wiese, created a water bottle product called “Neptune Bottle.” The Neptune Bottle is similar to a hydroflask, and Ryan advertised the Neptune Bottle in almost all of his videos, and often gave discount codes for the bottles in the video so his subscribers could buy them for reduced prices. Ryan claimed that Neptune Bottle brought in $50,000 in revenue in its first year and was very successful. However, Ryan got into trouble with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) due to his water bottle business and Youtube channel. According to NCAA rules, athletes were not allowed to advertise their businesses or in any way make money from their image and participation in athletics. They argued that he violated these rules by profiting from Youtube videos about being a NCAA runner, and by advertising Neptune Bottle on his Youtube channel. Ryan decided to drop out of Texas A and M in order to grow his Youtube channel and Neptune Bottle. This proved to be a very wise decision, as he went from less than 1 million subscribers while at Texas A and M to 13.6 million subscribers now. In 2023, Ryan started another business, a clothing brand named “Howdy Howdy.”I think Ryan is a remarkable entrepreneur because he was able to see his future so well. When Ryan decided to leave Texas A and M, he explained that he believed he could be wildly successful on Youtube if he quit NCAA athletics and would be able to do so many more entrepreneurial things. He got a lot of backlash from his fans at the time for his decision to drop out and lost many subscribers, but it proved to be a great gamble. After leaving, Ryan was able to dedicate all his time to Youtube, and his videos became much better in quality, and his Youtube channel exploded in popularity. He is very successful, and proves that you do not need a college degree to become successful and make a lot of money.