Discovering his grandma’s recipes for jams, 14-year-old Fraser Doherty found himself a new hobby. Fraser began making jams and selling them throughout his neighborhood in Edinburgh, Scotland. After receiving positive feedback from his neighbors, Fraser decided to set up a stand at Edinburgh’s Farmers Market. His then business model involved him biking to customers to fulfill and deliver orders. However, demand quickly picked up. He started receiving more orders than he could handle with his minimal jam production in his parents’ kitchen and bike delivery. So, at the age of 16, Fraser made the decision to leave school and focus on his jams full time. He made a few changes to the recipes, making his jams only from fruit and fruit juice, and titled his business SuperJam. To increase production, Fraser rented out a factory for a few days each month. Sales continued to grow. Then, in early 2007, a high-end supermarket in the U.K. by the name of Waitrose approached Fraser with a proposition to sell SuperJam’s products in their stores. Within months Fraser had SuperJam’s products in 184 different Waitrose stores, only growing his business more. With ever growing demand, Fraser continued to expand his business. He borrowed 5,000 pounds to fund more factory time. 5 years later, Fraser launched SuperJam’s products in Korea and Japan where one million worth of merchandise was sold within an hour on a Korean shopping network. In 2019, Fraser sold his five-millionth jar of jam. In addition to his main company SuperJam, Fraser launched a second company in 2008 called SuperJam Tea Parties. Many parties have been hosted through SuperJam Tea Parties for elderly people who are alone or in nursing homes in Scotland and Wales. Fraser explains, “Guests often cry at the end of the afternoon since they’ve had so much fun.” With live music, dancing, and drinks, the parties have attracted as many as 500 guests. From hobby to business, Fraser Doherty remained passionate about his product and created value through it. From the adjacent possible (the combination of his grandma’s recipes and ingredients) to slow hunches (Fraser’s initial hunch to make jams as well as Waitrose for seeing the potential of the product), SuperJam’s story is one of amazing entrepreneurship.

At the age of 3 and a half, Ryan Hickman saw a problem and decided to act on it. Ryan realized he was bothered by seeing bottles and cans lying on the ground. So, he started in his own household. Ryan collected his family’s recyclables and then went with his father to a local recycling center. From this one haul, Ryan received 5 dollars and an unforgettable experience. “I just loved it… And I just wanted to keep doing it and doing it and doing it, because it was fun, and it was helping the environment,” Ryan later explains on an interview. One haul was not enough for young Ryan. In addition to his family’s recyclables, he began to also collect his neighbor’s recyclables, going around his neighborhood with a bag attached to his bike. At the age of only 3 and a half, Ryan was, by all intents and purposes, running his own business! His business, Ryan’s Recycling Company, began making Ryan a celebrity as he was recognized by CNN Kid Wonder and invited to appear on shows like “Ellen” and “Today.” With his growing fame, Ryan decided to create a digital presence and sell T-shirts on his website that had “Make the Sea Trash Free” printed on them. All his profits, both from selling T-shirts and his recycling company, go directly to the rescue organization Pacific Marine Mammal Center. Ryan’s Recycling Company raised over 14,000 dollars and recycled 1.5 million cans and bottles by 2022. Alongside his for-profit business, Ryan founded a nonprofit entitled “Project 3R” with an intent to educate about and create awareness for the importance of recycling. Through seeing a problem that he cared about and acting on it by building two companies, Ryan Hickman showed excellent entrepreneurial thinking, even at the age of 3 and a half!