We’ve all heard of the explosive growth of crypto currencies in recent years, but in all truth, many of us know little about them. We hear tales of riches, of untold billions, of vast immeasurable fortunes, of rags to riches, but who is responsible for all this? Who creates the coins we hear so much about? Well, everyone knows bitcoin, and its founder Satoshi Nakamoto, but there are a vast amount of other coins that have had huge impacts on the cryptocurrency market and bear attention. Ethereum is a coin often passed over in favor of the more popular meme coins and giants, but is an extremely popular coin among crypto traders and has an extremely interesting background story. 

Vitalik Buterin was born on January 31, 1994, in Kolomna, Russia. When he was a young kid, merely six years old, his family moved to Canada. Vitalik was quickly recognized for having talent, particularly in the areas of mathematics and programming, and was rapidly enrolled in a gifted education program. Eleven years later, when he was 17 years old, his father first introduced him to bitcoin, a concept that Vitalik instantly recognized for its potential. In 2013, Vitalik made his first big entrance into the cryptocurrency world with the founding of Bitcoin Magazine. The magazine quickly gained popularity, becoming one of the most read sources on the topic, and continues to be well read today. However, Vitalik did not stop there. In 2013 he proposed the idea for Ethereum, a decentralized platform enabling the creation of smart contracts and decentralized applications. After pitching the idea he was awarded a $100,000 grant from the Thiel Institute that allowed him to focus solely on the creation of Ethereum. After 2 more years of hard work, the Ethereum blockchain officially launched in mid 2015. Vitalik’s invention was very well received, and today he has been featured in publications such as Forbes “40 Under 40” and “ 30 Under 30” lists, has an estimated net worth of over 1 billion, and has established himself as one of the most prominent figures in the cryptocurrency community.

When I think of robot lizards, I tend to think of something rather futuristic, sci-fi, and scary. An alien army, a science experiment gone wrong, the next blockbuster dystopian movie, etc. But when Gecko Robotics thinks of lizard robots, they think of something entirely different. Jake Loosararian first came up with his idea whilst visiting a power plant during his college experience at Grove City College. Robots that could crawl up the side of infrastructure (providing the lizard inspiration) and inspect key infrastructure without risking human life and while limiting the amount of time plants and other infrastructure have to shut down. 

After graduating from college, Jake launched his company, Gecko Robotics, with the help of his co-founder Troy Demmer in 2013. While at first it was a difficult proposition, with Lossararian and Demmer bootstrapping it up from the ground, Gecko Robotics began to find its legs after participating in YCombinators incubator class of 2016. Due to this, Loosararian received much needed support, including publicity, connections, and an acquisition offer. However, they turned this offer down in favor of continuing to build their company themselves. 

Today, Gecko Robotics is worth 600 million dollars, develops robots providing thousands of times more data than past processes, and improves safety in many key infrastructure plants. Loosarar

Jake Loosararian, found of Gecko Robotics

ian put together two seemingly unrelated things into a process that made him a star in the tech world. He is a fantastic example of how a network of ideas, combined with a single moment of inspiration, can launch a robotic lizard empire.

In 2010, Ben Francis was your typical college student, late nights spent on homework, late nights spent with friends, and late nights spent in the gym. Francis was driven by a desire for fitness, only for his personal fitness, but for the fitness industry in general. Driven by a desire to have a part in the growing fitness industry, Francis tried to break into it with several products. First, an assortment of fitness apps, next a social media app, and then finally, after many ups and downs, the very first version of what would become the gymshark empire. 

Gymshark began with a very humble start, simply drop shipping thousands of various supplements. It was a slow start, months before it got its first order, but after a long wait it began to take off. After some time selling supplements, Gymshark expanded to drop shipping fitness clothing as well. However, most gym clothing was baggy and built for peak level lifters – not the average gymgoer. Realizing this problem, Francis moved to manufacturing clothing himself, sewing it on a machine, screen printing, and delivering it as a one man machine. Slowly, Gymshark clothing grew. An unpolished, off the cuff clothing business began to metamorphosize into the giant it is today. A little later, Gymshark reached out to some of the most prominent athletes of the time, and they loved it. Those athletes signed on as the very first Gymshark athletes, promoting the brand and bringing further success. Francis and Gymshark continued to take the risk for expansions, designing new products that brought even more attention in the fitness world. In 2013 they did £30,000 in a mere thirty minutes with the release of their Luxe Tracksuit. 

Today, Ben Francis is one the world’s youngest billionaires, a self made success story due to grit, a love for his industry, and never being afraid to take the leap.

2A29F65 Ben Francis, founder of the gym wear company Gymshark

Levy Rozman began his Chess business journey with the launch of his YouTube channel, GothamChess in August of 2018, but his chess story began long before that. Levy was born on Dec. 5 in 1995 in Brooklyn, New York. As a kid, he describes himself as the nerdy chess kid, unpopular and obsessed with chess, first playing at the age of 6, and competing in his first tournament at the age of 7. He continued playing for the remainder of his childhood and obtained the title of National Master in 2011, FIDE master (The world wide chess regulating body officially known as the International Chess Federation) master, and ultimately International Master in 2018, a designation second only to Grandmaster. In fact, Rozman is ranked 6,689th in the world, which while it sounds low, is put into context when considering there are over 605 million chess players in the world – putting Rozman in the top .001% of players. During his rise as a chess player, Levy began teaching chess as a part time job at a private school while in school himself at Baruch college. With this, Levy launched a ten-year journey as a chess teacher in New York. In 2018, Levy launched his content creator career, beginning with streaming chess on the popular platform Twitch on a group stream with fellow chess playing friends. These streams caught the attention of Danny Rensch, the Chief Chess Officer of Chess.com, the leading virtual chess platform. Aftering talking with Rensch, Rozman launched his solo channel, GothamChess 2 months laters, debuting to an astounding average of 134 viewers – an insane amount for a startup creator, much less in the chess world. When Covid hit, Levy transitioned to focusing on his Youtube channel of the same name, and with the world stuck inside in quarantine, his channel exploded. Today, the channel has a following of nearly 5.5 million subscribers, and Levy is known throughout the chess world for his entertaining videos and analysis. Using this base as a launch pad, Levy launched his company Chessly, an online chess tutoring and lessons system along with a book. Both of these have been received very well by the chess community, and Chessly is known for its excellence. Today Rozman has millions of viewers online, tens of thousands of “students” through Chessly, and is known as one of the most influential competitors in expanding chess’s reach to new players.

Levy Rozman – Chess Entrepreneur