Author Archive for Jordan Hudock

13-Year-Old Bow Tie Connoisseur

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(Image from mosbowsmemphis.com)

I’ve loved Moziah Bridges ever since I saw him on Shark Tanka few years ago. He’s thirteen and he has his own bow tie company. He started it when he was nine under the supervision of his mom, Tramica. The thing I love most about his company is how cool the brand is. Everything about it, from the story to the bow tie designs to the way his website is set up, seems to flow together to form one coherent brand that is totally his own. He’s been successful, too. This year alone, he’s projected to make $250,000 in revenue. He sells mainly through his online store but has branched out into shops and boutiques across the United States, too.

I think his story is inspiring because he’s a perfect example that all you need to start a great company is a vision and a support system. He had no experience with the fashion industry when he got into it at nine years old, just a dream and a helpful mom. It’s grown into something huge, just because he had the courage to start.

Moziah still has a lot of dreams he’s chasing after. His goal is to be in college with his own clothing line by the time he’s 20. He also wants to get more involved with charities. Right now, he’s donating money from his business to help his local community center in Memphis.

I think Moziah’s story is fantastic. It’s a simple and classic example of what can happen when you have good intentions and a vision for where you want to go. We can all learn a lot from him.
 

16-Year Old Millionaire Necklace Maker

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Maddie Bradshaw is popular on the blog tonight.  Like Grace, I researched Bradshaw for this post. I want to talk about her success from a slightly different angle, though.  As you might have read from Grace’s awesome post, Maddie Bradshaw is a 16-year-old millionaire.  She designs and sells Snap Caps, creative bottle caps that can be worn as jewelry. She has 25 employees and sells over 60,000 necklaces each month.

I found her story particularly interesting because she isn’t selling something that solves a huge, mind-boggling problem.  In fact, she’s similar to Apple in that she’s giving people something they didn’t even know they wanted.

So, why are people buying from her?  Anyone can make a simple necklace, and many companies do. What sets Bradshaw apart?  She presents Snap Caps as the necklace that celebrates and brings out a girl’s unique qualities.  Each necklace has a theme, whether fairytale or music or ladybugs or faith.  Girls choose the ones they think fit their personality. Just like Zappos, she’s putting a bigger “why” behind a product most people don’t usually think much about.

Her approach fits right into the “conceptual age” idea we were talking about in class.  To have a place in the market, products need to be more than just functional.  They need to stand for something.  Snap Caps stand for uniqueness.

Bradshaw’s success shines far beyond her net worth.  She has appeared on multiple TV Shows, like The View and Shark Tank, and has even published her own book, You Can Start a Business, Too. Her biggest piece of advice to young entrepreneurs is to follow your passion.  She says, “If you come up with an idea and you love it, chances are other people will, too.” I think people forget this a lot.  They don’t work towards something they love because they’re scared it won’t interest others. That has certainly been true for me and many people I know.  Bradshaw is a wonderful reminder that you can create a business around any passion.  She took the risk most people wouldn’t have and it’s paying off for her in amazing ways.

(Image: The Toggery)

Adam Horwitz: 18-Years-Old, $1.5 Million, 3 Days

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I love reading about any young entrepreneurs, but I’m especially captivated by extravagant success stories. 18-year-old Adam Horwitz has one of those. In just 3 days, his online course “Mobile Monopoly” made him $1.5 million.

In an interview with Income Diary, Adam explains that he first got interested in digital entrepreneurship when his father took him to a seminar about online marketing one day.  “That kind of opened the doors to me to see that there is potential out there for making money online,” he says.

Before “Mobile Monopoly”, Adam sold a few other online courses, such as his courses “Tycoon Cash Flow” and “Cell Phone Treasure.”  Each made him around $100,000.  “Mobile Monopoly” was his first million dollar program.

His success sounds unreal and unmatchable, but he lives by business principles that are actually pretty simple.  He says that his biggest tip to anyone in the online world is to take their business one step at a time.  “I think a lot of people’s struggle is they set up like eight different campaign [at once].”  Instead, he urges people to start with one and wait until it is successful before they spread their focus out to other projects. “If you just do a bunch of different products… you’re not going to make a sale for any of them.”

His other big tip is just as simple — make your content easy to consume.  People have short attention spans, especially when going through information-intensive courses like the ones Adam makes.  “The best way to do it is through video,” he says. “[People] don’t want to read a lot, they want to watch you talk.” I think this can be applied to anything.  I feel the same way about websites and social media posts — I’d rather see a video or an infographic than lines and lines of dull words.  If it looks like an essay, I’m probably going to click out.  People are busy and they want to hear what they need to hear quickly and easily.

The last point that stood out to me was how Adam views all of his success.  When asked if he likes being his own boss, he said that he doesn’t even think about it like that.  “I don’t think of this as work. This is fun, this is what I’m doing.”

Adam is in college like all of us in Entrepreneurial Mind. His friends have minimum wage jobs while he has made over a million dollars, simply because he had an idea and the drive to do something about it.  I think Adam showcases the possibility and opportunity of entrepreneurship, specifically digital entrepreneurship.  He’s a reminder to me that being successful is always possible, no matter what your age, other commitments, or circumstances.