A young girl by the name of Alina Morse, created the idea of Zollipops at the age of seven years old. She went into her savings and used $7,500 that she had from her grandparents and she went all in. With the help of her father (the co-creator of 5-hour energy), her idea makes not only kids like herself happy, but I think parents around the world would be happy as well. This idea was so big that she was actually invited to the White House to present the candy at the “White House Easter Egg Roll”, pretty cool right? In my opinion, this was just a great idea. She saw a problem where kids loved something that can cause a problem for adults. So, with this issue she also saw an opportunity and she created a product that makes both sides of the situation happy. Kids will be happy because they get what they love, and parents will be happier that their kids will be healthier. Something that Alina does that I think is awesome, is that she also gives back. 10 percent of her earnings she donates to the efforts of lowering childhood tooth decay. You can find Zollipops at a store such as Whole Foods or even on Amazon.

With Christmas being right around the corner, my mind thought about all the different ideas people have and gifts people give throughout the season. One thing that stuck with me is how it seems that for some odd reason, ugly Christmas sweaters are always a huge hit. With this topic in mind, I then researched the web. It was easy to find information, there has been so much success. The first article I found mentioned a young kid named Jack McCarthy who has been selling ugly Christmas sweaters since the either grade, and has had a year where he earned $50,000. The article then mentioned that Jack said although he doesn’t plan on selling sweaters forever, he doesn’t think the industry is going away very soon. While I was impressed with Jack’s success, the second article out did Jack. I read an article that was released last year about a company in Detroit (UglyChristmasSweater.com), where they were on pace to sell $5.5 million dollars worth of ugly Christmas sweaters. Fred Hajjar, cofounder of the company, said he was expecting it to disappear at some point, but he said the craze has only gotten stronger. It blows my mind that an ugly Christmas sweater can get so much attention. To me, it just shows that sometimes seemingly “ridiculous” ideas can actually be a diamond in the rough.

Alex Maroko was 21 years of age when he started his idea. It all began with him and his talent with basketball. He decided to make a video, in which he was teaching ways to dribble the basketball better. This was a big hit, and he realized that he could do something with this talent. On his website, he documents his story of his love for basketball and how his hard work has paid off. He went from not making his 7th grade basketball team, to being a collegiate player. His business is to teach and help those who want to get better. On his website, he sells videos and books on how to improve your game and get to the next level. His main goal is to do just that, help people improve in the game they love. In fact, the mission statement on his website says “our mission is to help committed players, from born-stars to bench-riders, achieve their basketball goals.” I really like this business Alex has created not only because it is successful, but also because he is doing something he truly loves and is passionate about while getting to work with people who are passionate about the same thing.

At the age of 15 years old, a kid named Nick D’Aloisio created a very successful app. The app was called “Summly”. The idea of the app could probably be known just by looking at the name, but the point of it was to sum up big stories and condense the information so that somebody could go and read it and they would be losing time that they value in their day. This is a great idea. There are many people  who want to keep up with things going throughout the world, but they just don’t have the extra time to spend 30 minutes reading an article. D’Aloisio was targeting that audience who values their time, and wanted to help fix their problem of staying up to date with important or interesting things that happen in todays world. While the information may not be as detailed as the long original article, people can still go and read a few short paragraphs and have a good understanding on the subject being talked about (maybe even a better understanding than if they were to skim the whole article extremely quickly). This definitely helps the problem of keeping up with what is going on in our world. This app was a big hit, in fact, in 2013 Yahoo! bought the product for 30 million dollars. It is amazing to me that a kid around my age sold an idea of his, to a company like Yahoo! for 30 million dollars. Nick D’Aloisio’s success just shows me how opportunities can come with a great idea and some hard work.

When thinking about a great idea developed by a young person during Midterm week, Quizlet was something that came to mind. Andrew Sutherland, was just a young kid when the whole idea started. He developed an idea that would help him do well on a test and soon after kids were asking how he did it. On Quizlet’s website they say that they have had “2 billion study sessions, 125 million user generated study sets, 40 million users every month, and 1 in every 4 high school students in the United States uses Quizlet daily.” Considering Quizlet is about 10 years old, this information is unbelievable. Quizlet has developed better ways to study other than just normal flashcards as well, they include games and you can test yourself. The fact that this was all started by one kid trying to study for a test in high-school, shows how ideas can really pop out of nowhere sometimes.

Sixteen your old Benjamin Kapelushnik, known as “Benjamin Kicks”, may have one of the most successful businesses that is run by somebody under the age of 18. In the shoe industry that deals with brands such as Jordan, Nike, Yeezy Adidas, and more, “Benjamin Kicks” has found a way to become extremely successful. He has become the person to go to when you want a pair of shoes that are rare and hard to find. His business has got a lot of exposure, and he is now sought after by famous rappers (such as DJ Khaled) and athletes who want to rock a nice pair of kicks. He said he got the idea of going into the business, when his mom bought him a pair of shoes and people started to compliment. He then did his research and saw that there is a market, and people will pay an extreme amount of money for certain pairs of shoes. He paid friends to help him get shoes that would start his business, and now that he has become so big, he is able to get the shoes that he wants even easier. “Benjamin Kicks” goal for this year is to earn himself 1 million dollars, and with the success he is having, it is a very good possibility.