Jake Loosararian is perhaps one of the most interesting businesses that came out of Grove City College. He started off as an electrical engineer major with a school project. His team built a rather large robot with a scanner that collects data in risky environments that human workers do not want to work in. This one design is estimated to save power plants over tens of millions of dollars in labor costs and time.

Loosararian was warned by professors and family to not create a business with this idea, and validly so. Over 70% of hardware startups crash and burn. Overhead costs are extreme, and these types of companies rarely grow. He graduated in 2013 and then soon co-founded Gecko Robotics. He even confessed to working over 100-hour weeks to save money for his passion project. Loosararian spent time doing ugly jobs and working to understand what his robots were required to do on a day-to-day basis. He got a job in system automation and absolutely hated it. When he quit his main job and started working on Gecko, his co-founder had to step back and left the business.

He describes his business as a secret hiding in plain sight and that he could practically see the business succeeding. It got tough though and he was down to his last dollars. He constantly worried about failing and people being right on how he couldn’t do it.

Today, Gecko Robotics is ever-growing with over $220 million in funding. Which is not a small number. The company is valued at over $633 million and very successful. This impressive because when he started, he had at max $15,000 in savings and knew it wasn’t enough to actually start a business.

33-year-old once worked 100-hour weeks to save $40,000 for his robotics startup—now it’s worth $633 million – NBC New York

Mikaila Ulmer founded Me & the Bees in 2008 at just the age of 4. Her company’s mission of helping save and protect the bees is her focus. She started by selling lemonade in her front yard in Austin, Texas. She still runs the company 16 years later. It has grown significantly and now her products are in all 50 states. She’s still determined for Me & the Bees to become America’s favorite lemonade. She has even created multiple flavors, for different people’s preferences.

She loves sharing her story about her passion for being a social entrepreneur. Over the years, she’s dedicated a lot of time to speaking at events worldwide, leading workshops on saving the bees, and participating in social entrepreneurship panels. She even wrote the bestselling book, Bee Fearless: Dream Like a Kid, so she could continue to share her story further in the attempt of inspiring even more members of the next generation of changemakers.

They only seem to be growing, and they seem very excited to see what is next for then. She involved her parents early on and the three of them have only expanded their team. They seem to always be improving on their business and trying to raise awareness. She has even met with President Obama and they just celebrated 15 years in business.

“It’s been an incredible journey full of fun, evolution, growth, and learning for the family-run business. And it’s all been possible because of all the “Bee-lievers” who support them and their mission. For that, they, and the bees, are forever grateful.” – Makaila Ulmer

About new – Me & the Bees Lemonade (meandthebees.com)

Jeremy Miller was a high school student from Indiana when his entrepreneurship journey started. He started his first company at the age of 16. “It was a skateboard and longboard manufacturing company, and I lost thousands of dollars in that first startup. After the closing of the venture and the last team meeting, I called my mentor and said, ‘Now what?'” Miller is a great example of how failure can drive innovation. He then discovered a different passion, marketing. He founded Inspired Blue Media, an advertising agency based in Indianapolis.

But Miller didn’t want to be just an entrepreneur, he also wanted to give back. So, he partnered with StartEdUp, a now global program designed to support innovators, educators and entrepreneurs in and out of the classroom. StartEdUp has gained a following from some of the top entrepreneurs in the field. A majority of the StartEdUp team are 19-year-old teenagers, and a majority of the team are the founder’s former students. This organization is working to help people in classrooms be entrepreneurs, and innovators. Daniel Pink states this about StartEdUp, “You’ve turned the classroom into an innovation factory.”

His failure is rather interesting because all of his start up capitol is solely generated by himself. His parents did not fund his business, and they did not get him out of his debt. This forced a young entrepreneur to learn a vital lesson on the importance of investing in good business ideas and what to do when things fail. The one thing about Miller that really strikes me is that he has a phrase he uses over and over. Embrace your alien. The idea is that young entrepreneurs might feel like aliens and that we should embrace that alien feeling.

Jeremy posing with the remain of his failed business.

How This Successful High School Entrepreneur Is Impacting Education At StartEdUp (forbes.com)

Kids4Connunity started with a young boy named Kenan Pala. At the age of 10 Pala was walking the beach with his father and saw a beached seal. The people on the beach flocked to help the seal, but Pala had a different thought on his way home. They passed a homeless man that was clearly sick, yet no-one was helping him.

Why would they help this beached seal, but not the people in their community?

And thus, Kids4Community was born. Pala main goal was to get the youth of his community involved in their neighborhoods and town. In 2016 he planned an event to beat the Guiness World Record for the largest mural, created with cereal boxes. He and his fellow students put together a food drive and with the donated boxes created this mural. It was a massive success. The other students were passionate with the event–hoping to beat the world record–and they donated pounds of food to local food banks. On top of this event, they help homeless people, raise money for shelters, help with meals at these shelters, and they have a blog to raise awareness. They even created a 5k run that raised over $10,000 for a local organization.

The business is now very successful, but when he founded it at 10 not many listened to him. People though he was crazy or a silly child, only with time did people see his vision and want in on the goal. Toward the end of the interview Pala talked about his proudest moment. He was volunteering at a school, where 30% of students are homeless, and the principle was so excited and thankful for the help. Pala talked about the joy and excitement from the principle and how it stood out to him, even years later. His next goal is to beat the half marathon record time.

Interview with Kenan Pala, Creator of Kids4Community (kidpreneurs.org)

Cory Nieves is a young entrepreneur who started his cookie-making business when he was only six years old. When Cory was six years old, he and his mother moved from the Bronx to New Jersey. At this time, they didn’t have a car, Cory saw this and wanted to fix this and provide for his mother. To do this, Cory started selling hot chocolate at a restaurant that belonged to a family friend. Cory actually made money from the hot chocolate sales–I mean, who wouldn’t buy hot chocolate from a six-year-old?

He decided to try venturing into the cookie-making business. Cory with his mom launched Mr. Cory’s Cookies, where they sold homemade cookies from their home and pop-ups stands in his town. Mr. Cory’s Cookies became successful very quickly, so Cory and his mom started baking in a commercial kitchen instead of their home to meet demand and meet health-code expectations easier.

Mr. Cory’s Cookies have only continued to increase in popularity. Cory expanded the company’s operations to online sales, which opened the cookie company to a global market. Mr. Cory’s Cookies also expanded its menu to include special flavored cookies.

Because of their success, Cory and his mom have been able and willing to give back to the community around them. They support organizations that help young people and single mothers and put on workshops for young pregnant mothers and people who suffer due to drug abuse. Cory clearly 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. Its inspiring to see how much good Cory and his mom have done for their community through their work.

Now at 20, he is in college and plans to continue his business.

At 17 Years Old, Cory Nieves Runs Successful Cookie Business ‘Mr. Cory’s Cookies’ – (blackenterprise.com)

Caroline & Isabel Bercaw

Together these sisters founded Da Bomb Bath. In 2012, the sisters were ages 11 and 12 and obsessed with bath bombs. Most girls at this age are obsessed with bath bombs and making their own, so these girls were doing the same thing. They tried different recipes, making fizzy and sweet-smelling bath bombs. They even added small toys to the center of the bomb, allowing a new joy and excitement to a simpler product. The girls tried to sell that at a local art fair and it blew up.

After 3 years their bath bombs were in 30 small local shops and growing rapidly. They took a trip to an international trade show out of Atlanta and through that had their product placed in stores across the country. They estimated that they were making over 20,000 bath bombs a month out of their basement.

But a phone call changed their game completely. When Target calls and wants your product in just under 2,000 stores, you jump at the opportunity. Their Mom stepped up to the plate and became the CEO, while the sisters worked on creating new products. With the uptake in product demand the business moved out of the basement and into a larger, local warehouse. At 15 and 16 the girls took their schools On the Job program and turned school time into work time.

Currently, Da Bomb is still completely self-funded and has generated over $20 million in annual revenue and remains a family business. Now at 17 and 18, the sisters have created a very successful business. Plus, they have some serious deals with large companies like Target, so they are only going to keep growing. 

Da Bomb Bath