Justin Bieber is Canadian singer that is recognized globally for his rise to success as a musician and entrepreneur in pop culture, establishing himself as a teen idol at the age of 14. While the majority of his financial success comes from his music career, Bieber’s entrepreneurial spirit allowed him to start making intelligent business decisions from a young age. Within the same year of signing his record deal at age 14, Bieber signed his first partnerships with Proactive and OPI, both of which allowed him to sell products exclusively to Walmart. Within just two months of its release, Bieber’s nail polish line with OPI sold over one million bottles. Two year later, at the age of 16, Bieber became a sponsor with Adidas. This partnership paved the way for him to become Calvin Klein’s top brand ambassador at age 19. As for some other entrepreneurial startups he created, he has made several of his own fragrances, a clothing line known as “Drew House”, a deodorant line, and a clean water technology company– each of which have made him millions of dollars. His other partnerships include: CNN, Crocs, Macy’s, Beats by Dre, Best Buy, Elizabeth Arden, StarShop, and so many more. Justin Bieber is an example of using success as an opportunity for business opportunities from a very young age.

Evan Thomas Spiegel is an American businessman, co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc, and is considered to be the youngest billionaire in the world in 2015. From a young age, Spiegel had an excellent drive and work ethic, attending college-level design classes in high school, attending the prestigious Stanford University, and working several internships in a variety of different fields. At the young age of 21, Spiegel proposed the idea of creating an app with short-lasting messages for his product design class. Throughout the year, he worked with his classmates to launch a prototype of their app concept known as “Picaboo,” later known as Snapchat. The app gradually began to gain popularity, eventually causing Spiegel to leave Stanford for to focus on the new app. Within that same year, at the age of 22, the app had reached 1 million daily active users. A few years later, at the age of 27, Spiegel and his co-founder Murphy used their success within the company to create a non-profit and donate stock shares towards youth education in Los Angeles. Lastly, they have donated several million dollars towards the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. Spiegel’s story can encourage college students to pursue their side projects, because they can take off and become a success. It also shows that success can be used for amazing causes!

Michelle Phan is an American beauty YouTuber that became the founder and owner of the multimillion-dollar cosmetics line EM Cosmetics. However, her journey to success wasn’t instant, and took hard work and persistent from a young age. At only 18 years old, Michelle began pursuing her interests in makeup tutorials and blogging online, starting up a YouTube channel two years later at age 20. While her videos were initially slow to become successful, at age 22, a feature of two of her videos on BuzzFeed enabled her to reach over one million subscribers. After receiving a sponsorship from the popular makeup brand Lancôme, Phan began to look into starting up a makeup brand of her own. At age 23, Phan cofounded a company called MyGlam, later renamed Ipsy, which is a monthly beauty product subscription service. Within that same year, Phan partnered with YouTube advertising, and also started a YouTube channel network. Just a year later, she launched her own makeup brand with LoReal, buying the whole company and relaunching 3 years later. At the young age of only 28, Michelle was worth over $100 million, putting her on the “Forbes 30 under 30” and the “Inc. under 30 lists”. While she has taken a step back from YouTube, she continues to be successful, partnering with talent companies, TV networks, music licensers, and publishing companies. She is an inspiration young entrepreneurs to start pursuing your dreams at a young age.

David Karp is an American Web developer and entrepreneur that started the popular blogging site Tumblr at age 21. However, it was long before age 21 that Karp began his entrepreneurial journey. Even from childhood, Karp was highly interested in technology and programming, teaching himself how to code HTML at only 11 years old. Just a few years later, at age 15, he left high school in pursuit of an internship with a remote animation studio. Through connections, he was able to secure his first job at age 17, putting him on the road to success for his future. With time, learning, and experience, Karp launched Tumblr just five years later, a user-friendly and customizable blogging experience that became largely popular. Within five more years, the platform hosted more than 70 million blogs and employed hundreds of people. While Tumblr has lost popularity over the years due to competing social media services, Karp is an incredible example of how a young entrepreneurial spirit can find success. By teaching himself new skills at a young age, and persistently going after his goals, his business idea took off in a short amount of time. Innovating the blog experience to become more brief and personal, unlike typical lengthier blog sites, changed the world of social media for years to come.

Matthew Mullenweg is an American social media entrepreneur, web developer, and musician that is famous for developing WordPress, a free and open-source web software that powers 16% of the web, including this blog itself. At a young age, a 19-year-old college student at the time, Mullenweg coded the software for WordPress with help of a few other developers. While unsuccessful at first, the platform quickly took off when its biggest competitor announced a significant price change, driving thousands of users to find a new way to start blogging. Thanks to his perseverance, Mullenweg was soon recruited by a company called CNET, which allowed him to drop out of college and get WordPress up and working. After just a year, he left CNET and began expanding his business into a larger company called Automattic. Over the course of the next several years, the company gained a value of over a billion dollars, and powered 22 percent of the world’s top websites. While many claimed that such a young man should not run such a large company, his visionary ideas and drive for success set him apart from other web developers. This is an inspiration to young entrepreneurs as it shows that with perseverance and a drive for success, anything is possible.

Mark Zuckerberg, one of the most famous young entrepreneurs in the modern world, is famous for his invention of Facebook from his college dorm room at the age of nineteen. Even from a young age Zuckerberg had a knack for entrepreneurship, coding and developing his first messaging application at only age 12. Years later, he went on to attend Harvard University, where he was known campus-wide for his innovative networking sites. While society today may encourage students to get a college degree and pursue a traditional “nine-to-five” job, Zuckerberg dropped out after his sophomore year to concentrate on the site. Within just a year, he was able improve several features of the site, move the company to California, and gain over a million users. With a lot of persistence and determination, Zuckerberg has been able to grow the user base to over two billion people, making him one of the youngest multi-billionaires in the world. Within just a few years after its launch, Facebook became one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, and it still continues to grow to this day. Zuckerberg’s consistent passion and drive for success makes his story an inspiration to young entrepreneurs around the world.