Author Archive for martinnm18

Spotify

When I was in elementary school I ran 5ks and other races because my mom did. However, the only way I would do it was if I had my iPod Shuffle. The problem with the Shuffle was that I had to buy music and download it on to it. I think it cost $1.29 for each song, and when you are 7 years old that can really add up. Daniel Ek saw that problem and changed the music industry forever by creating Spotify in 2006. The problem initially was that Apple’s iTunes provided the music industry much more money with its pay-per-download model. Ek continued to push that over time the music service will generate substantial royalties while avoiding music piracy. In 2012, Spotify had 18 million songs and 20 million active users, though not all were paid subscribers. Only five years later the site has over 35 million songs with 160 million users where 70 million of them are monthly subscribers. The service has blown up and made music streaming the new norm.

This story is so interesting to me because it fixed a problem that was generally accepted and dealt with. Only after it was created did people really see the problem with downloading songs for so much money and piracy. It inspires me to look at the world around me and not always look for problems but ways to make generally accepted parts of life better for everyone around me.

No Room in the Inn

Sometimes it is difficult to find rooms at hotels. It can be even more difficult to find cheap rooms that are still up to your standards. Brian Chesky saw this as a problem and did something about it. Chesky grew up playing hockey and lifting, however, he always had a love for art and design. While he attended the Rhode Island School of Design, he met Joe Gebbia who shared this same concern. After working some design jobs they moved to San Francisco, but they eventually ran out of cash and needed to do something about it. In October 2007 there was a design conference where the hotels in the area ran out of rooms. Gebbia and Chesky had the idea to rent out their space to those who had nowhere to stay. This is where Airbnb comes to fruition. They began to run with this idea while being joined by an engineer friend Nathan Blecharczyk. Since then the service has blown up and is offered in more than 191 countries worldwide. The company is now valued at $15 billion.

What I think is most cool about this idea is how unique and simple it is. They made an app that allows for people to rent out spaces they own. It is a wonderful idea and super cheap for them. Airbnb has no product, they just use the spaces people offer up for others to rent out for short or long term. This idea really gets me thinking that entrepreneurship does not have to be selling a physical product or making an invention, it can just be an idea that uses what is around you to make the lives of customers so much easier and potentially more comfortable.

Millionaire House Flipper

Akshay Ruparelia is just your regular 19 year old millionaire from North East London. While moving with his family, he found that commission rates that estate agents charge in London are outrageous, charging up to 2-3% for the sale. Ruparelia wanted to change this, so he did as any 19 year old would do, he made a website. His website, Doorsteps, only charges 99 pounds, compared to an average of 10,000 pounds for an estate agent. After just over a year, the website is now worth 12 million pounds, which is just incredible. His first sale came from someone who just stumbled upon the website in East Sussex, after proving the model worked, the same person sold more land through the website. In total, he has sold 1,500 homes for 120 million pounds, saving people over 1 million pounds in fees.

Ruparelia’s endeavor is definitely proof that there is opportunity everywhere around us. This website was founded simply by him getting an idea while moving houses. The cool thing about this is that it is not an original idea necessarily as there are already estate agents selling property, Ruparelia is just making the process better for the person selling the house. I tend to think that entrepreneurship is strictly creating something brand new that the world has never seen before, but that is not what it is all about as we can see with this story. Entrepreneurship can be making an already known process better, like selling houses in London.

Matthew Mullenweg

As we are writing out our posts I don’t think any of us really pay attention to the platform we are using, or maybe you are and I am in the minority. No matter what, someone had to create this platform for us to write out our blog posts. This is where Matthew Mullenweg comes in, a performing arts school graduate and jazz saxophonist, but also the founding developer of WordPress. As Mullenweg and his team was still developing the platform, a competitor drastically increased its prices which opened up the opportunity for WordPress to be the main blogging platform.

What is interesting about the creation of WordPress, is the fact that they weren’t the first blogging platform, Movable Type was. Mullenweg just saw an opportunity to create a basically “free” platform. Something Movable Type does not do and still does not. This is an amazing example of a product that differentiates from the already established competitors. This is inspiring because though there is so much innovation around us, there is still so much more out there to innovate. This includes already existing products and services.

Candles For Men?

I think teasing your siblings is very natural, it just comes with the water. Hart Main was teasing his sister about her “girly” scented candles she was selling for a fundraiser. This got him thinking though, “what if I created a manly smelling candle instead?” This is exactly what he did, with an investment by his parents and himself, he began ManCans, a manly scented candle that sells in over 60 stores across the country. Hart Main is only 14 years old and finding a unique market that has not really been touched. Candles are a very popular commodity too, I know at least for my family we have at least 4 running at all times. What is interesting about his idea is that there is no market for manly scented candles. Candles naturally smell more feminine, yes I like a lot of the scents but I can confirm that they smell more feminine. So why not make some that are catered towards men? Main made some cool smells too including: campfire, bacon, sawdust, fresh cut grass, grandpa’s pipe, and more.

Hart Main inspires me to be more open about looking for opportunities around me. He found this opportunity through something as simple as teasing his sister. There is opportunity all around me, it is just a matter of paying attention to the needs and wants of people, but also being aware of what people may not know they need or want. I don’t think candles for men were something that people knew they wanted, however, now that they are a thing, they are a cool product that makes a lot of sense. I mean think about it, a lot of candles out there smell good, but we are missing out on some smells that men enjoy like bacon and grass clippings. Hart Main hits it on the head, and he inspires me to really look for very unique opportunities around me to serve others better.

Nohbo

Ever since he was 5, with a longing to buy a teddy bear with not enough money, Benjamin Stern has had the entrepreneurial spirit. Most 5 year-old kids would whine and complain to their parents about not having the money for the teddy bear, but he is different. Instead of doing this, he went to the mall and peddled cookies. Stern bought cookies from Costco and sold them individually at malls near him. He managed to strike a nice profit on these. He then began selling coffee door to door and giving 10% of the proceeds to Wounded Warriors. One day as he was doing the dishes, he began observing the detergent pod and wondered why there wasn’t a pod for toiletries like shampoos or shaving cream. That is where Nohbo came into fruition, he wanted to make a biodegradable pod that disintegrated when it reacted with shower water. He actually went onto Shark Tank and signed a deal with Mark Cuban for an investment of $100k. What is cool about this company is that first, Stern is in high school. Second, it has a larger impact than just striking a profit off of a unique idea. Stern is limiting plastic waste by using biodegradable supplies to make these pods. The issue of plastic waste is huge and plastic waste from toiletries is very overlooked. Stern is changing that by ridding the opportunity to get these products in plastic containers. Finally, this product is very unique and he is dealing with a part of the toiletry industry that has not been touched yet. I am confident that there will be companies tagging along trying to sell their similar products. I love this company because it is just proof that you can create a unique idea, that benefits society leaving it better than before, and with the ability to turn a nice profit. What he is doing is really cool and I am excited to see where he goes from here. He says he is working on getting his product into hotels because there is a lot of money in that sector. Stern knows where the money and markets are and he is not afraid to branch out to reach them. Very impressive kid.