Author Archive for natnatwebb

Getting Your Dues the Fast and Easy Way: ZenPayroll

Posted by natnatwebb 
· Monday, December 9th, 2013 
· 3 Comments

ZenPayroll is an online, modern, user friendly payroll service. ZenPayroll lets businesses get set up and pay their employees in just minutes from any device that has internet. It even takes care of government payroll taxes, and reports are automatic and paperless. For a small charge per employee a business owner could have the stress of excess paperwork taken care of by professionals, who are willing and able to guide the owner every step of the way.

ZenPayroll was started by Joshua Reeves, he believes in the power of software to help solve complex problems. ZenPayroll was made to, “provide businesses with modern, delightful payroll.” Before beginning ZenPayroll Joshua was CEO and co-founder of Unwrap, which also created Buzzeo, a social application development platform. Joshua got his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, where he also was a Mayfield Fellow and recieved the Terman Engineering award. He also had help with ZenPayroll from his two other Co-founders Tomer London and Edward Kim.

Nothing is faster than lightning.

“Easy to use”

ZenPayroll handles all the details freeing you up to handle your business. They guide you through what the process is and you dont even need to be an expert.

Save the trees.

“Automatic Tax Filing”

ZenPayroll automatically calculates and pays your State and Federal payroll taxes, and automatically submits your filings. No more hassle, time spent, or confusion.

Don't worry about missing a deadline.

“No Paper, No Hassles”

Government documents are automatically filed electronically and you can access your document archive anytime, anywhere, from any device.

Employees can join in the fun.

“Employee Access”

Provide your employees direct access to their paystubs, pay history and information all while streamlining changes and approvals. You’ll be happy, they’ll be happy.

 

“With ZenPayroll, I was up and running in minutes. I just click on a link, follow a few steps and voila – payroll is done. Now, I can simply focus on creating beautiful flowers for our clients and not worry about the back office minutia. ZenPayroll just works!”

-Christina Stembel, Owner of Farmgirl Flowers

3 Comments
Categories : Uncategorized

Amicus Fundraising

Posted by natnatwebb 
· Saturday, November 16th, 2013 
· 3 Comments

Amicus is a company that helps with fundraising, but with a twist. Last year $300 billion was raised for nonprofits with $60 billion going to fundraising. The purpose of Amicus is to utilize volunteers to network and spread the word instead of throwing expensive banquets and paying for advertisement. Seth Bannon and Ben Lamothe started Amicus when they realized how much money that could be helping people is “wasted” on getting the word out. Why should all that money be spent like that when there are so many volunteers available, each with their own friends, facebook account and cell phone. They can do all the networking that any social enterprise could possibly need.

Amicus provides social enterprises a way for their volunteers to do just that, giving them a personalized space, top networking charts for all participants, and even direct mailing services. It also has a goal system so each networker, and the company itself, can see how things are progressing all while the company can control everything. They have raised over $3.2 million for social en devours.

“I’ve been involved with causes since I was 14 and I’ve always been super frustrated. I thought crappy tech was holding the causes back and wasting my time and my volunteers’ time. So a few colleagues challenged me to fix it and here we are.”

–Seth Bannon 

2 squirrel mail

3 Comments
Categories : Uncategorized

SOLBEN using Bioenergy

Posted by natnatwebb 
· Friday, November 1st, 2013 
· 1 Comment

 

The proclaimed mission of SOLBEN is to, “Promote the development and use of bioenergy integration projects aimed at improving

the quality of life of rural people and the recovery of the environment.” Daniel Gomez Iniguez started hearing about biodiesel, the alternative fuel produced from vegetable oils and animal fats, became interested and started to investigate.

 “I started searching the Internet…It seemed real easy to make [biodiesel] at your home.”

-Daniel Iniquez

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Daniel started his investigation at hi local university, Tecnologico de Monterrey. There he found a course on biodiesel production and began attending the class, not for credit, and joined a biodiesel club. Daniel recalls

he mostly went to the university instead of his high school. He learned enough about biodiesel to figure out how to make it from used vegetable oil and eventually compared it to making biodiesel from animal fat. After attending many biodiesel conferences throughout Mexico, Daniel became connected with several people that would eventually come to make his project a much more impressive en devour.

With three partners at his side, Daniel started a nonprofit foundation in 2009 that developed biodiesel production technology. It was extremely sucessful and brought in $150,000 in sales. Next they invested money in a for-profit

about-1

business which is Solben. Today Solben sells technology that has to do with the production of biodiesel from nonfood products like algae. This is to prevent competition with other biodiesel com

panies that use corn or sugar as their base. Solben also offers products and services that allows customers to create their own biodiesel.

In 2010 Solben brought in over $1 million in sales and they left the year with a prediction of $3 million in sales for the coming year. Solben is expanding quickly into the United States, Central America, and India.

 

1 Comment
Categories : Biofuel

More For Less: Re:Char

Posted by natnatwebb 
· Wednesday, October 16th, 2013 
· 2 Comments

Re:CHAR’s ulitmate vision is to develop, produce, and distribute a whole line of carbon-negative products that help limit CO2 outputs, and helps to feed the world’s hungry. RE:Char is being used as far away as Kenya and as close to home as right here in the United States. Jason attended and graduated from Princeton University with degrees in both Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and from the gfarmerset go he believed global poverty and climate change were the two biggest problems faced by the world. Biocher is the product that he came up with, and has essentially killed two birds with one stone.

 

“Our vision is to use our knowledge — which combines the best of both ancient process and modern technology — to achieve a systems win: more food, more sequestered carbon and less waste. This is as important in the developing world as in the developed world. We are dedicated to both.”

 

– Jason Aramburu

The problem is this, people across the world farm to make a living but recently are feeling the challenges of climate change, food insecurity, and soil degradation. Jason Aramburu, is founder of Re:CHAR, a company that their waste into biochar. Biochar is a

bio

carbon-negative soil amendment that can improve crop tallies by 200%. Not only does Biochar improve crop yields but it also offsets CO2 emissions by 12% yearly. This has the double bonus of providing more food for farmers that need it to increase their income, and fight global climate change.

 

“We have improved the lives and yields of subsistence farmers in Kenya and organic growers in the US through biochar products.”

– Jason Aramburu,

 

2 Comments
Categories : Agriculture, Millennial Entrepreneurs

A Girl’s Best Friend: Customizable Jewelry

Posted by natnatwebb 
· Thursday, October 3rd, 2013 
· 2 Comments

dudeQuality jewelry can be an expensive gift to buy, especially if you want it to be just right. Customizing jewelry in store can not only expensive but a hassle, and sometimes not even completely what you want. Matt Lauzon recognized this need and build his own website and company to offer a convenient method of building that perfect piece for that perfect someone. Gemvara.com is a place where you can go and make that piece just right for you. You start by picking out the jewelry type, then style, and finally specific gem and metal types. The result is a simple, reasonably priced place for anyone to become their own jewelry designer.

At just one-year-old in 2011, Gemvara had a $10 million run rate which was drastically increasing. Matt’s goal for Gemvara was to someday, “take Tiffany head-to-head.” (Matt Lauzon) Each piece, designed and ordered online, is made to order with supplies all bought and made in the United States.

Matt started his company, which was originally called Paragon Lake, while he was a student at Babson College. The original business model had a business-to-business approach but ultimately he wanted to be in more control over customer service and pricing, so he shifted to a business-to-customer model for Gemvara. Matt launched the Gemvara website in 2010 with necklace$5.8 million from Highland and Canaan Partners. With the recession working to his advantage, and “by the third month, we were seeing six figures in revenue and our average sale was $1,000.” (Matt Lauzon) 20% of customers gave testimonials to the quality and creativity of Gemvara.

“I think about us as Amazon early on.”

-Matt Lauzon

So why not go try it out yourself? Gemvara is perfect for any occasion and is excellent since you control the price.

 

 

2 Comments
Categories : Jewelry

A Business Born of Burden: Gianna Fair Trade

Posted by natnatwebb 
· Friday, September 20th, 2013 
· 6 Comments

HERO Gianna Driver, 28, is the daughter of a Filipino mail-order bride. She grew up with her mother in a women’s home in East Texas after they fled from Gianna’s abusive father. While in the women’s home Gianna worked hard at her studies because she knew it made her mother happy. Gianna worked hard and eventually ended up at Wharton School on a full scholarship

“I looked around and saw all of this pain and unhappiness and I knew my mom didn’t want me to have this life…When I brought home good report cards, she was so happy, so I really applied myself in school.”

–Gianna Driver

Gianna entered the workforce and worked for a company in San Francisco, but it just wasn’t right for her. She “…felt most alive…” when working with impoverished women overseas. She then toyed around with business ideas that would allow her to follow her passion of empowering these women, yet still support herself. In 2005 her original business was born, but she had problems with the quality of the items and the skill sets of the women, but she found a solution.Scarf

 “In Laos, the women weave beautiful tapestries, so we came up with the idea for scarves… When we start in new communities, I’ll provide a loan. If they want to buy a sewing machine, I front the money and over time, they pay back the value of machine through the sale of their products.”

Now Gianna works with over 60 impoverished women from many countries such as Thailand, India, Laos, and the Philippines. These women receive between 25 and 58% of the retail price of the products they produce. Gianna’s revenue isn’t breaking any records, and has yet to reach 1 million, but she has helped over 200 women and pays 2 to 3 times local minimum wage.

6 Comments
Categories : Millennial Entrepreneurs, Social Entrepreneur