Author Archive for nuzumrk22

TALA — Grace Beverley

Posted by nuzumrk22 
· Sunday, December 4th, 2022 
· 3 Comments

Nobody likes wearing someone’s old athletic wear, especially if it’s leggings or undergarments. That’s just gross. Well, Grace Beverley thought the same thing. With a passion for sustainability, Beverley thrifted a lot and tried to buy from sustainable brands. She noticed that plenty of sustainable brands existed for most clothing. But not for athletic wear. And since nobody likes thrifting someone’s old, sweaty socks or leggings, Beverley decided to create a brand herself. Her company, TALA, creates styles made from plastic bottles and factory offcuts, making it sustainable and ethical, two things she feels very passionately about. 

Originally, Beverley was a music major at Oxford University. But when she realized she had a passion for sustainable clothing, she took to a different side of the creativity spectrum: Entrepreneurship. She wanted people, specifically young people, to have a sustainable option for their athletic clothes that wouldn’t also drain their bank accounts. And so, TALA was born in 2019. Beverley stuck to her passion and through TALA, she managed to recycle seventy-thousand water bottles in her first year alone.

But TALA isn’t Beverley’s only business. She has also started a fitness app called SHREDDY which offers her activewear customers (and anyone else) a place to set goals and track their fitness progress. And if that’s not enough, she is also the Sunday Times bestselling author of “Working Hard, Hardly Working,” a book that seeks to teach young entrepreneurs how to accomplish more under less stress. 

When asked about her “eureka” moment, Grace Beverley stated that she never had one, that it was more of a build-up of idea after idea. And I think this is the perfect example of the slow hunch, the idea that starts as a seed and grows. Grace Beverley and the invention of TALA started as a hunch and is now a multimillion dollar business that encourages people to stay fit and recycle.

 

https://balance.media/founder-focus-grace-beverley/#:~:text=Grace%20Beverley%20is%20the%20Founder,of%20just%2023%20years%20old.https://www.wearetala.com/en-us/pages/about-ushttps://thetab.com/uk/2022/02/09/grace-beverley-reveals-exactly-how-she-secured-her-5-7mil-recent-investment-in-tala-239535

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/442770/working-hard-hardly-working-by-beverley-grace/9781786332851

 

3 Comments
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, athletic wear, Clothing, Fashion, Fitness, Health, Recycling, Sustainable, Uncategorized, Workout, Young Entrepreneur

A New Angle on Gun Safety

Posted by nuzumrk22 
· Tuesday, November 15th, 2022 
· 2 Comments

Suicide is a genuine problem and only becomes more of one as America gets more and more depressed. Kai Kloepfer, an engineer-minded, high school student, noticed the increasing rate of suicide in America, suicide often by guns. So to increase gun safety, decrease accidental harm and harm done due to gun theft, Kloepfer envisioned a smart gun, a special weapon that recognizes its owner. 

While on the search for a science fair project, a major shooting happened less than an hour from Kloepfer’s home and it sparked an idea. And so, for a little less than a year, Kloepfer worked tirelessly to develop a smart gun, a gun that would recognize the fingerprint of its owner and would only fire if he or she was holding it. He took this project to multiple science fairs and walked away as the winner of all of them. And after applying for the Smart Tech Challenge, he was able to nail down a $50,000 grant to continue his smart-gun technology. Between graduating from high school and starting college, Kloepfer finally established Biofire Technologies, his very own startup that integrates fingerprint identification into guns. 

It is inspiring how Kloepfer worked to use the vast technological advances of the twenty-first century to help increase gun safety and slow the suicide epidemic. Though this idea cannot halt gun harm entirely, it can help and is a great way to tackle a problem without also tackling the politics surrounding it. He really found a way to solve an issue without fanning the flames of that issue. 

 

https://fredsoda.medium.com/from-start-to-startup-30-under-30-kai-kloepfers-biofire-technologies-bf59cd299a08

 

2 Comments
Categories : Gun Safety, Social Impact, Suicide Prevention, Young Entrepreneur

Keiana Cavé: Chemical and Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurship

Posted by nuzumrk22 
· Wednesday, October 26th, 2022 
· 2 Comments

Keiana Cavé, a STEM-minded, 24-year-old, is truly brilliant. At the age of only fifteen, she began studying oil spills, specifically the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This research sparked two of her major inventions: a method that would detect oil spills in a body of water and later, a molecule that would help better disperse said oil and fight carcinogens created when the sun hits it. These two inventions have won her $1.2 million of research money from Chevron and have led her to begin a research startup, called Mare, which aims to counteract toxins and carcinogens in personal/home products. 

Cavé attended the University of Michigan as a chemical engineering student but soon dropped out to continue growing her businesses. She has worked for Microsoft, Francensca’s, and Lululemon as a brand representative and website designer, not to mention Mare and her newest company, Sublima Pharmaceuticals. Cavé is the CEO and founder of Sublima Pharmaceuticals which is currently in the process of creating the first FDA-approved, non-hormonal birth control pill, a pretty groundbreaking concept. 

I am not STEM-minded at all but nevertheless, Cavé’s story really inspired me. Especially after reading about how she never saw herself being where she is now. It really reminded me that life can go completely off track in the best of ways and that you can’t sell yourself short, because great things may be waiting. 

 

Sources:

https://www.michigandaily.com/statement/student-of-the-year-keiana-cave/

https://thestrive.co/successful-young-entrepreneurs-stories/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiana_Cav%C3%A9

https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/articles/meet-some-of-the-brightest-young-entrepreneurs/

2 Comments
Categories : Entrepreneurship, Environment, Ocean, Pharmaceuticals, STEM, Uncategorized

Me & the Bees Lemonade: Saving the Honeybees

Posted by nuzumrk22 
· Sunday, October 2nd, 2022 
· 4 Comments

Perhaps fear can best drive someone towards success. Well, that was the case with young Mikaila Ulmer, whose fear of bees drove her to create a delicious honey and flaxseed lemonade concoction at the age of four. To conquer her fear of the little pollinators, Ulmer took initiative to understand bees and their environment and after looking through a cookbook from her great grandmother, she found her great grandma’s special recipe for flaxseed lemonade. She decided to add a bee-inspired twist to it: honey. What started as a lemonade stand in her front yard and at a few youth entrepreneurial fairs grew into Me & The Bees Lemonade.

The business started to take off when a local pizza shop asked her if they could sell her product. She agreed and in doing so, was forced to start bottling her lemonade. A few years later in 2015, Ulmer took Me & the Bees Lemonade to the TV screen, appearing on Shark Tank. She walked away with $60,000. Me & the Bees Lemonade has, since its beginnings, been sold in 1,500 stores all over America including Whole Foods Market, Kroger, and The Fresh Market, to name a few. 

From the beginning, she’s been donating to save the honeybees since they are such an important part of agriculture. Ulmer donates ten percent of her profits to charities that support the honeybees. Furthermore, she has established The Healthy Hive Foundation, a nonprofit that educates people and supports beekeepers and research. Mikaila Ulmer is a great example of not creating something entirely brand new, but something with a brand new twist: honey-sweetened, flaxseed lemonade. Mikaila Ulmer is a great entrepreneur because she saw that something great (her grandma’s lemonade) could, with a little innovation, be made even better.

4 Comments
Categories : Bees, Beverages, Entrepreneurship, Lemonade, Shark Tank, Uncategorized, Young Entrepreneur

Mia Monzidelis: Ponies for City Kids

Posted by nuzumrk22 
· Monday, September 26th, 2022 
· 1 Comment

Mia Monzidelis wanted a pony. But for kids like her who lived in the city, that dream wouldn’t soon be fulfilled. With a strong passion for horses, she invented the idea for Power Pony after having received a Hoverboard for Christmas. The young inventor noticed that if she set her stuffed pony over the hoverboard and sat down, her feet on the hoverboard foot pads, she could ride the pony around. What started as a child’s simple idea to pass the time, soon became a thriving business with the encouragement of her parents and the guidance of designers and patent attorneys. 

In structure, the Power Pony is nearly identical to her original idea, plus some bells and whistles. It is a small plush pony attached to a chargeable Hoverboard-like motor. The child then puts his/her feet on the engine’s foot pads and can ride the plush horse around. The pony is even iOS compatible with its own app and boasts lights and fancy sound effects. The Power Pony became first available in the summer of 2021 and has turned out to be a fantastic solution for children who live in the city. The company has since sold almost five thousand mechanical ponies around the nation and in response to her success, Mia Monzidelis has donated part of her profits to the Family and Children’s Association of Garden City. 

As an entrepreneur, Monzidelis is brilliant because she decided to capitalize on what young children do all the time… make do with what they have. By using her childlike creativity and putting two of her favorite possessions together, she invented a great business, thus teaching other entrepreneurs that great ideas don’t have to be something brand new, it can be a combination of things that already exist, things that you love.

1 Comment
Categories : Horses/ponies, Technology, Toys, Young Entrepreneur

Alina Morse And The Healthy Lollipop

Posted by nuzumrk22 
· Monday, September 26th, 2022 
· 3 Comments

Alina Morse is just an ordinary high schooler with an extraordinary passion for clean teeth. The 17-year-old is the CEO of a company called Zolli Candy. Zolli Candy creates lollipops, hard candy, and taffy all vegan, natural, KETO, gluten-free, and sugar-free. As a child, after having been offered a lollipop from a bank teller, she pondered over a major problem. Candy is terrible for your health and especially, your teeth. At the age of seven, she decided to act and spent two years over her home stove, endlessly researching, and questioning dentists and food scientists. The result was a lollipop sweetened by xylitol and erythritol, natural sweeteners that, due to their ability to neutralize the mouth’s pH, actually prevent cavities and tooth decay by lowering plaque and bacteria. 

By the age of nine, Morse’s lollipop was finally ready and launched when Whole Foods Market picked it up. The new Zollipops became a bestseller on Amazon and were quickly adopted by Kroger in 2016 while Morse became an inspiring new face to the rest of the entrepreneurship and oral health world. 

With her passion for healthy teeth and gums, Morse has waged a war against the tooth decay epidemic, specifically in children. In an act to save kids’ teeth, she began a “100,000 Smiles” campaign and in doing so, has donated thousands of Zollipops to schools and dentists and has donated her profits to oral health education. It is inspiring to see someone so young be so passionate about one area of pain, a passion she has nurtured since the age of seven and successfully weaved into her million-dollar idea. Morse is a surprising entrepreneur due to how she flipped the problem. She not only made candy harmless. She made it healthy. 

3 Comments
Categories : Candy, Charity, Food, Health, Social Impact, Uncategorized, vegan speciality food, Young Entrepreneur