Author Archive for ParaccaJS20

WhistlinDiesel

Most people when purchasing a vehicle of any kind, plan on maintaining and taking care of it. While Cody Detwiler may hold this same philosophy to a certain extent, it never seems to last long.

Cody Detwiler is a Youtuber who is from the rural parts of Indiana. His family has a farming and construction background, so Cody had quite the opportunity to operate and run a variety of equipment growing up. In 2017, Cody started uploading automotive (mostly truck) related videos to his Youtube channel, which he named “WhistlinDiesel.” He seemed to have decent success early on, presumably because he is a charismatic character who posted entertaining videos. Cody graduated from high school and began uploading more videos to his channel. Since then, his channel has accumulated 1.5 million subscribers, earning millions of views on each video he posts.

You may be thinking, “He posts videos about trucks, big deal.” While much of his uploads involve pickup trucks, they have a unique quality to them that keep things VERY interesting. That unique quality would be him utterly destroying nearly everything he drives. It does not matter if he is driving a Jeep, old semi or even a fancy Audi, Cody will eventually destroy it. Some viewers get upset over Cody’s destructive habits with his vehicles and will leave inappropriate/rude comments on his videos. The odd thing about this is that those same comments motivate Cody to cause more destruction to even more expensive vehicles. There isn’t a better example of this, than with his lifted Ford pickup truck.

See the source imageSee the source imageOriginally when Cody bought this fancy looking Ford pickup truck, it was worth upwards of around $100,000. Upon purchasing, Cody told his viewers that if they were respectful and polite, he would take care of the truck and wouldn’t ruin it. People inevitably commented disrespectful things on his videos though, so he ended up abusing the truck. One of his latest projects is a monster truck, named “MonsterMax”, which he built off of the truck he drove in high school.

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Cody does not sell any products aside from basic merchandise for his Youtube channel, but he does produce some incredible entertainment! People don’t plan on purposely ruining vehicles, and that is what makes his videos so incredibly interesting. While some of his breakdowns are accidents, many of them are caused by his own will. By producing distinctively unique videos that no other channel can seemingly match, WhistlinDiesel has created a very loyal following that is sure to continue to grow.

Erik Finman & His Coins

Many teenagers will consider whether they want to continue learning through higher education, or if they would prefer to go another direction. In 2011, Erik Finman decided that he wanted to continue learning but he did not want to go to college. At just 12 years old, Erik asked his parents if he could skip college and pursue higher education through different means IF he was able to successfully invest money. They agreed to his proposition, and the rest as they say is history.

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Using funds that his Grandmother had recently gifted him, Erik bought $1,000 worth of Bitcoin at around $10-$12 per coin. Erik had invested in Bitcoin just in time, as just a short time later, it skyrocketed to around $1,100 per coin. Using money he made from his investment, Erik sold $100,000 worth of his Bitcoins to start Botangle, a tutoring service that matches students with teacher via virtual video call/chat. Erik’s big break though came when he sold Botangle. The buyer offered Erik either 300 Bitcoin or $100,000. Guess which one Erik took… today at a value of $6,500 per coin, Erik is pretty happy he chose the Bitcoins.

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While tutoring services are nothing new, the thing that makes Erik’s story unique is how he knew about and invested in Bitcoin at such a young age. There are many people who still don’t understand Bitcoin or how it works today, but for a kid to know about and invest in it Bitcoin 8 years ago, that is truly special.

Playing Games with Caine Monroy

At some point in everyone’s life, they have played some sort of a game. Whether it is a video game or a sport such as soccer or baseball, or even a simple round of tag in the elementary playground, at some point everyone has played a game. What if I told you that a new game was created, based on arcade games, but it was made out of cardboard and built by a 9 year old. Would you believe me or think I was joking? Well that is precisely what Caine Monroy did.

Around 2011, Caine was helping his Father with work in the family’s used auto part store. Caine, being 9 years old at the time, was easily bored and wanted to do something more fun. He found some cardboard and some prizes, and created his first cardboard arcade games: soccer goals and the claw.

Caine's Arcade | A boy's cardboard arcade that inspired the world.

Caine continued to make these cardboard games, until one day a customer came in looking for a car door handle, but instead left with a newfound inspiration. This customer is named Nirvan Mullick, and he filmed the short documentary named “Caine’s Arcade.” The video was a viral sensation, and customers began to go the store not for used auto parts, but to play Caine’s cardboard arcade games. People were so impressed that they began to pay large sums of money so that Caine could afford to go to college. Eventually the fund had accumulated nearly $250,000 for Caine’s college education and Caine wasn’t even in High School yet!

Caine began to go to different colleges and universities, and spoke about what he learned from this experience. Eventually at 13 years old, Caine retired from the cardboard arcade industry to focus on Junior High School, as well as begin his new venture… a bicycle shop that repairs and remakes different existing bicycles. While this is certainly an intersecting way to pivot, Caine seems to have done well for himself.

Caines Arcade on Twitter: "Sign up for our 8th Annual Global #CardboardChallenge! Let's Play: https://t.co/9R7SJNKEen… "

What makes Caine’s story so unique is how young he was. While much of his success can be credited to Nirvan, who created the video that went viral, Caine created a unique product while he was bored, using old materials that otherwise would have just been thrown away. There are great example of this in third world countries, such as tire sandals, however for a 9 year old to initiate the process and design it himself, that is truly impressive. Another thing that makes this story unique is how Caine gained popularity. Without Nirvan creating that documentary video Caine’s wonderful idea may have gone unnoticed. The funny thing is that Caine wasn’t even trying to market his idea much up until Nirvan came in. Caine’s cardboard arcade idea was able to grow even without a strong liquid network.

 

 

 

 

https://www.cerebralpalsy.org/inspiration/opportunities/creativity

Caine Monroy

Sweet Success: The Ponce’s Candy Store

When people think of Texas cuisine, they usually think of good southern cooking and the smoked meats that come from the region, but the Ponce children are taking a sweeter approach to things. Young Entrepreneurs: Siblings' candy, snack shop prevails despite challenges

Samantha (19), Adam (18), and Byron (15) Ponce have opened a candy store named Sab’s Candy Shop after first beginning their candy ventures 6 years ago. Samantha began posting fliers around school to promote their new candy business and get the word out about it. Sadly, kids at school bullied her for it, and told her that it was “embarrassing”.  Thankfully though, this skepticism and negativity didn’t stop them from trying to grow their business. They officially opened their candy store in 2018.

Whenever COVID-19 hit the United States many businesses had to adapt, and Sab’s Candy Shop did so in a unique way. When the virus began to spread, the siblings promoted their business through the use of Tik Tok. People who lived 4 or even 6 hours away from the store, saw what the Ponce siblings were doing and drove to experience it themselves. Another issue they had to work around was their employees resigning. The Candy Shop had to shut down for a week to sanitize and prepare for pandemic operation, but when they reopened, their employees elected not to go back to work. As a result, the siblings and their family had to step up to keep things running around the shop, otherwise it is likely that they would have closed down.Young Entrepreneurs: Siblings' candy, snack shop prevails despite challenges

The Ponce siblings demonstrated how businesses had to adapt and innovate when the pandemic hit the United States. Their ages and other activities make this even ore impressive as they still had to keep up with school and not fall behind. They were able to innovate upon the idea of marketing their candy shop, by reaching a broader audience through Tik Tok.

 

https://www.valleymorningstar.com/2020/09/25/young-entrepreneurs-siblings-candy-snack-shop-prevails-despite-challenges/

Mitchell Bobbera: Metalworking

In an age where computers and technology have taken over, its becoming more difficult to find new and exciting blue collar companies started by millennials. However, Mitchell Bobbera has begun to make quite the name for himself in Gilbert, West Virginia.

At 21 years old, Mitchell began Main Street Metals, a metalworking shop that was originally started in an old gas station. Using what he learned from welding school, Mitchell began to make metal sculptures using old horseshoes after he graduated from high school. Once he made enough money, Mitchell bought plasma cutting table, which enabled him to create much more intricate and detailed designs. Using this machine, Mitchell is able to program the machine to cut precise metal shapes and outlines. He learned to use this machine by practicing with it and seeing how it worked. By using the machine countless times, Mitchell has become a master with the machine and can use it to create valuable metal pieces. Young entrepreneur makes living from metal artwork | News | williamsondailynews.com

Although he has a website for his business and advertises through Facebook and Instagram, interestingly much of his business’s popularity is due to the word-of-mouth recommendations from his customers. Mitchell has expanded his business to the point where he is shipping across the United States to places like California or Texas. He even built school logos for West Virginia University as well as Marshall. Now that Mitchell established himself well in the metal sign industry, he has recently expanded to making custom trailer hitches after seeing the need for a truly custom hitch.

Young entrepreneur makes living from metal artwork | News | williamsondailynews.com

The thing that makes this story interesting is how a young individual like Mitchell, was able to enter a generally congested industry and do something that he loves do. The lesson that I learned from this story was how no matter what type of industry, there is always potential. To me, the metalworking industry is well established. Many of the metalworking businesses that I personally know, have older individuals running them. I know that metalworking can be a difficult industry to enter; the older businesses are already so well established that new companies are unable to sway the competition’s customers. But that reason makes Mitchell’s success story, all that more impressive.

 

https://www.williamsondailynews.com/news/young-entrepreneur-makes-living-from-metal-artwork/article_eefa526a-2fc6-52fd-957b-80d4d785c074.html

Towering Over The Competition: Ben Towers

Before reading this, take a second to reflect and remember what you were doing in 2011. For most college students whenever they think back to 2011, they may think about school, their friends and family, maybe going on a memorable vacation or receiving an awesome gift. For Ben Towers, when he thinks back to 2011, the first thing that probably comes to mind is when he started his first company at just 13 years old.

 

In 2009, a family friend challenged him to build them a real website. Most 11 year old’s would take the challenge as a joke, thinking that that was well out of their skill set and capabilities for their age group. Not Ben Towers though. Ben didn’t have prior knowledge about website building before accepting this challenge but, with the help of several YouTube videos, he was able to successfully build a full blown professional website. After completing the first site, Towers continued building sites and in 2011 started his first business named Ben Towers Website Design (BTWD). Less than two years after starting his first company Towers re-branded his company as Towers Design, which is a digital marketing agency and in the same year started Social Marley, a social media management company. Two years later in 2015, Towers would officially launch the service. Towers Design continued to grow then in 2017, through a merger with Zest the Agency, became one of the larger digital marketing firms in Kent, England.

While Towers is certainly well known for his entrepreneurial successes, he is widely known as an advisor as well as promoter for entrepreneurship.

When asked for his advise for young entrepreneurs, Towers said

“1. Get out and give it a go, you don’t even have to wait until you finish school! I didn’t!

2. Be passionate about what you do and make sure your reasons are more than simply making money, you have to love what you do.

3. Make the most of being young, be bold and tell the world! Do not try to deny your age, embrace the advantages of it!”

Most people would be content with this position and continue to grow, but Ben Towers isn’t like most people. In 2017, the same year as his company’s merger, Ben decided to leave and venture out into new endeavors. This year Towers co-founded Tahora, a service that helps to foster and grow good mental health/well-being. While plenty of services already exist for good mental health, Tahora is different in that it targets the young millennial and Generation Z workforce. Ben Towers is towering over the competition and he is only getting started.

http://socialmarley.com/about-ben

Ben Towers

https://richtopia.com/inspirational-people/top-young-entrepreneur-interview-ben-towers