Katrina Lake is a 40-year-old entrepreneur from San Francisco, California, and is the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix (which she founded when she was about 28 years old), an online personal styling service. Specifically, Stitch Fix is an online subscription and personal styling service that uses a combination of data science and human stylists to curate personalized clothing selections for customers. Some unique factors of Sitch Fix are that it stands out for its innovative use of data analytics to personalize the shopping experience, combining algorithms with human expertise to curate customized fashion recommendations, it almost seems like this could be considered a stylistic AI. Stitch Fix is also a form of convenience in that it eliminates the need for customers to browse through numerous items by delivering curated selections directly to their doorstep. Some entrepreneurial traits that Katrina demonstrates include being a visionary leader, being an innovative thinker (just like every other entrepreneur I’ve reviewed, honestly), adaptability, having a customer-centric approach, and resilience. Katrina is yet another example of an innovator embracing a customer-centric, data-driven, and adaptive approach to technology in today’s day and age. The blend of tech and human expertise seems to represent its own version of stylistic AI even before other AI systems were created/released.

Alexa Von Tobel is a 40-year-old entrepreneur from Jacksonville, Florida and is the founder of LearnVest (which she founded in 2009 when she was about 26 years old), a personal finance platform that provides financial planning services to individuals. Von Tobel seems to be recognized in her efforts to make financial planning accessible to a broader audience, particularly focusing on young professionals. LearnVest’s uniqueness lies in its goal of democratizing financial planning. By providing accessible financial services (particularly the younger demographic), LearnVest aimed to empower individuals to take control of their financial futures, filling a gap in the market for affordable and personalized financial guidance. Her entrepreneurial traits include empathy, vision, and a commitment to financial education. This yet another example of regular people looking into today’s market of anything online and creating a high grossing company to fix an issue or to create a convenience for users while online, whether that be for people in general or for businesses.

John Collison is a 33-year-old Irish entrepreneur and is the co-founder of Stripe (which she founded in 2009 as a 19-year-old entrepreneur), an online payment processing platform that simplifies online transactions for businesses. John also had the help of his older brother Patrick Collison who was the other co-founder of Stripe. Something unique about the Collison’s is that they are recognized for revolutionizing the way online payments are handled, making it easier for businesses to accept payments. The drive for these two brothers is a commitment to simplifying online happenings or transactions for businesses. It seems that their work at Stripe suggests a focus on improving the payment process and reducing friction for online businesses. My research suggests that the entrepreneurial traits of the Collison’s are problem solving, attention to the user experience, and a commitment to efficiency. Stripe provides a seamless experience for developers to incorporate payment correctly and effectively into websites and applications with ease. These two are, again, a perfect representation of someone identifying a problem and creating a solution to said problem as well as a focus on user experience because the biggest market I would say that entrepreneurs look for is creating a convenience for users.

Brian Armstrong is a 40-year-old entrepreneur from San Jose, California, and is the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange. Coinbase is a platform that enables users to buy, sell, and store various cryptocurrencies and it serves as a user-friendly entry point into the world of these digital currencies. Even though he is 40 years old, he was 29 years old when he founded Coinbase. Coinbase is one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges and is unique in the fact that Coinbase makes cryptocurrencies much more accessible to the general public, providing an easy-to-use platform for individuals to buy and trade digital assets. Brian seems to mention a few key drivers and principles that guide him in his role as an entrepreneur, those including cryptocurrency innovation, creating financial accessible financial services, leadership, and building a global platform. This company is a multi billion dollar company and is shows Brian looking at the current market and creating a company based on a topic of interest in today’s world, and cryptocurrencies were pretty new and of big discussion during that time.

Suhail Doshi is a 33-year-old entrepreneur from Arizona and is the co-founder and CEO of Mixpanel, an analytics platform that helps businesses track and analyze user engagement on their websites and mobile devices. For example, if one were to create a digital product, one could use this to capture and view data on how users interact with one’s digital product with simple and interactive reports that helps one to visualize the data with just a few clicks. This is unique between it and its competitors due to its ability to go a bit deeper into user behavior than all other digital products related to Mixpanel. Suhail Doshi believes in the power of insights and that is what drives him as well as his love for analytics. Examples of entrepreneurial traits that he has are an analytical mindset (obviously) and a commitment to providing value. I don’t think I learned a whole lot on the research on Mixpanel, except that it was interesting to learn about what Mixpanel does, but I still don’t think I learned a whole lot besides the analytical side of things.

Ben Pasternak is a 24-year-old Australian entrepreneur and is the founder of Monkey, which is a social media platform, and what it does is it facilitates short video chats to aid users in making new friends. What is unique about this individual is that he gained experience at a young age for his skill in creating innovative platforms. What is unique about this product, though, is that these short videos are in real time as opposed to communication that doesn’t happen in real time, or asynchronous communication. With that being said, these short videos foster spontaneous connections as if it were real life. Ben is driven by a passion for technology and a want to create solutions for problems in the real world. The entrepreneurial traits that Ben showcases are curiosity, innovation (obviously), and a willingness to take risks. This company stood out to me while I was researching because it reminds me of another platform called Omegle that pairs people with strangers for text and video chat, but Omegle requires no registration and isn’t restricted to having to be 18 years or older. Therefore, Monkey is a safer place to talk with people due to the fact that you need to login or link your account with Facebook. This helps me to realize that you can take a good idea and make it better by just adding a bit more safety, like some of the crazy stuff that happens on Omegle. This helped me realize how much more effective exaptation is for an innovation idea