A young entrepreneur by the name of Ben Weissenstein created the business called Grand Slam Garage Sales at the age of fourteen. This idea originally sparked from when his mom asked his to help her out with the neighborhood garage sale one Saturday morning. More specifically, she suggested he could help not only sell items, but also organize them. A few years later, Ben and a neighborhood friend would start Grand Slam Garage Sales. Ben now has a team of over thirty part-time workers who, upon request, will come to your home, catalog your garage sale items, place them online for millions to see, notify the businesses list of interested buyers, and take care of both shipping and delivering the purchased items.

Now at age 19, his business is booming and he has also been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and has been a guest on the Dr. Phil show. Ben just started as a young boy who was presented with a need and took it upon himself to better attend to that need. His original goal of keeping customers and workers happy has evolved into an extraordinarily successful business and is an example for all young and striving entrepreneurs.

Maddie Bradshaw is a young 16 year old girl who took her ideas and turned them into revenue by creating a business called Snap Cap. Snap Caps are necklaces with a bottle cap as the pendant.

This business all started when she was just 10 years old and wanted a way to better and more original way to decorate her school locker. Her Uncle, who just so happened to have an old Coke bottle machine, gave her 50 bottle caps which she then decided to decorate herself and put magnets on them. Maddie instantly started a new hip trend and all of her friends were asking her to make them some as well.

Their enthusiasm further inspired Maddie to build her business to the necklace making business, which is what she is focusing on as of now. The Snap Caps can have possible themes of people initials, music stares, and even fairy tales.

She placed 50 of these necklaces in a local toy store and all of her products sold out within two hours, and after investing $300 of her own money to get the business started, she made her first million dollars at the age of 13.

Maddie recently launched a new line of necklaces called “Spark of Life,” which is geared more towards an older group, teenagers. She understands that her customers tastes will change over the years, just as her own do. That being said, she plans to continue to change and add to different product lines as her own desires and interests change.

The reason Maddie has been so successful is because she is not settling. She is always looking for ways to grow and expand her business in order to satisfy her target market.

A young man by the name of William Zhou saw a problem that needed to be addressed in his high school, and took matters into his own hands to solve it. The more time he spent in school, he realized just how difficult being a teacher must be. He began to understand how much teachers struggled with an overwhelming workload of creating lesson plans, grading assessments, and keeping track of attendance. Not to mention dealing with angry parents constantly.

This is when he created www.chalk.com which is an online plan-board to significantly help teachers around the country organize and structure their lesson plans. Now, the website has partnered with Ontario Teach Foundation to provide teachers with ready made lesson plan materials. As of this year, Chalk.com is used on over 20,000 schools and has over 100,000 teachers using the website frequently.

One thing I think William did that was crucial to his success was his partnerships with already well know and respected organizations. This is necessary for new companies to do in order to receive the positive public relations that will make a company thrive.