Erik Finman is a 17 year old kid who struggled as a student in a public school setting. He was often bullied in multiple ways because of his poor academic performances. His teachers and classmates did not see the potential that Erik had in other areas. Nevertheless, Erik had plenty of potential in innovation and creativity but unfortunately his grades in school did not coincide with this talent of his. Therefore he dropped out of school and began to come up with ideas by himself at home to improve education for students who were not fit for the public school setting. He calls it Botangle because it is a combination of robotics and angle. It requires a computer and an Internet connection and offers fee-based online video tutoring services. He was lucky to be able to afford this startup on his own when he received $100,000 from a Bitcoin investment. Erik continues to program for this company and others and is currently working on a virtual reality-based personal computer. Erik is a prime example of a kid who has persevered through tough times and has shown that it only takes creativity and commitment to become a successful entrepreneur, no matter the circumstances.
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Mikaila Ulmer is an 11 year old entrepreneur who started a business that supports the awareness of the disappearance of honeybees. She started a lemonade selling business that makes lemonade with honey from local honeybees. She obtained the recipe from her grandmother and started to produce this lemonade in 2009 and at the age of four! She became interested in honeybees after she was stung two times in the same week. She realized that honeybees were important to the ecosystem and thus started to donate a percentage of the profits from Me and the Bees Lemonade to different organizations who work to prevent the termination of honeybees. She started selling the lemonade at a local pizza shop and eventually began to sell it at a local Whole Foods store. Additionally she started workshops at the same store to educate people on the importance of honeybee awareness. This was a large factor that contributed to building her customer base because it served as a source of advertisement too. She soon appeared on Shark Tank which was a success that lead to her product being sold at all of the Whole Foods stores in the southeast region. I am certainly impressed with the extent of her compassion for supporting honeybees!
At the age of 14 Main came up with ManCans, a candle company that produces candles with manly scents. He thought that most of the candles that were for sale were too “girly” and didn’t have scents that were appealing for men. Therefore he designed candles with scents like campfire, bacon, sawdust, fresh cut grass and grandpa’s pipe. ManCans are sold in over 60 stores across the nation and about 9000 units have sold. Main came up with the idea of utilizing soup cans to make the candles and thought that the soup cans would contribute to the “manliness” of the candles. In addition he donated the soup to food banks and continues to donate 75 cents of every candle sale to soup kitchens in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Michigan. Throughout Main’s experiences selling candles he was encouraged by his father to try his best to indulge himself in further entrepreneurial ideas. Main learned so many business lessons throughout his time that he wrote a book with his father called “One Candle, One Meal.” In the book he advises kids to start thinking like an entrepreneur at a young age because if you start early then you will ultimately produce more ideas and the chances that one of them will make it is greater.
https://www.investopedia.com/slide-show/young-entrepreneurs/
Zhou started his entrepreneurship career at the age of 16 when he collaborated with other entrepreneurs to create Design Vetica, a web consultancy. This organization utilized Draftboard which is an online tool for designers and clients to work together. However Zhou’s most prominent business is Chalk.com. He noticed that his own high school teachers were going through a lot of trouble throughout their daily lives and when occasional problems came about with parents and bureaucracy. Chalk.com provides teachers with a platform that can easily organize their daily tasks. It provides personalization for teachers and learning students, technology that helps teachers differentiate instruction and more time to be spent with students. Instead of wasting time in high school Zhou was concerned for his teachers and really cared about their daily lives. He sought the problem that they faced and worked hard to create a business that solved the problem. He used Planboard as a stepping stone to ultimately develop his parent company, Chalk.com. He persevered for a couple of years with Planboard until he added the final touches to create Chalk.com. I am impressed by the work of Zhou and will keep his work and his attitude towards entrepreneurship in mind as I work towards my future entrepreneurial goals.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonma/2015/02/24/twelve-of-todays-most-impressive-young-entrepreneurs/#a867ca47560f
Mike Brown is the founder of Death Wish Coffee, an 11-person coffee retailer that started in Round Lake, New York. He was named Entrepreneur of the Year for Emerging Business in New York in 2017 due to his success with Death Wish Coffee. This company started in 2012 when Mike Brown saw the need for providing coffee that is both strong and tasteful for morning customers who are looking for a quick way to overcome the effects of their lack of sleep. His company won the Intuit’s ‘Small Business Big Game’ competition in 2015 which provided him and his colleagues with a 30-second commercial position in the Superbowl. They have progressively gained interest from customers from this very helpful experience and have been the official coffee sponsor of New York Comic Con, a sponsor of Nascar Driver Ty Dillon and have supported charities like the Special Olympics.
Mike was an accountant for the state of New York when he was in his 20s and decided to quit that job to open a coffee shop at the age of 28. He initially experienced failure in the company because of the plethora of options he offered. He simplified his choices to what the customers showed interest in and began to succeed. He began to work on making the strongest coffee possible by combining Arabica beans with Robusta beans, a popular bean used by old school Italian roasters. He marketed the brand by sending the product to news reporters, celebrities and bloggers. Since the Super Bowl commercial they have been selling 20 times more than they originally did. I certainly want to try this coffee after doing research on Mike Brown!
This young man is only 14 years old but he has thrived in the web design industry while he has been the starting action of two companies. He He started out working with restaurants in order to update their websites to make them more appealing to customers. He was motivated by his dad and his entrepreneurship group while Zach learned more about WordPress and the introductory
material to web design. As CEO of Zach’s Web Designs he has customized and created several websites for businesses including Keep Punching, a nonprofit brain cancer organization, Emilee Tominovich Racing, the website of a young female race-car driver, and Ry’s Ruffery, a dog biscuit company offering all-natural food. His company has generated $15,000 in revenue since its beginnings. Recently he has worked to build a laser-engraved skateboard with Serpent Skating. This sports merchandise idea is set to launch on Kickstarter this upcoming year.