David Karp was born in New York, New York in 1986 and even at an early age he showed a great interest in technology and programming. By the time he was 11 he taught himself HTML, short for hypertext markup language, which included how to format a system for text, graphics, and audio retrieved through the internet. At the age of 17 he left home to live in Japan for a brief period of time to become more in tune with that country’s knowledge of technology. But he returned to New York after a short time and got himself a job at UrbanBaby. When that site was sold in 2006 the makings of Tumblr began to start.

A beta was released privately in 2006 but not made available to the public until 2007. In the site users could format their blog posts with pictures, videos, audio, links, and almost anything that can be procured from browsing the internet. However, what made Tumblr unique was that there was not a “comment section” because Karp wanted to cut out “vandalism and mean-spiritedness”. What users could do in place of commenting is “reblog” posts from other users onto their own blogs. It only took five years for Tumblr to amass more than 70 million blogs. Tumblr was bought by Yahoo in 2013 for $1 billion but the following year it failed to meet revenue expectations and in 2017 Karp stepped down as CEO. While Tumblr is on its end of life during its peak it was one of the most unique and most used blogging websites and as of July 2019 it has over 472 million accounts.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Karp

https://www.statista.com/topics/2463/tumblr/

The dating game has changed over the years with the internet exploding and innovative entrepreneurs taking advantage. But more specifically in the realm of online dating. There are numerous websites and apps that tell you love is just a few swipes and clicks away. Websites and apps like eHarmony, Christian Mingle, Match, BlackPeopleMeet, and Tinder are among some of the biggest names. Tinder currently has the most users with over 45 million people active in their Tinder account. However, a new competitor has come along with 22 million users and continues to see a 70% year-over-year growth compared to Tinder’s only 10% growth. Bumble, the new competitor, was created by Whitney Herd in December 2014, which accumulated 100,000 downloads in its first month. Whitney left Tinder in September 2014 after filing a lawsuit for sexual harassment against her former boyfriend and boss, Justin Mateen, in June 2014 which was settled on for $1 million. The agreement, however, didn’t include a noncompete clause and Herd was quickly looking for a way to that her legacy would live on in the realm of online dating.

But the reason for its increasing popularity is that it lets and encourages women to take the first move, something that Herd strived for throughout the process of her dating app saying “What if women make the first move, send the first message? And if they don’t, the match disappears after 24 hours, like in Cinderella, the pumpkin and the carriage? It’d be symbolic of a Sadie Hawkins dance–going after it, girls ask first. What if we could hardwire that into a product?”. This and making the environment safer for women were the two thing she wished to accomplish better than her biggest competitor, Tinder. While Bumble has only been in the online dating game for only a couple of years and is still behind in terms of in sales and users, it has grown at an impressive rate and only continues to become more and more popular with many more women wanting to make the first move.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2017/11/14/billion-dollar-bumble-how-whitney-wolfe-herd-built-americas-fastest-growing-dating-app/#718cff86248b

Before he was well a known businessman and entrepreneur, Adam D’angelo was simply known as one of Mark Zuckerberg’s great friends. Back in 2000 Adam went to Phillip Exeter Academy with his friend Mark and the two instantly clicked and right off the bat started a music software called “Synapse Media Player”, which suggested the user music according to what music the user listened to. Which was quickly a huge success and was later bought by Microsoft. Afterwards, Adam went on to Caltech to further his studies but put them on hold to help his old buddy, Mark, with the early designing of Facebook. Upon completing his education he joined Mark full time as Facebooks team as VP. Adam quotes as one of the most important things he learned from Facebook and Mark was “Execution was far more important than an idea.” In 2008 he wanted to achieve something on his own and left Facebook to go on and create Quora. In its most basic terms “Quora” is a question-and-answer website, the users ask the questions, answer, and organize them. Adam and his partner Charlie Cheever Co-founded it In June 2009 but wasn’t made public until the next year in June. What makes Quora unique is that it is more about sharing knowledge rather than information. The Quora community also has its fair share of celebrities like Stephen Fry, Ashton Kutcher, Avicii, John Green (author), Adrián Lamo, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, all of which could answer any of the questions that you ask on Quora! Quora does have it similarities with acebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, and Answers.com but distinguishes itself with features like “Upvote or Downvote” an answer or even comment on it as well. It also has great simplicity and simple design but also incredibly efficient as well. By some people its being quoted as ” evolving into a Knowledgebase of Knowledgebase”. As of right now, Quora has 130 employees and has grown into 180 million monthly visitors, half a which are from the United States and is valued at over 1 billion and are only continuing to rise.

https://www.yosuccess.com/success-stories/adam-dangelo-quora/

Ever heard of the actress Jessica Alba. And not just because her name is in the title. Jessica Alba’s acting career started off at the early age of 13, starring in “Camp Nowhere” and “The Secret World of Alex Mack”. But didn’t get her first big break until 19 when she landed the lead role in the TV series “Dark Angel”, which she was nominated for a Golden Globe award. While she has had numerous box office hits throughout the years, her claim to fame now is her business “The Honest Company” that she co-founded on the principle of an eco-friendly diaper business.

The idea came to her when she was pregnant with her first daughter, Honor. Her friends through her a baby shower and gave her numerous amounts of baby clothes as gifts. Afterwards, she took her mother’s advice and washed her unborn daughters closed with detergent and immediately broke out in hives. She says “I was thinking, what if my baby has a reaction and I don’t know? What if her throat is closing? I had all this fear and anxiety because I was always so sick as a child.” Later that night she Googles every ingredient and found some toxins in the process. She says, “I wanted safe and effective consumer products that were beautifully designed, accessibly priced, and easy to get.” Her idea became clear from that point, but she wasn’t sure how it was going to be accomplished.

It took a while for her company to get started but in 2012 her company was launched and raked in over $10 million in sales. They only started out with 17 products that included the categories of diapers and wipes. Now they have over 135 products that range from toothpaste, vitamins, detergent, etc. and sales passed $150 million. The company started out in Korea but now they are looking to expand to the international markets.

At first, she stated that she used to be scared and insecure by not having a college degree and thought less of herself. But now as her husband, Cash Warren, puts it ” This is the first time she knows she’s smart. She wakes up thinking about Honest; she goes to bed thinking about it” and it shows. Last year, she was on the covers of Shape and Forbes magazines and they titled her as ‘AMERICA’S RICHEST SELF-MADE WOMEN”. Her net worth was estimated at about $200 million.

Throughout Alba’s business venture are perfect examples on not giving up on what your dreams are and sticking to your goals even though the support is not there in the beginning when you need it the most. She was just seen as an actress at first, who didn’t go to college and had a couple of movies that did well at the box office. Now she is seen as one of the most influential and powerful women in business.

Sources:

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2015/11/jessica-alba-honest-company-business-empire

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-honest-company-jessica-albas-diaper-business-valued-at-1-billion-ahead-of-ipo-9696344.html

Rihanna has done basically done it all in Hollywood as a businesswoman, fashion designer, and philanthropist and has multiple platinum songs and a successful acting career. But now she’s taken her Hollywood elite status to another level with her business venture, Fenty Beauty. Fenty Beauty, a cosmetics line she recently launched in September2017, known for its unique style of makeup that specializes in catering to women of color that includes over 40 different shades. They also have products that range from foundations and highlighters to bronzers, blush compacts, and lip gloss.They have since expanded to over 50 shades over the course of the year since its release. TIME magazine even named it as “one of the 25 Best Inventions of 2017“, and immediately the product began outperforming the Sephora, especially in the deeper tones of makeup.

However, in the long the run it all depends upon the sales that were generated. And the product more than delivered, bringing in a whopping $72 million in its first month of business alone. It also has showed no signs of slowing down and outperforming other celebrity beauty brands such as Kylie Cosmetics and KKW Beauty, from Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian West. The customers have even shown more support for Fenty Beauty and would spend over $450 dollars on Rihanna’s products. As shocking as it may seem to some others saw it coming because of Rihanna’s popularity on Instagram, with nearly 60 million followers, that she can advertise to. Also, it was one of the most Googled beauty brands of 2017. Whether Rihanna is singing, acting, or slowly creating one of the biggest beauty brands in the world, she is absolutely crushing the competition.

Rihanna Is Killing It As An Entrepreneur With Fenty Beauty

https://time.com/5023212/best-inventions-of-2017/