Hart Main

What is better than candles, man candles. This young entrepreneur saw a niche in a “Lit” market place, get it. It all started when he was teasing his sister about all the girly scented candles she had to sell for a fundraiser. This teasing led him to the idea that made him some serious cash. He was 13 years old when we started his business of selling manly smelling candles. He called, ManCans. The candles themselves are inside soup cans. His goal at the beginning of his business was to raise enough money to buy a $1,200 bike so he could participate in triathlons, he has exceeded that goal by an unimaginable amount.

Hart started out by selling to friends and families and as the interest picked up, the stores picked up his candles. Now his Soup Can candles re being sold in over 150 stores across the nation. Hart has also helped in the social aspect by donating large sums to soup kitchens. “To date, Main’s company has given 100,000 cans of soup and $35,000 to 25 soup kitchens in four states.”

All it took for him to get started was the idea, a supportive mother and $100 dollars in saving. At first the company was ran out of their house. The first 20,000 candles that they produced was in their home. The family would buy cans in bulk, donate them to soup kitchens and ask in return that the cans be returned to them. Now, for every candle .75 cents is donated to soup kitchens in his state of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginal and Michigan.

They have expanded their candle selection to appeal to the women. Hart and his father also wrote a book titled, “One Can, One Meal” to help educate the younger generation about entrepreneurship and how to get started.

Melanie Perkins was 19 years old when she was faced with a problem. She was fed up with the long amount of time that was required to do simple graphic designs. She didn’t understand why design had to be so confusing and technical. When Facebook was taking off, she realized how easily people were jumping into the social network and how they didn’t need lessons on how to use it, people just picked it up. A decade later Canva came into existence. It is a simple online design tool. This company is based in Sydney, Australia and is currently worth $458 Million Melanie is a university dropout whose company has over 10 million user in over 179 countries.

Her idea of Canva has allowed people with a range of design knowledge, from none to expert, be able to create beautiful and professional works.

She lists little pieces of advice for entrepreneurs

• Start niche
  • Don’t go after the huge problem, you might get lost. Start small and build your way up
• Get uncomfortable
  • Put yourself out there, get nervous. People can and will help you but you have to bare it all for them to care
• Overnight success is a lie
  • It took her 10 years to create her “perfect” company
  • There are many trials
  • It takes time to build great things
• Keep it simple
  • When everything and everyone is on the same page, decisions are easy and so it progress
• Keep it fun
  • Create a company that you want to work in
  • Make people want to achieve all they can

Melanie thinks that she is successful because she didn’t have any experience. So many people feel like the need to be experienced in the area that they are creating a business in, but what if sometimes it is the lack of experience that means the most. She wanted an easy design tool and if she had too much of a technical background the tool she created could have been too complex. She was her own target market and her target market didn’t have experience. She now owns 2 multi-million dollar software companies

Valentinos Tzekas is a Greek entrepreneur who believes that new entrepreneurship is the answer to Greeks failing economy. He created a mobile app called “Near-Check who is nearby.” It is a map that will let you see who is within two miles of you. This makes it so you don’t have to check Facebook, or call or text your friends. You and the other person would have to agree to let each other see your location, so a stranger with the app wouldn’t be able to see where you are. You always give permission to let people track you. He came up with this idea from a not so great problem, losing his friends at bars. (I did not know this until I got invested in the idea) He describes himself as a “one man army” and through everything he had to fixing this problem. He spent all of his own money on this idea, he sold almost everything in his room to fund this idea. He did all the coding himself, market research, and design one night. Valentinos sees this as an investment.

A very difficult part of starting this business though was the economic environment in his country at that point. Currently in Greece it is still bad, but has made some minor improvements. There was little hope in that country and any idea of starting a business was met with instance negativity. “They have lost their hope of a better future. They become reluctant to innovate. They stopped dreaming big,” says Tzekas. “My own friends, in trying to keep me safe, keep telling me about the odds of failing and wasting time and money. They say I can’t make a living as an entrepreneur in Greece. ‘Get a degree and a job.’ is what they say. Personally, I consider them to be closed-minded. No one really understands your dreams but you have to stick to your guns. If you think you can do it, do it.”

Greece offers very little for startup or young entrepreneurs and that acts as a further deterrent to start your own business. The thing that could help save the economy is being pushed aside and labeled unimportant. That doesn’t stop Tzekas, he says “I believe that startups offer the most promising solutions; a way out of this mess that will help my country to get up back on its feet.”

Simone and Jake Bernstein, and brother and sister duo created the company VolunTEEN. The two siblings were very active volunteers in their community and kept running into the same problem everywhere they went. They knew of kids that wanted to volunteer and help their community and they knew of places that greatly needed help, but there was a disconnect. There was no bridge between the active youth and the places that needed volunteers, so the Bernstein’s set out to build one. They first focused on helping locally in their home town of St. Louis and now with VolunTEEN nation they expanded it across the Country. Jake spoke about how as a teen he wanted to volunteer but at some times was forced to. He referenced college applications and resumes require a lot of extracurricular activities and volunteering helped the applicants stand out. For people who aren’t already in the volunteering world, never had experience, don’t know where to start, or don’t know the requirements, finding a place to get some hours can be a real challenge. Some locations require you to be a certain age, to have a certain amount of experience or availability and that is that VolunTEEN nation is trying simplify.

They created the website of locations that don’t require age limits nad are in need of help to try and get the names out there. The siblings said that I cost them a grand total of $48 to get the domain and website going. (today they said it would have cost them 99 cents to start it) This idea that cost them under $50earned them many awards and titles. Jake and Simone were recently recognized by Forbes magazine as top “30 under 30” social entrepreneurs. “Simone Bernstein was given the Jaffe Award, named one of Traditional Home’s Classic Women, one of the 2013 Glamour Top 10 College Women, 2010 L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth, January 2011 Huffington Post Person of the Day.” Their sister, Sophie has received multiple grants from organizations across the Country to plant gardens, harvest the plants, and deliver that fresh produce to local food banks to help feed the hungry. Sophie got into the business after it was set up but is now the President of VolunTEEN Nation and Go Healthy St. Louis.

When asked to give young entreprenuers advice in starting their own venture, this is what Jake had to say, “We are so thankful for the assistance we have received in growing VolunTEEN Nation.   You don’t need to have any coding skills or money to set up a website: hosting discounts and free web templates give everyone the chance to publish something online. Additionally, social media can be your friend in making professional connections — use it.”

Ellen Chilemba. 21, Malawi. Founder, Tiwale

This young women is from Africa and she is setting out to help women become more independent and self-reliant. She is accomplishing this through “microloans” . Microloans are what they sound like, small loans. The amount usually ranges anywhere between $5,000 and $100,000. The goal is to help small business get the cash that they need to start their own business or the money allows them to take a bigger risk with their business. Risks can allow a company to reap more profit if executed correctly; some businesses don’t ever get the opportunity to take risks that they deem worth it because they don’t have enough money to fall back on. She founded the company Tiwale to help solve this problem. The name Tiwale means “to shine/glow” in her native language of Chichewa. She is focused on helping women better their future but raising awareness and funds for them. She started this venture by teaching Malawain women how to make dye print African fabric and saving up the money they earned. With this saved money she created the micro loans that she gave to women starting or expanding their businesses. To this date 150 women have participated in Tiwale.

She was featured in “Humans of New York” and “Forbes most promising young Entrepreneurs” both of which greatly helped to expose her and her business. She hasn’t stopped at microfinance though, she wants to build more resources for women. One idea that she has been growing and starting to put into action is opening a women’s shelter in the community of Lilongwe, Malawi. She has a plot of land currently and is in the process of raising funds for it. She wants the center to provide secondary education classes in the hope that those women will be able to get their MSCE (Malawi Secondary Certificate of Education.)

When asked what the best part of her job was she responded with, “It is the ideas that burst up once we get together. It’s amazing the strength we find in a community. Whenever our community meets, business ideas and education aspirations are always floating around. We are a positive group. My favorite moments are when a member has an idea and another member suggests a connection or supplier. Even though money is essential to sustain our opportunities, the biggest benefit is mobilizing each other.”

Alina Morse took something she loves, candy and successfully solved a huge problem around it. The problem? It’s not good for your teeth and overall health. With this situation she created Zollie pops, lollipops that are good for you! She was 7 years old when she came up with the idea! Now she is ten, the creator is a very successful company and has been invited to the white house twice. The ingredients that make her candy different from others is xylitol and erythritol. They are proven to reduce cavities. Her product also helps to reduce the after effect of acid after meals. When it came down to research and development she went to the other kids for their input. The reviews were everything she could have ever hoped for. This young inventor used her inheritance from her grandparents to start the company. She is not just in it for the profits, she has set aside 10% of her profits to help bring oral education to schools. She is 10 and doing so much for this issue, this just goes to show that with the right outlook, any obstacle in manageable .

At the White House Easter Egg hunter there was one type of candy dished out, hers. It has become a real hit with the First Lady and goes very well with her health initiative. When she was asked why she came up with the idea she says it was to help make people’s lives easier, like parents, especially mothers. She did thorough research, she went to her doctors, to health stores and relied a lot on her parents to help her perfect the first batch. She knew that she made a product that would make a big hit when her younger sister, a VERY picky eater, loved them.

She urges young entrepreneurs to never think that a project it too big, and to not allow others to tell you what you can and cannot do.