When it comes to making money at a young age reselling is one of the simplest and most efficient ways to do it. At the young age of 16 Benjamin Kapelushnik made the decision to resell sneakers and it changed his life. His company, Benjamin Kickz would grow into something much more than a kid trying to make money. Now in the industry, most people call him, “The Sneaker Don.” If you don’t know, the sneaker reselling industry is a crazy market, and before reading about ben I didn’t know that shoes could be that expensive. Ben’s plan of attack is pretty simple. He buys multiple pairs of the same shoes when they come out, then he sells them at a way higher price than they originally were. I think Ben has shown great signs of entrepreneurship and it should be motivating to all the kids out there to make money. Some of his most famous clients include DJ Khaled and Antonio Brown. I connect with Ben directly because my friends and I run a sports card business. Ben and my team have similar ideas when it comes to reselling. How we do it is we buy packs for around 7 dollars in hopes of pulling cards that we can sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. In just one summer of operation, we made over 3,000 dollars from just buying and selling cards. As you can see, one of the easiest ways to make money at a young age is to simply resell.

When struggling researching for another young entrepreneur, I remembered someone from my years in High School. Zech Wu, but more commonly known as Wu has made a great name for himself in the photography and videography field in western Pennsylvania. Wu’s story starts at a small catholic High School named Vincentian.  In Zech was a class of 2020 graduate, and that was the final graduating class of the high school. Vincentian had a very successful basketball team, and Zech was the team manager for them.  My connection to Wu starts here. When Vincentian closed in 2020 a few of the basketball players from their team transferred to Bishop Canevin (my high school). These players became some of my best friends, and I am still friends with them to this day. In 2022 when my high school basketball team was making a run at a Pennsylvania state championship our coach hired someone named Wu. I remembered him from the very successful Vincentian team, and he became our official team photographer. After that season, Zech attended the University of Pittsburgh and started filming Football and Basketball for the school. His work is truly amazing. Wu separates himself from many photographers due to his quality. In western PA, photographers have been on the rise. I see more and more at every sporting event, and this is due to Wu’s success. They witnessed how successful he was and wanted to make a name for themselves as well. After graduating from Pitt, Wu got a job as the head photographer for the University of Arizona’s Men’s Basketball team! As you can see this personal connection made me think of Wu to write about his journey as a young entrepreneur.

When it comes to young entrepreneurs, I try to find people that intrigue me. Staying within the topic of sports or fitness really catch my attention. Someone I found interesting was Will Ahmed, Will was the creator of the WHOOP band. If you haven’t heard of WHOOP, it is a fitness tracking device that tracks your activity levels and sleep. WHOOP is not like your typical Apple Watch or Fitbit though. WHOOP prides themselves on its Quality and attention to detail on tracking your goals. As said in an interview from founder Will Ahmed, “To unlock human performance. We believe every individual has an inner potential that you can tap into if you can better understand your body and your behaviors. We’ve built technology across hardware, software and analytics designed to continuously understand you.” This is the mission from WHOOP. The band blew up when famous athletes like Michael Phelps, Lebron James, and Patrick Mahomes started to rock the band. Fun Fact, Patrick Mahomes has worn the band in every NFL game that he has played in since his partnership with the company. The thing that I found that makes WHOOP different than any other health tracking device on the market is its ability to make the user as healthy as possible. Even though these top-level athletes wear the band, doesn’t mean that someone who just works out two times a week can’t wear the band and get the same benefits. The band helps whoever wears it and maximizes your health. As you can see I thought Will Ahmed was a great entrepreneur to pick for my fourth blog post.

Marques Brownlee, better known as “MKBHD” is one of the most prominent figures in the tech industry. Marques found success in the late 2000s on YouTube when he was just in High School. MKBHD has almost 20 million subscribers who review the newest tech products and is regarded as one of the best at his job. Brownless’s Carrer has grown offline too, as he is also a professional Ultimate Frisbee player. Brownlee started to take off in the mid-2010s. Brownlee has seen most of his success when the new technology of the year comes out, including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and more. Recently MKBHD has seen a lot of growth in its channel through the rise of AI. In recent years, content creators have transitioned from making videos to creating podcasts. Marques created his very own podcast named Waveform. Like his YouTube videos, he talks about tech and gadgets. MKBHD also gained a lot of respect for his knowledge of electric cars. He was on the wave of electric cars way before anyone else was. Outside of the camera, he has interviewed many pristine individuals. He has interviewed Elon Musk, Kobe Bryant, and even Mark Zuckerburg. I chose to write about MKBHD because I have been following him since around 2015 and always look to him for opinions on the newest tech. also, I loved watching him interview these people and seeing the “behind the scenes” of their ideas. Marques is still making videos to this day and still has his edge on most creators. As you can see, MKBHD developed his brand from a young age into something much greater than that.

Who would have ever thought that simple backyard trick shots could turn into a 9-figure business, well Dude Perfect did just that and their story is quite fascinating. The story starts with 5 buddies who roomed at Texas A&M and loved sports. In 2009, the group decided to make a video on YouTube of trick shots that they had made, and they immediately realized they had something special. The video had over 100,000 views by the time they woke up the next morning, so they continued what they were doing and they never looked back. Now, Dude Perfect has over 450 videos and over 60 million subscribers. One thing that caught my eye about the groups is their view of family-friendly entertainment. When you think of your typical college kids making YouTube videos, I bet you don’t think of family-friendly. Something I found interesting was back when they first started, one of the first major companies to try and work with the group was Budweiser. The group turned down, what was probably a big chunk of change, just so that they could stay family-friendly.  The group is now turning their brand from the internet to real products. A fund named Highmount Capital reportedly invested between 100-300 million dollars into the group for their expansion.  They plan on expanding into a retail store, a streaming service, toys, games, and even its own theme park. The group continues to grow to this day, and I believe this is just the start for the guys and this business they have created will be like the next Disney.

Alina Morse who was just 7 years old at the time came up with the great idea of Zollipops. It all started when Alina and her father were at a bank when the teller offered her a lollipop, and when she was excited to accept her, her father immediately reminded her that candy was horrible for her teeth and that is when the light bulb struck. Zollipop started a market of their own, before the there was never a “healthy” candy. Their product consists of all-natural ingredients that are way better for your teeth than the artificial ingredients in your typical bag of candy. I actually have a personal experience with this product. My aunt is an orthodontist and would always carry zollipops with her. Anytime we would see her she would give us these “sugar-filled” lollipops not knowing they were good for our teeth. We later found out about this scam when we were around 13 years old. Zoli Candy has a great slogan that is an attention grabber, cavity prevention. When you think of candy the last thing you think of is cavity prevention, so when you see that slogan with candy you’re bound to stop and look at it. Zoli Candy originally started with lollipops, but they have expanded to just about every candy you could think of. Taffy, caramel, gummies, chocolate, they have found a way to make these good for your teeth. The science behind Zoli is pretty crazy though. They claim that eating one of their products will balance the pH levels and your mouth and balance the acidity, ultimately preventing cavities. As you can see, even at the young age of 7 Alina Morse was able to create a product that has never been on the market before, and it just continues to grow more and more every year.