Mark Barbera, of Somerset Pennsylvania, always had an interest working on shoes. He used to patch up, restitch, and glue his friends’ shoes back together for them. He attended Bishop McCort High School, located in Johnstown PA.

Barbera is, currently only 19 years old, recently ran into a problem when he was boot shopping. Interviewed for an editorial in the tribune democrat, Barbera said that, “I just wasn’t satisfied with the quality of what was out there for the price I was willing to pay.”

Barbera took his passion for shoes and decided to tackle this problem himself. He decided to make his own brand of boots. The business is called Mark Albert Boot Co. Barbera has not yet started any type of large scale production, as he first needs funding. He has started a Kickstarter profile for this company, and hopes to first start with a launch of 120 boots to hit the market. To learn more about the details of this venture and to find out about the funding efforts, check out the full Tribune Democrat article here.

What is most inspiring about Barbera’s venture is his independent drive. The Johnstown, or Western PA area in general, may not be thought of as a the place that is ripe with business opportunities or a strong economy. However, Barbera is looking past that and is simply pursuing his passion right where he is. He is most definitely a builder. He is making his own designer boots right in PA and plans on selling them for a good price.

People like Barbera are what many regions like Western PA need. Young entrepreneurs who can connect with millennial buyers hold much potential in helping to rebuilt and restart local economies. It will be interesting to see what happens with Barbera’s business. As a Johnstown native, and as someone who needs new boots, if his product were already on the market, I would consider buying them now. Hopefully other people will be thinking the same way down the line, and there can be a cycle of millennial entrepreneurs and professionals supporting each other in local markets.

If you want to be impressed, just look at Evan Spiegel’s profile on Forbes.

To list a couple quick things about him, according to this site:

-He co-founded with his friend at Stanford in 2011

-His net worth is now $2.1 Billion

-Every day over $100 million people use Snapchat

If you look the profile of this young entrepreneur on Forbes, you will be hit with one interesting and astonishing stat after another. But there are two things that make Spiegel’s story really cool. One is that he innovated on a process for communication, and two he followed his vision for the company

1. With smartphones and the internet, instant messaging is now second nature. People doubtlessly take this ability for granted. One great add on in messaging that people have enjoyed is sending pictures to their friends so they can actually see what they’re up to or we’re they’re at, rather than just describe it. There is no doubt that Spiegel was pondering over this process of sending pictures while at Standford and realized himself, that there could most definitely be an app simply meant for sending pictures to friends. Spiegel jumped on this idea, but by making the app social and fun, he was able to raise his company to the same levels as Facebook and Twitter. He was able to differentiate his app and make it a truly fun experience for users.

2.  This leads to another cool fact about Spiegel: According to his Forbes profile, “In late 2013, Spiegel turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook.” Spiegel could have taken $3 billion and sat back and relaxed, but instead, this young entrepreneur had a vision and wanted to make his app something special, and differentiate it from Facebook. This is inspiring, as Spiegel stood up to a tech giant and still made his company successful, to the point where people use Snapchat on their phones just as much as they use Facebook. Snapchat is continually changing, but many of the basic fun aspects of the app remain. It goes to show that good things can happen if you believe in a vision and don’t sell yourself short.

We are all used to hearing people complain about other generations of people: its’s not uncommon to hear middle age adults and young parents complain about millennials being snobbish, entitled, or know-it-alls. Or, millennials complain about older generations being narrow minded, boring, or being bad with computers.

Crystal Kadakia saw the tension between generation gaps and realized she could make a business out of helping companies connect employees of different ages. Her consulting business, called Invati Consulting, has the motto “We Design the Organization of the Future. Inspired by millennials, built for generations to come.”

Kadakia, after working in training programs for a Fortune 100 companies for 6 years, seems to communicate that her business opportunity lied in this realization, “Instead of focusing on generational differences and relatively meaningless comparison charts, I would focus on competencies we need in those moments of generation collaboration.”

Starting a consulting business may not seem like the most exciting venture, but Kadakia has no doubt hit on something big: she is trying to help organizations in this new approach on focusing on good things that can from age gaps in employees. Kadakia does speaking events, and it would no doubt be very interesting to hear her thoughts on how Millennials and Baby-Boomers, for example, have come together in various to do great things in the business worlds.

To learn more about Kadakia’s story, check out this Huffington Post Article.

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Often times, young skateboarders may be perceived as rebellious teens; or even trouble makers. Many times, this is because skaters go to different public areas to skate and get yelled at by authorities or police. In Johnstown, PA this was not unheard of.

In the early 2000s, a young man made Josh Knipple had a vision to combine two things he was passionate about in a special way: sharing the gospel and skateboarding. Josh put his vision to action and turned an old warehouse into a skate park for locals to enjoy for free. The park is only open on certain nights of the week, but during each night the skaters are there, Josh has an intermission where he invites everyone to come listen to his message. It is during this time that him and others share encouraging stories and mini sermons, spreading the good news of Christ.

What is fascinating about Josh’s story is how he lives out his faith in a very entrepreneurial way: he combined two seemingly different activities (skateboarding and ministry) in a special way that has helped to change many lives for the better in his home town.

Josh’s story is encouraging because it goes to show that starting a new movement, organization, or business can come from simply combining different things your passionate about in creative ways. Josh’s goal in taking the leap of transforming the warehouse to a skate park was not to become a millionaire or even to make a huge profit; what he really wanted to do was help change peoples’ lives by sharing the gospel. By bringing Christian messages to the   young people at his skate park, Josh has been making a positive impact and has been an amazing role model in the local community.

Josh is a also a pastor at Crucified Church. Check out the church’s website here, and check out the Life Over Death Skatepark page (formerly known as crucified skatepark) here.

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For those of you living in apartments, you know peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are essential to your survival. But would you ever expect that making a PP&J would actually be a turning point in your life?

This is the case for Erika Welsh and Keeley Tillotson. When they were juniors in college, the two girls were out of peanut butter, so they decided to have a little fun and make their own. After adding some different ingredients, the girls decided that their end product was so good that it was something they could sell to others.

After being on Shark Tank and gaining Barbara as an investor, the girls’ company Wild Friends Peanut Nut (formerly known as Wild Squirrel) is now very successful and selling in many of the big retail stores. The brand is successful because there are so many unique flavors; it’s not just your boring old plain peanut butter. To find out more about the Shark Tank story and the rest of the girls’ backstory, check out this article from the Gazette Review.

What is fascinating about Welsh and Tollotsons entrepreneurial journey is how it all started. How many people use Peanut Butter every day? How many people decide they’re going to make their own uniquely flavored peanut butter, and then try to launch it large scale and sell it all around the country? The college girls’ story is a great example of taking an everyday product and putting a spin on it to make something new. It leads to people to go back to the classic question: “Why didn’t I think of that?” Looking back it seems obvious- everyone always eats the same normal peanut butter, so why not create a new brand and make all kinds of different flavors?

We’re seeing people come up with multi- million dollar innovations in the science and tech industry all the time, and this can sometimes seem like the epitome of success. Welsh and Tillotson, with their entrepreneurial journey, remind as that the little innovations that are right there in front of us can provide just as much joy. Their story is inspiring because it is a reminder that there is always something that can be improved, or there is something fun waiting to be created.

There are plenty of fun and quirky inventions one can see on Shark Tank, but it is exciting to see something on the show that looks like it will truly take off in a big way.

Ben and Eric Kusin’s product, the Reviver clothing wipe, seems to be a product that could most definitely take off. The brothers presented their product on the show in 2014, and ended up with a $150,000 investment from QVC guru Lori. Check out story of the deal and learn about this product’s history on the shark tank blog site at http://sharktankblog.com/business/reviver/.

A New Product Category?

This blog post you are reading will focus more on just how significant the brother’s new product really is. The analogy of the Reviver clothing wipe being like a breathe mint for clothes is accurate. This is definitely the kind of product that people could look at and say, “why didn’t I think of that?”

If you ponder deeply about the Reviver, you may begin thinking that there are already other products that fill the need of getting rid of unwanted smells on clothes.

However, this product seems to be by far the most conservative way to get rid of a smell: you don’t have to douse yourself in cologne (or Axe… do you want to be that guy?), you don’t have to put your clothes in the wash (well at some point you probably should… but this at least delays that task).

The product is great for when you’re in a pinch. One of the best examples given is by the entrepreneur himself, Ben Kusin. Basically, Ben had been smoking a cigarette and had a meeting to go to soon. He did not want to smell like smoke in this meeting. Presumably, he didn’t have enough time to go change his clothes, and he didn’t want to spray himself with cologne or something else (sometimes these smells can be way too strong). The Reviver swipe fulfills this need perfectly. You wipe down your suit, and wazzam- you don’t smell like smoke.

As the Shark Tank blog explains, “There is literally nothing like Reviver on the market today and Ben has a patent pending. While the product isn’t proven yet, it has a lot of upside as other clothing fresheners come in spray form.” If there really is nothing like Reviver on the market today, then for this company, business is going to be booming.(Assuming they receive the patent and the product passes further tests).

Business will be booming because Reviver will have a huge advantage: they will be first to the market of deodorizing clothing swipes. This is tremendously advantageous for the company, as they can establish their brand as the original. This could very well be a product that is very popular in the near future, and it is really cool to be able to see the inventors pitch their idea in the first stages before takeoff. Check out part of the Kusins appearance on Shark Tank here

Do you think Reviver will take off?

Could you see this product being useful for you at any point?