Author Archive for williamsef24

Rafay Iqbal: Drip Studio

Posted by williamsef24 
· Sunday, November 3rd, 2024 
· 2 Comments

Rafay Iqbal founded Drip Studio in 2021.  Their goal is to completely provide a company’s brand, web, and story to make it cohesive to the target audience.  For the brand, Drip Studio focuses on the brand identity, collateral, strategy, and experience.  They also design and develop the company’s website and the digital touch points.  Drip Studio also does research for the company.  Additionally, as a retainer, they do campaign work, create advertisements, and have ongoing design support.  The one thing that really caught my eye is that they will do fundraising initiatives for the company.  For example, Drip Studio will prepare and design presentations, help the company’s story be crafted to then get funds from donors, and even create capital raise templates.  Since Drip Studio has started, they have helped to raise $750 million and support environment goals by helping to develop sustainable technology.  They take the ideas their clients have and make them tangible and achievable, all the while supporting environmental causes.

This innovation is so unique because they have found their niche: helping startups have funds and be able to grow.  Drip Studio is the boost that so many ideas and startups need to help them get their feet under them.  At the same time, they are also working with larger organizations, like Forbes, to help make their vision a full and complete brand.  I think it is so valuable how Drip Studio is not only connecting all the dots but making the connections smooth and flowing into one another.  It is continuous problem solving and solution finding.  Each company is different, and yet each solution is seamless.

Also, looking at their website is so interesting.  Drip Studio shares some of the companies they work with, their problems, and how they found a solution.  Their transparency here is incredible because it adds to their credibility by show casing their work and then draws in potential customers by demonstrating the tangibility of their work.  Their own branding is impeccable as it all flows together so smoothly and without any cracks.

2 Comments
Categories : Advertisement, Entrepreneurship, Marketing

Jessica Pegula: Ready 24

Posted by williamsef24 
· Sunday, October 27th, 2024 
· 2 Comments

Jessica Pegula is a tennis player ranked 24 among WTA players.  She has played tennis since she was ten and struggled with skincare.  She tried so many products and could not find one that fit her.  Plus, her skin was struggling because there was too much going on.  She needed something that was for athletes, clean, and simple.  This led her to create her own skincare line.  Pegula had hip surgery and lots of time in her recovery.  In her downtime, she formed Ready 24.

Ready 24 has four lines: cleansers, essence water, moisturizer, and recovery skin products.  She worked with a company in her hometown and used focus groups to formulate, test, and refine her products.  She uses her own products and so do other tennis players!  She got Ready 24 into Wegmans, online, social media, and at tennis events.

Pegula said that it really hit her that she was really starting a business when she was making the labels for the products one day.  She told

Ready 24 | Happy birthday to our amazing founder Jessie! Send her some love in the comments 🩵🎉 #jessicapegula #femalefounded #womeninbusiness… | InstagramHologic WTA Tour, “I was thinking to myself, `This is so weird. I can’t believe I’m writing a label for people to use.’ It was so hands-on. Honestly, it was really pretty cool.”

Jessia Pegula’s parents also inspired and helped her.  They helped to provide the initial investment and continually offer feedback and ideas.  He dad is always full of ideas, and her mom knows how to make it a reality and take risks.

Pegula is driven by her own experiences.  Her story is similar to mine because I too had hip surgery and played tennis.  It is so hard to find the good in the midst of recovery.  Her life was tennis, and she could have been wallowing in her own self-pity, but instead she found a need and addressed it.  She used what was in front of her

as an opportunity.

2 Comments
Categories : Athletics, Beauty, beauty products, Business, Skin care, Sports

Ameen Fadel: Cedar Valley

Posted by williamsef24 
· Sunday, October 13th, 2024 
· No Comments

Ameen Fadel started a pita chip business called “Cedar Valley.”  This business started as a high school project.  He received $3,000 from his school board and worked with his mom to make a Lebanese salad dressing– this is a family recipe.  It took two years to finalize the recipe.  In 2017, they went to their first farmer’s market. They sold pita chips with the dressing, but people wanted to buy the chips too.  This was the first step changing what they thought the business would be.  Ameen Fadel and his mom got a facility to make the chips and then got their products into grocery stores.  In 2020, they moved into a 5,000 square foot location to keep up with the demand.  They continued to expand to over 1,800 retail locations.  In 2023, they went onto the “Dragons’ Den” which is Canada’s version of Shark Tank and made a one million deal.

It is amazing how Ameen and his mom stuck with this idea.  It took them a whole two years to finalize the dressing, and that is not even their business today.  They did not become discouraged, but rather thrived in their iterations.  In the beginning, they focused so much on this one product that they were blinded to other opportunities until they talked with their customers.  They took so many risks, but these were also calculated and needed.  They risked by changing their main product and risked by the continual expansion.

This family was driven by wanting to share with the world their experiences and their love for their heritage. They did not initially think this could be as profitable as it was today; they were not in it for the money!  They started at a farmer’s market, but their internal motivation fueled them to continue.

Check out them at their website: https://cedarvalleyselections.ca/

No Comments
Categories : Baking, Cooking, Entrepreneurship, Food

Intertwined

Posted by williamsef24 
· Sunday, September 29th, 2024 
· 2 Comments

Intertwined is a business that helps people with the resources to learn about financial literacy.  Kerry Ao and Naina Muvva are the cofounders, and they found that 80% of Americans do not have the know about financial literacy.  Therefore, they created Intertwined to help people learn about this through a tailormade education platform using artificial intelligence.

Naina Muvva was just a junior in high school when she identified this need.  Her and Kerry Ao were both in their business club, and they would teach their peers about stocks.  They realized that they could expand this through using simulations and games by AI creation to teach more people about these concepts.  The use of AI allows for questions to be rephrased to help the user learn information.

In two years, there were over 2,800 students nationwide using Intertwined.  She further advanced her education by going to Washington University.  Ms. Muvva majored in medical anthropology, but also used the WashU entrepreneurship program.  She found much needed support and help there.  She and her cofounded were named in Forbes “30 Under 30.”

In an interview with WashU, Ms. Muvva gives advice to other young entrepreneurs.  She says that there will be setbacks, but those need to be expected.  She also says the growth will not be all at once, but rather “wobbly,” still it needs work poured into it.

Check out Intertwined here!

2 Comments
Categories : AI, Education, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Uncategorized

Audrey McAlister: Sunrise Hill Boutique

Posted by williamsef24 
· Sunday, September 22nd, 2024 
· 1 Comment

SunriseHillBoutique Etsy Header

Audrey McAlister is eighteen years old and started a polymer clay jewelry business when she was sixteen.  When she was ten, she would make food for her dolls out of clay.  When she was sixteen, she found some old polymer clay and wanted to express that same joy, passion, and creativity she had when she was younger.  When she looked on Etsy, she found people were making food out of clay and into jewelry pieces.  I met Audrey over the summer at a camp.  She has so many skills and is always trying to improve her business and connect with customers.

Audrey uses Instagram to promote and advertise her Etsy store.  She offers unique deals and offers.  For example, around her birthday she offers a “Birthday Sale,” where she offered eighteen percent off the week of her eighteenth birthday.  Audrey also works to connect to her customers.  Most of her demographic are Christians, so she would post a Bible verse on Sundays.

She is not driven by the profits, but rather the joy of making something beautiful and reliving the fun she had doing this once at ten years old.  Audrey’s efforts demonstrate her ability to empathize with her customers and the ability to adapt.  Her advertising is appealing to her demographic and helps to draw in sales.  

Her creativity is inspiring.  Each of her designs are unique and handcrafted; she pays attention to even the minuteness of details, and ensures her customers are receiving the best product she can produce.  I am not artistically talented like Audrey is, but I can empathize with my customers like she does.  I learned that the work can be primarily for the joy of it.  She loves making this jewelry and continues to do it because of this love.

1 Comment
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Clay, eCommerce, Gen Z, Instagram, Jewelry