At 10 years old Samaira Mehta become CEO of her own company. When she was very young her father taught her how to code. She fell in love with everything coding and began researching online for materials for first time coders. As she was searching, she couldn’t find adequate resources and realized there was a demand in the market. She wanted other young people like her to be able to easily learn coding, so she started brainstorming ways to solve that problem. Eventually she landed on a board game. With the help of designers and game manufacturers in China and New Zealand she designed her game “CoderBunnyz”.

Later she went on to create another educational game called “CoderMindz”. That game is a coding based artificial intelligence board game that teaching people AI concepts using Java. Samaira is so passionate about coding, and she believes that it is the key to the future in the next 10 to 15 years. She figures if she can teach people this skill at a young age it will drastically help their careers as they grow up. She also figured out that learning is easier when it’s fun, so she made a board game out of it.

Her company had a total revenue of $600,000 and sold around 15,000 games in 2019. Now Samaira travels to different places and speaks to students and conferences about STEM education. Even huge companies like Google and Facebook have taken an interest in her. Google invited her to speak at an event and Facebook donated over 100 of her games to schools. Google has actually offered her a job for when she gets older.

If you would like to read the full article, use this link:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/meet-the-10-year-old-coder-grabbing-googles-attention.html

At the age of 13, Hart main wanted to buy a $1,500 bike in order to start competing in triathlons. He brainstormed ideas on how to achieve that goal and he landed on starting his own candle company. He always teased his sister for her candles because they had girly scents, so he decided to make candles that had scents more tailored for men. Hart named his creation Mancans. At first Hart and his family were making the candles out of their home. The unique part about the candles are they are made using soup cans. As the demand for the candles grew their house became overcrowded with soup cans so they moved the business to a warehouse. They hired some employees and in 2014 the company began manufacturing with the Beaver Creek Candle Co. in Lisbon. All of the candles are masculine themed including campfire, bacon, sawdust, fresh cut grass, and grandpa’s pipe.  Many of the scents are created by the Main family but others are suggested by customers. As of 2016 Hart’s candles are sold in every state and sales above 6 figures each year. His business is also focused on giving back. He gives a percentage of the sales to soup kitchens in multiple states, 75 cents for every candle sale to be exact. His candles are also produced by a workforce consisting of people with developmental challenges.

Hart has continued to grow his successful candle business, and he also wrote a book. His book is called “One Candle, One Meal”. Main wants to teach young entrepreneurs the lessons he learned through his business and encourage other young people to follow in his footsteps. His book can be bought on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and Total Fusion Press. Hart then went to Kent State to study economics and plans to be a sports agent while continuing to reap rewards from his business.

Here is the link to the story if you would like to read more.

https://www.timesreporter.com/story/news/local/2015/07/21/young-entrepreneur-hart-main-17/985981007/

Young Cory Nieves was in kindergarten, and he realized how much he hated taking the bus to school. In order to solve that problem, he began selling hot chocolate at his friend’s restaurant to save up money and buy his mom a car so she could drive him to school. Then he expanded his hot chocolate empire by adding cookies to the menu. Initially Cory struggled making cookies that weren’t too hard or soft. Eventually Cory mastered the perfect cookie and people began taking interest. Due to the increased demand and health concerns, they moved the business into their house and then finally a commercial kitchen in 2012. This allowed them to mass produce the adored cookies and sell them nationalwide.

Started when he was just 6 years old, Mr. Cory’s Cookies is now a huge success. One reason his cookies are so popular is that 75% of the ingredience are organic with no preservatives. They also pitched the business on the show “The Profit” and managed to get a $100,000 investment. Their product has been on the shelves of huge retailers in the US like Aetna, Barney’s, Bloomingdales, Citibank, Macy’s, Pottery Barn, and Whole Foods. It is estimated that Cory now has a net worth of $1 million, which means he accomplished his mission of making enough to buy his mom a car, so he doesn’t have to ride the bus. Although, he is a little too old for riding the bus now.

Mikaila Ulmer grew up with a fear of bees. Fortunately, she got over that fear and discovered bees are useful for something they make, honey. Everyone loves themselves some honey and Mikaila realized that and became determined to make money off of it. She took her grandma’s flaxseed lemonade recipe and added a twist to it with some honey. This delicious drink immediately became a hit with all of her friends in family, so she knew she had to start selling it.

Starting the business by herself was going to be hard, she knew she would need some help. So, at just 9 years old Mikaila went on shark tank to get some guidance and funding for her knew lemonade business. She managed to get a deal with Daymond John for $60,000. She is now running a successful business called Me & the Bees Lemonade. The lemonade product is available for purchase in all 50 states through retailers like Target, Whole Foods, and Publix. Sales have soared to a total of more than $10 million. Her company has the production ability of 12,000 cases of lemonade per day.

This inspirational young entrepreneur started out with the fear of bees, to running and little lemonade stand in her neighborhood, to starting a million-dollar business. Mikaila is a great example of the adjacent possible. She took honey and her grandma’s lemonade recipe and created a new twist on lemonade. I have to say that is a sweet idea.

Angelina Ly was a 14-year-old middle schooler when she saw the slime movement exploding. Just like many other kids she loved to watch videos and play with slime, but she enjoyed making her own as well.  After putting in countless slime filled hours in her home lab, she mastered her slime craft. She began showing off her creations to slime enthusiasts on TikTok and Instagram. Initially, she though it was silly to post her slime on social media, but she consistently did it because she enjoyed it so much. After a while she began growing a following and her followers kept messaging her wanting to buy her slime. When Angelina realized there was a big market for this, she knew she could make a lot of money if she made a business. This caused her to create her business, Fireflyslime.

Five years later, her slime business has grown exponentially. She is now primarily on Shopify, and she has $100,000 in annual revenue. She is also networking with other passionate slimers at slime conventions. Her social media following is huge, and she is coming up with new creative slimes every day. Her product is so popular that when she drops a new slime on her website, 90% of it sells out within 10 minutes. Having product “drops” is a huge part of her business strategy. She hypes up a new product before it comes out on her social media, creating a huge demand, and then she will drop it after leveraging all the social media power she can.

To this day she still makes most of the slime and packages it for shipping herself. Angelina is an inspirational story of a young entrepreneur who had a passion for something, saw a market and demand, and seized the opportunity by putting herself out there and working hard. I tip my hat to you Angelina.

If you would like to read Angelina’s full slime story, click here