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