App :: Page 7 :: millennialentrepreneurs.com

Archive for App – Page 7

Nick Evans: Tile

Posted by Avalon Parsons

· Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019

· 3 Comments

Evans started out pursuing an engineering career, he got his dream job with MindTribe Product Engineering, yet he always felt like he was meant for more, something bigger. Evans tried to start up a company called LiveSprout which allowed people to grow real plants virtually, which means that people would order a plant online and Evans and his robot would care for the plant until it was grown and then they would ship it to you. A few months later, Evans noticed that his company was not doing well, so he called a friend. Evans was asked how this would make an impact and then he realized that he did not have a good answer, so he shut down LiveSprout and started to look for a job. When Evans found a job he kept thinking of ways to start his own business, in this time though, he figured out what motivated him and what he wanted to do.

Evans called an old co-worker, Mike Farley, and asked if he wanted to start a business together, within 24 hours they were making calls to figure out how to get their business, Tile, to take off. It originally started as a side project, they kept their full time jobs and worked on this during nights and on weekends. They eventually decided to pursue this full time because of all of the positive feedback that they had received. Tile is a small tracking device that you can put on many items that you easily lose, such as keys or a wallet, and it has an app that is compatible with IOS devices. When starting a campaign to raise money, donations were rolling in like crazy! in just 34 days they had raised $2.4 million from pre-orders. It is only $20 for one Tile, Evans and Farley wanted to differentiate themselves by making a cheap product that lasts a year, they believe that it will keep customers coming back and purchasing another Tile since it works well and is cheap.

Evans stated that it is critical to surround yourself with people who share similar ideas with you. Its essential for growth and productivity. There will be like-minded people wherever you go, sometimes it is harder to find them, usually they will all be in a specific area due to a problem there that needs to be solved, just like how Evans moved to the West Coast to pursue Tile.

3 Comments

Categories : App, Engineering, Technology

Benjamin Pasternak

Posted by Emily Fiol

· Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019

· 5 Comments

Benjamin Pasternak was born September 6, 1999 in Sydney, New South Wales, AU. What made Ben famous was a smartphone game that he created in class when he was 14, it was called Impossible Rush and he sold it later for $200. This game became a huge hit which led to him creating a second smartphone game, Impossible Dial, which also was a huge success and was sold for $85,000. After these two games Ben came up with Flogg, a social media specifically for teens that allowed them to sell and buy things on. Flogg was for a short time the no. 1 trending app in the United States, Germany, and Australia. After the success of Flogg Ben dropped out of high school and moved to Manhattan. In 2016 Monkey, an App that Ben co-founded, was launched; it was an app for teenagers to meet people through a short video chat. Monkey hit no.1 on the US Apple App Store. In 2017 Monkey was sold to Holla for an unknown amount. In 2018 Ben started a new company called NUGGS which engineered a vegan “chicken nugget”; This company is aimed at ending factory farming. Now Ben is still working on NUGGS and we have yet to see if it will be a success but from what he has accomplished in his past I believe he has a high chance of creating another successful product. If Ben Pasternak does not inspire you, I don’t know who will, he created three new apps and is the CEO of his own business at age 20. That is inspiring.

5 Comments

Categories : App, Business, Creating, Food

Daniel Ek- The Man Behind The Music

Posted by Rebecca Cloyd

· Saturday, September 28th, 2019

· 2 Comments

Most millennial’s probably can not remember a time without a music app. Starting with Pandora then transitioning to other apps such as Spotify and Apple music, these apps have changed the way we view and enjoy music. Daniel Ek, a Swedish entrepreneur is the man behind the popularly used app Spotify. This entrepreneurs story is different than most. His creative thinking process began when he was 14 but did not begin to take off until he was 24. In an interview with CNBC he said “I had always wanted to belong and I had been thinking that this was going to get solved when I had money, and instead I had no idea how I wanted to live my life”. Rather than living a life full of partying and useless activities, he decided to move away from that scene and focus what is important and meaningful to him. His separation from what he thought he wanted in life is where his idea for Spotify first started. The creation of the app began in 2006 in Sweden and was launched two years later in 2008.It was not until 2012 that Spotify was first introduced to the United States. Spotify started out with a fairly simple model with the option to listen for free or purchase a subscription, but has developed significantly over the years by expanding the music selection, adding podcasts and allowing users to put together and “download” playlists. Founder Daniel Ek lives a very orderly and strict lifestyle.

Ek says that “the most creative people in the world schedule their creativity”, which is contradictory to what most people would think. Spotify is always changing and that is largely do to the dedication and commitment that Ek has for thinking about new ways to improve the app and get ahead of his competitors. Daniel is currently worth upwards of 2 billion dollars, and currently owns 9% of the companies shares. At 36 years old, Daniel Ek is making drastic changes to the music industry, especially for the listener. He found a way to make music more accessible and made his platform useful for all ages and all music interests. The technological aspect of his invention has brought back songs from decades ago and placed them right at our finger tips to enjoy. He has connected people through a mutual interest, music, and created a community of creative thinking and music enjoyment.

2 Comments

Categories : App, Music, Technology

Venmo

Posted by Elias Reay

· Monday, September 16th, 2019

· 5 Comments

The story of how Venmo was founded begins with Andrew Kortina and his friend noticing a problem with paying people back and how difficult it was. They decided to create something that was as simple to use as texting or Facebook and worked similarly to PayPal. The two started this journey at the University of Pennsylvania as a computer science majors. Kortina felt that he needed to do more in college than just take programming classes. He did this and ended up building websites for many clubs and bands. He ended up graduating with majors in philosophy and creative writing and minors in Computer Science and Logic. After college the two of them spent their summer building websites for restaurants, salons, and anyone who wanted one. Soon after this, they began working for startup companies called Swooge and Philafunk. This is where they learned much about how to start up a company and what makes a startup be successful. After this the two of them split paths and worked at different companies for a few years. The two then started thinking of new business ideas that got them closer and closer to what Venmo is today. The actual name Venmo came from, “exploring the Latin root vendere “sell” and mo for mobile, but purely as a means to get to a name that (1) was short, 5-6 letters, (2) could be a verb, (3) didn’t have a unintuitive spelling, and (4) was cheap” The idea of Venmo then came from Iqram forgetting his wallet in Philly when he went to New York. he ended up having to pay Kortina back by writing a check which proved to be very inconvenient. After the idea came to them, it was only a few prototypes and some fundraising later that they came up with what Venmo is today. In 2012, Venmo was bought for $26.2 million by Braintree and in 2013 PayPal purchased Braintree for $800 million.

Venmo is a great example of how a great idea can come from the process of making another. These two entrepreneurs had no plans of making an app like this until the need for it arose in their ventures of making a website. This app has truly changed the way money transactions are done and help make life a little bit easier.

5 Comments

Categories : App, Social Media

World’s Youngest Bitcoin Millionaire

Posted by Katherine Gish

· Monday, September 16th, 2019

· 5 Comments

Erick Finman, at age 11, invested $1000 into bitcoin, which is now worth millions.

Erik Finman was 12 years old when made a bet with his parents; if he could make a million dollars from investing $1000 in bitcoin, they would let him drop out of school. You could say his bet paid off.

Now Erick is 20 years old, and his thousand dollar investment in 2011 became a net worth of $4.5 million. The approximate value of each bitcoin is $10,320.00, and Erick owns 446 of them. He says he first heard of bitcoin from a hippie wearing a bitcoin t-shirt during an occupy wall street protest in 2008, which convinced him and his brother to invest in bitcoin.

In 2018 he worked with NASA to launch a satellite into space carrying a signed copy of Taylor Swift’s “1989” album and other pop music memorabilia in a digital time capsule.

Erick’s latest endeavor has stemmed from his love for cryptocurrency. He is partnering with a company called Metal to launch a new kind of cryptocurrency to rival Facebook’s Libra (www.metalpay.com). He created a real life Dr. Octopus suit, which has robotic octopus arms intended to be used as prosthetic arms for a young boy with hyper mobility issues.

Another one of his key achievements is an educational start-up called “Botangle”, which paired students with teachers for online schooling. This was a very unique project for Eric, stemming from his bad experience in traditional school. He hopes to enable students to create for themselves the perfect educational system according to their needs. He sold the company for 300 bitcoin, which was a gamble at the time because of the volitility of bitcoins value. Later he bought the company back because he “liked the name too much”.

You can follow his Instagram account @erickfinman for more updates on what he’s been doing with his money lately. He likes to post satirical photos of “new money” stereotypes from time to time. One of his first splurges was on an Audi A8, with the caption saying “My GPA back in High School was 2.1. Now it’s going to be my license plate. (2.1 GPA)”.

5 Comments

Categories : App, Cryptocurrency, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Technology

Quizlet- Andrew Sutherland

Posted by Roman Day

· Monday, September 16th, 2019

· 5 Comments

Have had a last-minute cram? Tried to Google answers to a quiz (not that any Grover would)? or Tried needed to make and catalog flash cards online?

At 15 years old Andrew Sutherland started Quizlet. This online, and now app-based, service allows students to create, share, and view series of flashcards. These cards can be grouped be class/course number as well as a general topic title. As the service has grown- several subscription services are available to both remove adds and not limit content. Sutherland furthered his education by attending MIT for three years. Sutherland dropped out to further his venture. Quizlet, now approaching 40 Million Users, raised $30 Million in it’s last round of financing.

The new ‘Quizlet Pro’ gives users unlimited access and storage for a fee of $20 a year. This platform continues to expand, now offering ‘Quizlet Full’ in seven languages.

I find this platform intriguing as, aside from serves, the company does not have large physical assets- rather, the information and content is created and cataloged by users themselves. This self-perpetuating model is scale-able and long-term, as the more users, the more content, more content means appealing to more users, so on and so forth.

5 Comments

Categories : Academia, App, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Online Companies, Technology, Uncategorized, Youngest Entrepreneurs

Bubble ball

Posted by jclary444

· Sunday, December 16th, 2018

· 1 Comment

In December of 2010 a kid by the name of Robert Nay created and released an app on the apple app store. In no time at all, his app took the store by storm and just after 2 weeks of its launch, it reached 1 million downloads. In amazing fashion, the app overtook the app store leader, angry birds. His app was named Bubble Ball. Bubble Ball is one of the few apps that Robert Nay had made. He learned everything he needed to learn about business and programming in his local library. In just one month, he coded all 4,00 lines of Bubble Ball. As of now his game offers 24 extra levels to the original game.

This just shows that anyone no matter their age or experience can accomplish just about any entrepreneurial idea. This kid is an inspiration to all young entrepreneurs.

1 Comment

Categories : App

Piper: The new way to code!

Posted by kinneywa17

· Wednesday, December 12th, 2018

· 6 Comments

I remember when I was about 13 or 14 years old, I found an interest in coding. That is writing code on a computer for software development. However, I ran into a major issue. There weren’t many options for me to learn how to do anything spectacular. I constantly became upset because the YouTube videos I was watching did nothing for me. That is why Mark Pavlyukovskyy age 27 created Piper. “Piper is a kit that helps kids learn about coding and electronics by coding their own computer.” Forbes

This kit is able to be bought on Amazon for a fair price. It helps students to learn how to code with a hands on activity kit. This way the students stay engaged with what they are learning and they are able to put what they learn to use. The company has generated over $3 million on Amazon alone, and growing fast!

Built by kids from the inside-out

6 Comments

Categories : App, Business, Construction, Creating, Databases, Education, Engineering, Great Ideas, Kids, Robotics, Software, Technology, Toys

We’ve all Been Cheating off of Andrew Sutherland for Years

Posted by Ethan Hayward

· Wednesday, December 12th, 2018

· 7 Comments

Student’s run on Quizlet. The title doesn’t exactly reflect Sutherland’s heart for the product he founded but conveys the origins the flashcard flipping and sharing web and mobile app. As a junior in high school, Sutherland wanted to do better on a French test, so tackled this seemingly unsolvable problem with a group of friends once for us all.

With origins so humble and familiar, it’s startling that Quizlet has grown into a small company that helps tens of millions of students representing all ages prepare for their tests. That 15-year-old who aced French test brought his brilliant solution with him to MIT where it eventually became the small San Francisco company it is today.

Sutherland demonstrates that “nailing the problem” is what’s most important when growing an idea into a business. Quizlet remains focused on serving as many students as possible with a largely free software solution. Sutherland gave up the reigns of Quizlet to a new CEO a few years ago while staying on as CTO. Relenting your control on your business may be what’s best if you want your product to continue solving the problem serves to solve.

Today, Quizlet’s mission statement is to help students practice and master whatever they’re learning while providing students and teachers with the ability to create their own content for learning and teaching.

7 Comments

Categories : Academia, App, Education