Archive for Business – Page 5

Martinez Brothers – Are You Kidding Socks

Brandon (17) and Sebastian Martinez (15) are the founders of the sock-selling business, Are You Kidding Socks. Their business sprouted from Sebastian’s obsession with fun, patterned socks when Brandon was 8 years old and Sebastian was 6. In 2014, Sebastian started designing his own socks and, with the help of their mom, had them manufactured professionally. Their company has sold well over $1 million worth of socks and continues to grow as they reach more and more of the sock market.

Their purpose for their company now is to help grow awareness for local and national charities like Stand Up to Cancer, Autism Speaks, Amigos for Kids, and more. Their sock designs themselves raise awareness for many conditions and illnesses like pediatric cancer, autism, and breast cancer. They are now in partnership with 13 charities and work every day to make socks that help raise money for people in need.

These kids didn’t come up with a unique, problem-solving product that changes how we live day-to-day. No, their innovation was how they designed their business and their purpose behind it. What started out as just a six-year-old coloring sock designs for fun has now turned into a massive non-profit business that supports many different causes and seeks to change lives for the better. They inspire me with their passion for kids and people with illnesses, mental handicaps, special needs, etc. to look for ways I can support and give back to the community that serves me. They have also shown that you don’t have to make a life-changing technological breakthrough to have an impact on people.

Bloom Nutrition by Mari Llewellyn

Most likely, if you’ve been in the drink aisle of any grocery store in the past couple years, you may have spotted Bloom, a new and upcoming health brand. Bloom is a high-quality health supplements brand for women founded by 30-year-old Mari Llewellyn. Mari, who was born in England, founded Bloom alongside her husband Greg. Mari wanted to take control of her health after, “[she] hit rock bottom mentally and physically.” After this she decided it was time for a change, Mari was able to lose 90 pounds and through this journey was able to grow in self-love as well. From this she was, “inspired to help other women do the same… to help everyone bloom into their best selves.” 

Bloom is consistently improving and shaping the women’s health industry every day. With their business growing everyday there’s no doubt they will stop anytime soon. With Mari’s Instagram having 1.5 million followers and counting, and Blooms having just over 500k its obvious Bloom has consistent customers. Mari and Greg both made Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2022 as well. Alongside having consistent products in store for customers to buy, Bloom has also partnered with lots of influencers and other major companies like Erewhon and Vita coco to get their name out into the market. 

Bloom offers a variety of supplement options in a way that no women’s health company has before. They have specifically crafted their supplements to fit women’s needs and are made from some of the best ingredients on the market. Bloom has dozens of options to choose from, coming in over 10 flavors and in a variety of different forms. From daily pills, portable drink packets, canned energy drinks and pre-workout their vast range of products meet the needs of any customer! 

If you would like to check Bloom out for yourself, click here.

 

Matt Mullenweg: The founder of WordPress

Where it all began

Born and raised in Houston Texas, Matt had a seemingly normal childhood to most. He was introduced to the technological world through his father who was acomputer programmer. Eighteen-year-old Matt loved to blog on a platform called b2/cafelog. This site soon was taken down by the owners and this is where Matt decided to launch his own site with the help of his friend Mike Little. In 2003 he and Mike soon built what we know as WordPress, and it was widely received by the public. Matt was only eighteen at the time of founding WordPress and he was still in high school. Due to his chronic migraines Matt was absent from school and this could have kept him from graduating but he was able to push through. After high school Matt continued his education at The University of Houston and chose to study philosophy and political science. During college Matt still worked on WordPress and grew more and more detached from his schoolwork. This lead Matt to drop out of college in 2004 to focus on WordPress entirely.

At nineteen years old Matt was offered a job at CNET in San Fransico which allowed him to work part time on WordPress. He stayed at CNET for only a year as he wanted to work full time on WordPress. Matt began building his team adding former Yahoo! executive Toni Schneider to join as CEO. Over the years Matt has joined several other ventures such as Automatic, GitLab, Global Multimedia Protocols Group, and helped launch Ping-O-Matic. Ping-O-Matic is a mechanism to help notify search engines about blog updates. These ventures led to Matt having an amazingly successful career with WordPress. WordPress powered about 40% of the internet in 2021 so one can only imagine how much it has grown in just three years. Approximately 400 million people visit WordPress sites each month. Overall, Matt Mullenweg is someone that is forgotten by most but as we can see and use in class WordPress is a very collaborative and easy service to use.

 

 

College Dropout to Millionaire-Ryan Trahan

A Youtuber and Entrepreneur, Ryan Trahan started at 14 to become an entrepreneur. He started a simple water bottle business that would later help make him into a millionaire. Starting his YouTube channel in 2015, Ryan posted about his daily life at college as a student athlete. However, he quickly gained followers due to his creativity and humor within his videos. Having adopted just 30,000 YouTube followers and juggling his business, Ryan was pressured with his college or his business. His school had set a tight rule with him, as a student athlete, making it so he couldn’t brand himself properly while in college. Because of this, Ryan had to choose between a high-risk endeavor or the college route, and he chose the entrepreneurial side. Ryan had the same mindset Peter Thiel speaks of, saying, “I view creating as entrepreneurial. Creating something from nothing has always been ingrained in me.” Thus, his career rocketed. His small water business became a great part of his revenue. The business, known as Neptune, was built to create sustainable water bottles which would reduce plastic waste. With his social enterprise, Ryan also used his business to support several organizations centered around cancer.

While Ryan had Neptune blooming, he also opened up a clothing line called Hydra Collection, which became his personal merch on his social media accounts, as well as another clothing line, Howdy Howdy, and a candy company, Joyride. Creating innovative videos on YouTube and establishing his businesses across the world has made Ryan Trahan into a wealthy, young entrepreneur. From going on live television to creating television series of his own, Ryan meets every corner around the world to grow and engage with his audience.

Ryan is known for his penny-to-a-house series and simply racing people in airports. Through his creative and entertaining work, he has amassed 17 million followers on YouTube with over 3 billion views worldwide!

Mikey Wren, the 10-year-old Entrepreneur

Mikey Wren’s entrepreneurial spirit came alive to satisfy a very simple and common urge. He wanted snacks. Rather than go to his parents or pantry, Mikey created his own solution, deciding to create his own line of vending machines. He began drawing up business plans and operated a lemonade stand to raise money with which he raised the surprisingly large amount of $1200. His determination to succeed propelled the success of his small business. At the age of 10, Mikey intuitively grasped a key principle of entrepreneurial success: achieving long-term goals requires the disciplined sacrifice of short-term comforts. In addition to working at his lemonade stand, Mikey asked his parents to take his Christmas money and invest it in his ideas rather than buy him presents. After his mother encouraged him to do more research into his ideas, Mikey typed up his own business plan. He printed his own flyers and set up a website called “Mikey Knows Biz” to advertise his growing business. You can visit Mikey’s site here.

Mikey Wren now owns four vending machines in various locations and is a bestselling author of his autobiographical journey to entrepreneurial success. His goal is to encourage his peers to explore and achieve their entrepreneurial dreams. Mikey brings a powerful and inspiring message to the business community: little people can achieve big things too.

Moziah Bridges-Mo’s Bows

Moziah Bridges loved to dress to his best even at nine years old. Now he believes that a well-dressed man says a lot about them. At nine years old Moziah wanted to make his own fashion company with help from his grandma he moved how to sow his first bowtie. After a while of perfecting his craft, his company started to catch wind after an appearance on Shark Tank. In the six years since creation Mo’s Bows surged in popularity. Moziah even signed a deal with the NBA to supply every team with bow ties. His mother is his business manager that helps him every step of the way. Moziah is very frugal with his money, and often donates to numerous charities. He broke the mold for fashion designers as being a 15-year-old kid and continues to grow his brand up with the greats like Neiman Marcus.  Mo’s Bows: Meet Moziah Bridges, the teenage king of bow ties who just inked an NBA deal – CBS News

Ryan Hickman-Founder of Ryan’s Recycling

Ryan Hickman fell in love with recycling at just 3 and a half years old when his father took him. He wanted to continue to do it, and eventually created his own company called “Ryan’s Recycling.” He spends most weekends as CEO of the company with his father picking up materials needed to be recycled from residents and taking them to the recycling centers. He has collected over 1.6 million bottles and cans since being in business.  All of the money earned from this recycling company is going towards his recycling fund, but he plans to have this business as a career long after his college graduation. Apart from the commercial enterprise Ryan has started a nonprofit called “Project 3r.”He uses from donations to promote beach cleanups and environmental education. Ryan also makes hats and t-shirts that the profits go to the Pacific Marine Mammal center. Through his company he has promoted environmental efforts that even got attention from Ellen DeGeneres and Jennifer Aniston. This young entrepreneur has clearly made a large impact on his community and environment by doing what he loves.  Ryan’s Recycling Has Recycled 1.6 Million Bottles, With 12-Year-Old CEO (greenmatters.com)

Nic Bianchi: Bianchi Candle Co.

 

When Nic Bianchi was 12 years old, he had a passion develop that he never would have anticipated. His mom gifted him a candle-making kit, and as soon as he began experimenting with it, he quickly realized that he enjoyed learning all the important processes and materials needed to make a good candle. He soon was making candles constantly and fell in love with all the math and science he was using to create. Nic was incredibly creative, and his parents even noticed his entrepreneurial skills from a young age when he developed his own logo on paper at 7 and hung it on his bedroom door.

At 15, Nic officially launched his business “Bianchi Candle Co.” and he has been running it since. He has many different types of candles and has loved coming up with ways to use them in encouraging ways, such as having a candle line called “Heros” to support first responders and nurses, etc. Right now, Nic plans to keep the business going but he would love to continue growing and adding more employees. It will be incredible to see where Nic goes with this passion, and I think he is going to do incredible things, whether it’s with his candle business or starting a second business later on.

Fraser Doherty- Creator of SuperJam

At fifteen-years-old Fraser Doherty loved to cook jam from one of his grandmother’s old recipes. He began to sell local to neighbors and such. His infant company soon began to grow too large for neighbors, and Fraser set his sights on bigger objectives. He borrowed his father’s suit, and he set his mission to pitching his idea to a well-known supermarket in his local area. They rejected Fraser, but that did not kill his spirit. He took improved upon their critiques, and searched his country for a factory that would take a chance on him. All but one said no. Fraser came back the next year with all of his improvements, and he got the deal to distribute his product across all the supermarket’s stores. His company blew up from there. He quickly increased his production to over 20,000 units of jelly. Everyone can take note of his dedication and persistence to never give up on his entrepreneurial goals. The Story of SuperJam: How Fraser Doherty Built a Multimillion-Dollar Jelly Empire (web.com)

Da Bomb Bath Bombs – A Company Founded on Fizz and Fun

two women standing in front of confettiTeenage Sisterpreneurs with a love for bath bombs set out to make kids’ experience with bath bombs 10 times more fun! Little did they think the fun activity in their basement starting in 2015 would turn into a booming business. How Isabel and Caroline made their bath bombs stand out, is that each one contains a special surprise in the middle. They knew they got sad when their bomb dissolved, so now you aren’t sad because there’s something inside it in the end that almost compells you to want it to dissolve to see what special object you got! Toys, charms, messages, and jewelry are just a few of the treasures you’ll find inside their products. They also like to keep their bath bombs as natural as possible, making them with just a few high-quality ingredients in their hometown. As their business continued to grow, they now sell different scents, colors, and variations of the bath bombs. Also, other products like body scrubs, bath salts, and shower steamers.

I personally have not seen bath bombs like this, and it intrigues me. As the Christmas season is approaching, I think these would be great gifts for friends or younger siblings. I like how they really differentiated themselves from the normal simple colored bath bomb, making their products, scents, and packaging colorful and creative.