Archive for Communication – Page 2

Pete Cashmore

Pete Cashmore is the founder Mashable, a media blog that provides news on celebrities, trends, and general gossip. Cashmore founded Mashable when he was just 20 years old back in 2005. In the beginning it was just a blog that became incredibly popular, fast forward to today and it is now one of the most popular news cites that people get their daily gossip and more from.

Due to the success of the website, Cashmore as accumulated a net worth of $95 million. Because of the success of the cite, he was able to sell the company to a gentleman by the name of Ziff Davis for a total of $50 million dollars. So in short, he’s a pretty successful guy

Catherine Cook – myYearbook

In 2005, Catherine Cook and her brother, Dave, were flipping through their high school yearbook to see if they recognized anyone. While looking through it, Catherine thought of putting the whole yearbook online. This idea sparked a multi-million-dollar company in the years to come – and Catherine was only fourteen!

After coming up with the initial idea, Catherine contacted her oldest brother, Geoff, who was a sophomore at Harvard University. Geoff Cook was already on the road to making hundreds of thousands of dollars off his two websites EssayEdge.com & ResumeEdge.com, when his younger sister first told him of the idea. He immediately invested $250,000 into her idea and they began working with developers in India to bring the website to life.

Within one week of launching the site, Catherine & Geoff had 400 people with accounts – and it was confined to their hometown of New Hope, PA. Catherine would wear creative shirts that said things like, “Are you the prettiest girl in school? How about the dumbest? Find out!” By 2006, the website had over 1 million users. It continued to grow throughout the following years until, in 2010, it entered the top 25 most-visited websites.

In 2011, myYearbook merged with the Quepasa Corporation for over $100 million. One year later, they renamed the company to MeetMe. MeetMe still keeps some of the same features that made myYearbook so popular, but it now offers online chatting and connections with other people.

Katherine’s simple idea turned into a multi-million-dollar venture, something she says she definitely did not ever expect. myYearbook is a great example of the possibilities that can arise from a unique idea.

Cameron Johnson: Entrepreneurial Genius

Cameron Johnson has consistently showed great entrepreneurial potential from a very early age. He first started exemplifying his entrepreneurial instincts when he was five years old as he began selling vegetables to his neighbors. When Cameron was nine in 1994, he launched his first business from his house: Cheers and Tears. This company is dedicated to creating thoughtful and meaningful greeting cards. At just twelve years old, young Cameron was making more than $50,000.00 a year!

Cameron then invested in the purchase of 30 Ty Beanie Babies, a line of stuffed toys first founded in 1986. He then sold the Beanie Babies online for ten times the purchase amount on eBay. Cameron saw this investment opportunity and turned it into an official business idea by purchasing dolls at wholesale from Ty and reselling them on eBay as well has his greeting card website.

With the money Cameron had earned thus far, he has since used it as seed money to kick start his next entrepreneurial venture called My EZ Mail, a confidential email forwarding service. Within just a few months, Johnson was earning $3,000.00 in advertising revenue.

Cameron’s next project was called Surfingprizes.com, an advertisement service that put scrolling advertising on top of web browsers. Two features made this service unique. The first is that Surfingprizes users received twenty cents per hour to have the advertisement displayed on the screen. The second feature is that referral marketing is used to increase word of mouth conversions. This was accomplished through offering Surfingprizes users 10.00% of the revenue generated by each customer that was referred to the service. Fifteen-year-old Cameron was making as much as $400,000.00 a month, making him worth more than $1,000,000.00 before he graduated high school. In college, Cameron started CertificateSwap, an online software system, that he recently sold for a six-figure amount. To date, Cameron is twenty-eight years old and is worth a couple million dollars.

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Savannah Britt: Youngest Magazine Publisher in the World

At 9 years old, Savannah Britt had her first job: a paid public writer for children’s book reviews for The Kitchen Table News, a local New Jersey newspaper. She loved to write and was gifted in her writing skills that a newspaper hired a 9 year old. The publication then went out of business, leaving Savannah unemployed. She was determined to develop her own voice through writing, so she decided to start her own magazine. She was very intrigued by the industry, and one day decided to make her own magazine that features things that real teens want and need.

At 11 years old, Savannah founded Girlpez, a online and print publication focused on fashion, beauty, and self-empowerment for teen girls. Girlpez quickly gained attraction and rose Savannah to fame. It caught the attention of Teen Vogue’s then editor-in-chief, Amy Astley, who named Savannah as the “Youngest Magazine Publisher in the World.” Savannah wrote and covered everything from celebrity interviews to front row coverage at New York Fashion Week. She wanted her magazine to have the ‘it’ factor. Following the online site, Girlpez then became a hard copy magazine.

After years of running her magazine, Savannah switched gears and ventured off to college at Rutgers University. With experience in magazine publishing, she found interest in communications which led her to public relations. In her freshman dorm room, she started her own PR firm, Brittprint. She became a serious networker, which has made her into a popular PR socialite. She has worked with big celebrity names and her firm specializes in brand management, marketing, content creation, and PR specifically with clients in the fashion, lifestyle, and entertainment industries.

Savannah capitalizes on her unique PR approach, veering from traditional mediums and zooming in on strategic communication through creative conceptualizing and vast powerful relationships across the globe. Through her roles in the magazine and PR firm, she is constantly redefining social visibility.

 

 

 

Drew Estate: The Rebirth of Cigars

Drew Estate is one of the most famous cigar brands ever, and dominates a large percentage of tobacco sales today, even though the company was started only twenty years ago. Drew Estate was started in 1998 by Jonathan Drew and Marvin Samel, who lived in New York City at the time, and had a small boutique that sold cigars in downtown New York City.

Experiencing declining sales and interest in cigars in the American market, Jonathan Drew moved to  Esteli, Nicaragua, with the hope of starting the “rebirth of cigars.” While in Nicaragua, one of the cigar hubs of the world, Drew obsessed over making new, exciting cigar blends that could bring flavors and experiences never before seen in the American market. After a year or so of meticulously perfecting his cigar blends, Drew returned to the United States and launched what would become the company’s signature cigar line, ACID Cigars.

The company grew and grew because of the wildly popular ACID line, which was a completely unique set of flavor profiles for the cigar market. By 2004, the company had expanded so much that they moved their headquarters from New York City to Miami, Florida to help continue grow the expanding company. In 2007, the company opened one of the largest cigar manufacturing plants in the entire world, which was 96,000 square feet.

This state of the art factory helped to maximize the company’s production, and helped Drew Estate to become a wildly popular brand in the cigar market. Through innovation and perseverance, Jonathan Drew and Marvin Samel were able to start one of the most innovative and popular cigar brands in the entire world.

What the Hecht?

Jared Hecht is a millennial entrepreneur that changed the way the world communicates and made a significant impact in the startup space. In 2009, he graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Political Science. Straight out of Columbia, at the ripe age of 22, the young entrepreneur founded startup messaging platform GroupMe. A little over a year after its official launch, GroupMe was sold to Skype in 2011 for $80 million and Hecht began working for Microsoft, who later acquired Skype. In 2015, Hecht was named to the Forbes “30 under 30” list for his entrepreneurial impact.

Though extremely rewarding, it wasn’t always easy for the young entrepreneur to see the light at the end of the startup tunnel. “Some nights you are on top of the world and think you’re building the best thing ever, and then other nights you think that some horrible competitor is going to knock you off the face of the earth,” says Hecht.  However, even with the inherent risk, he confirms that developing ideas and changing the way people communicate is “the best feeling ever.”

Alongside his laundry list of impressive commercial accomplishments, Jared Hecht is vastly changing the social entrepreneurship game. Hecht is the current founder and CEO of Fundera, a start-up investment agency that provides loans and financial planning for entrepreneurial ventures. He has invested and advised successful startups such as Codeacademy, SmartThings, and TransferWise. He also currently sits on the advisory board of the Columbia University Entrepreneurship Organization and is a guest blogger for prestigious business sites like entrepreneur.com and Forbes. Jared Hecht is not only a man with good ideas, but he’s willing to take risks for ventures that he believes in, making him one of this generation’s greatest entrepreneurs.

Shubham Banerjee – The Lego Printer

Shubham Banerjee is a 13 year old who has completely innovated the world for the blind. Before Banerjee brought his idea to market, there had not been an affordable printer for the blind. Braille printers ran for over $2,000, which is in the budget for most of the 1.3 million blind people in the United States.

Banerjee was searching for an idea for his science fair when he came across this fact. This gave him the idea to try to create a low cost braille printer.

He was trying to engineer this device, which took him seven attempts exactly, but he finally got a working prototype. He made a working device using some Legos and some electrical wiring. He got the device to print out six dots of Braille.

After getting this to work, Banerjee was obsessed with his new project. He stayed up for hours on end with his engineer dad right beside him.

 

Now, as a freshman in high school, Banerjee is the inventor of Braigo, a low cost Braille printer. It looks like any other printer, except it prints our raised bumps instead of flat letters. Benerjee was able to do something that so many companies were trying to do for so long. But sometimes all you need is a young, creative mind seeing the problem and solution in a different way.

An ELITE Millenial Mentor

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” Although this saying arguably lands at the top of the “cliché list”, its meaning rings true for millennial entrepreneur Gerard Adams. Adams has accomplished many successful things during his time as an entrepreneur. His first big endeavor was co-founding millennial news platform EliteDaily, which was bought by Daily Mail in 2015 for $50M. Since then, he’s invested in, built and backed 9 seven-figure companies, established a mentorship non-profit organization, and developed his own online show: Leaders Create Leaders. While all of these things are remarkable, for Adams, the journey has been the most fulfilling part of his rise to success.

Adams claims that his purpose is to, “inspire other Millennials to leverage their passions to create the successful lifestyles they dream of.” It wasn’t without an abundance of passion, hustle, and failure that he was able to reach his goals. The unique thing about what Adams currently does is that through his various social channels, he takes the ups and downs of his own journey and mentors future entrepreneurs along theirs. It is this two-pronged approach to millennial entrepreneurship – success alongside mentorship – that is revolutionizing the way today’s most successful businesspeople are developing more leaders and expanding industries.

Gerard Adams is the perfect example of someone who cares not only about their own personal successes, but also about the growth and development of other entrepreneurs. His nickname, “the Millennial Mentor” is a fitting description for how he is trailblazing the entrepreneur’s attitude and journey.

Million Dollar Business, 0 Advertising

Josh Elledge is someone who has done something in the business world that many people think to be impossible or only dream of. He has created a multi-million dollar business using less than $500 in advertising. He does this by using a completely different approach, authority. He claims that when you have authority, advertising is not necessary. This would definitely seem true because Josh has got himself in the media more than 2000 times. Josh has taken what was thought of to just be an internet concept, and turned it into “a multi-million dollar miracle.”

Josh started off very poor. The reason for this is because he attempted to start 6 different businesses, and failed every time. With very little options, he started a business that helped with financial saving. He knew a lot about this due to having to cut expenses when his businesses started failing. One thing he learned in this process was that exposure was key to expanding ones business. So Josh began to cold call everyone he could think of, who might create some exposure to his business. Finally, a small christian radio station allowed him some air time. This was all he needed to get his business under way. After this, he wrote for a newspaper on couponing which became a huge success. This gave him the exposure he needed and he quickly turned it into authority and became a very successful influencer.  From there he has expanded even farther and is always looking for new ventures and ways to expand his authority.

Connor Blakley: Revolutionizing Gen Z

Like most young entrepreneurs, Connor Blakley wears many hats. In addition to founding Youthlogic, a marketing agency that specializes in helping companies reach the Generation Z market, he is also a strategic speaker and soon-to-be author. Connor Blakley, at only 20 years old, is changing the way Fortune 500 companies view and market to the next generation and is beginning to reverse the negative stigma surrounding Gen Z.

Over the past few years, Blakley has harnessed and evolved his niche business perspective. Instead of staying planted at Youthlogic as a brick-and-mortar marketing consultant, he has grown and developed into an engaging speaker. He addresses everything from brand strategy to social media influencing to data analytics, and how these aspects of marketing can be used to attract Gen Z customers.

During his short time as a young entrepreneur, Blakely has connected and collaborated with many movers and shakers in the business industry, such as Jay Abraham, Joe Polish, Daymond John, and Brian Solis. He has also outsourced his talents to many high-profile businesses including the NFL, NHL, Johnson & Johnson, Sprint and Vineyard Vines brands.

Connor Blakley is an inspiration to young entrepreneurs around the world, demonstrating top-notch problem framing and creative solutions. His adaptability and willingness to change make him not only one of the most sought-after Gen-Z marketers, but also one of the most admired professionals in the business.