It is safe to say we all have heard that we will never have to work a day in our life if we love what we do. George Matus took those words to heart and did just that. At the age of 12, while everyone else was hunched over on social media, he built a flying quadcopter. For those who do no know what a quadcopter is, a quadcopter is a mini helicopter with 4 rotors. He had a passion for drones and fast flying technology. Matus flew everything that the drone companies made, and he was confronted with multiple problems with how restrictive the technology was. At that age of 16 he became an entrepreneur, whether he knew it or not, and decided to invent a drone that met his standards. He saw a problem and decided to do something about it, a great demonstration of what every entrepreneur some day hopes to do. Matus is the CEO of his own drone company, and had not even graduated yet. He has big goals for his business and plans on growing and expanding what other possibilities he can do. Matus says ,”The advice I would give to young entrepreneurs is to really find what interests you, and then it doesn’t feel like work.”
Archive for Content Entrepreneurs – Page 3
Passion and perseverance have been the flaming factors of young Michigan entrepreneur, Forrest Gillespie. Born 1999 in East Lansing, Michigan, Forrest Gillespie started his first company, ‘Gillespie Inc.’, at the age of 15- caring to the lawn care needs of his fellow neighbors. Hiring a couple of his neighborhood pals, Forrest took on a lifelong passion to make money from his self originated business. Trying to expand beyond his family reputation and neighborhood border lines, he struggled to pick up clients saying, “As such young guy, it’s tough to get people to trust me with their yard.” Forrest continued on for a couple seasons but as that dwindled out, he pushed on to a different product.
Looking for a different business to start, he took an unorthodox approach that consisted not of looking for a problem or a gap in a market but rather a simple online search, “I just Googled, ‘top businesses to start as a young entrepreneur’ and candles came up as number seven which sounded dope.” And so FlamesByForrest began producing and selling candles to local customers. Looking to separate himself from the the pack he advertised his product as, “Premium soy candles with craft recycled paper labeling” giving ten percent of proceeds to pancreatic cancer research- which was sparked from a recent family passing. It was soon after where Forrest got connected with the nationwide Young Entrepreneurs Academy which helped him with professional guidance on his company along with seed funding that he used to up his manufacturing equipment based in his family’s basement.
Fast forward to a year ago today, Forrest Gillespie began his enrollment at Hope College in Holland Michigan with a Business Management major. Determined to grow his candle business with his new studies, he made the move to go online selling to regional customers on Etsy . This was led from the problem he had years ago with Gillespie Inc. as he says, “I went online to expand my market but also to deal with the problem of initial consumer confidence.”
Since being at Hope College this last year, Forrest has played a role in the Business Club along with co-founding the Entrepreneurship Club. FlamesByForrest has grown slowly but gradually, selling now online and at one local retail store. He’s recently sold his 800th candle giving back now over six hundred dollars to pancreatic cancer research. His curiosity to seek new businesses hasn’t ended there though. As of July 2018, he has joined a team to co-found a new start-up, Hoplite, aimed to provide full service marketing to small businesses.
When asked about his future he replied, “In seven years I see myself still with Hoplite, having sold FlamesByForrest, and hopefully having landed a management position in a larger corporation with my first million secured.”
In the 21st century, more than ever before, a college education is the single most important step young Americans can take towards securing a prosperous and stable future. Unfortunately, the cost of higher education is going nowhere but up: while many Americans have been saving for their education since birth, very few of us will be able to come up with the nearly $100,000 check needed to see us across the stage. And even if we are able to make up the difference through loans, scholarships, and grants, there is very little aid available to help cover the costs needed for success: many of us may find ourselves working several jobs just to cover the cost of textbooks, study materials, and practice exams, putting us even further away from paying off our debts and cashing in on the security our education promises.
That’s where Koofers comes into play: in 2008, Glynn LoPresti, Patrick Gartlan, and Dan Donahoe – three young professionals with background in Computer Science and Finance – decided enough was enough and set out to find a way to lighten the financial burden of College education. But while others before them had looked at the problem through the lens of tuition and enrollment fees, the founders of Koofers saw an unmet although equally daunting need: the miscellaneous cost of success. It’s all well and good to provide the financial support necessary to get students into college, but what about their needs once they are there? We’re all students, so none of us need to be told about the stress of trying to find the necessary funds to keep ourselves in books and school supplies. It’s really hard to be successful in school if you are working 60 hours a week just to pay for the tools you need to keep you in school!
Koofers provides students with FREE access to those tools. It is a consumer internet platform that provides access to testbanks, practice exams, professor rating data, flashcards, and scheduling software at absolutely no cost to the students who use it. It is funded through textbook sales and commissions from employers looking to hire students so that those who already struggle to make ends meet to cover tuition won’t find themselves struggling to keep their grades up because they can’t afford study tools. It is a free one-stop-shop that offers students the needed resources to not only get them into school, but also to see them through to graduation.
The site also offers an “enterprise Campus Recruiting solution” that connects employers and recruiting firms with students looking for internships and full-time work opportunities. By charging prospective employers for the use of this system, Koofers is able to offer a wide variety of services to students free of charge! The recruiting program also ensures that the students working so hard to put themselves through school don’t see all that effort go to waste: through Koofers, students are not only supported through their schools years, but are also given access to a community of professionals and employers eager to help them put their education to work!
Founded and run by recent college grads, Koofers understands that college acceptance and tuition is just the first step in the uphill financial battle that so many Americans face in trying to procure and education. If tuition is the canoe, then school supplies are the paddle: without one, the other is useless. While federal grant programs, trusts, and loan programs get students on board, only Koofers provides them with the tools they need to navigate their way towards a brighter future!
Last May, Natalie Webb graduated from Grove City College with a degree in entrepreneurship. After she graduated, she began working on launching her own business and app, which she designed for her elevator pitch her senior year. Her business model was born out of a problem which she had experienced in her grade school days, and she knew many other people experienced as well.
As a homeschooler, Natalie and her family had to buy all of their books themselves, and as there was no curated or organized way to buy used book, they usually ended up buying these books new from publishers, which got very expensive. However, Natalie noticed that after he finished with a book, it just stayed on her bookshelf until it either was given away to a family friend or sold at a significantly reduced price at a yard sale. Natalie considered how wasteful this was, both on the buying end and the reselling end because there was no organized platform for homeschoolers to interact with each other in this manner. Out of this pain came her idea of Hoot Book Revival, which is an app and website on which homeschoolers can resell their books and buy used books from other homeschooling families at a reduced cost. This benefits both the buyer and the seller, because people looking to buy books can get them much cheaper than they can new books, and people looking to sell books can sell them for more than they could at a yard sale.
Since her graduation last May, Natalie has been working to get this web platform active. She hired a company to design her website and has gotten guest writers to post on her blog. She has spent the last few months spreading the word about her company to homeschooling families and educators and talking to different publishers and co-ops about her business. While the cite is currently active, it is pretty light on content, so Natalie is focusing her attention on adding content and marketing for her business to possible clients.
When I asked Natalie about how this business came about and what need it was filling, she said, “I suppose the core of the business idea was identifying an underrepresented group, and how their market needs weren’t being addressed, because the business pitch itself is pretty simple.” Natalie’s website allows the customer to buy and sell books, as well as collaborate with other homeschoolers on which lesson plans and books are best. Hoot Book Revival also has an option where people can post their books and let Hoot do all the work in finding people to sell them to, making the customer experience more enjoyable and less labor intensive.
Ultimately, Natalie’s business is incredibly innovative not because she came up with the idea of reselling books, but rather because she found a niche market and is catering to them in a new, technologically advanced way, and allowing them to simply post their books and have her company do the rest of the work for them. It is pretty neat to see such awesome innovation coming out of our own Grove City College.
On March 1, 2010 Activision reported the firing of two senior employees to the Security and Exchange Commission. One of these employees was Jason West the Infinity Ward president, game director, co-CCO, and CTO. The other was Vince Zampella the CEO and co-founder of Infinity Ward.
They were dismissed and replaced by Activision, the same company who helped fund their own company Infinity Ward during the golden days of their Call of Duty franchise.
-Jason West on left and Vince Zampella on right
On April 12, 2010, the Los Angeles Times wrote an article about West and Zampella’s new ambitious venture. They were forming a new game developing studio called Respawn Entertainment.
West and Zampella got funding from Electronic Arts (EA) while keeping all intellectual property. After hearing about West and Zampella leaving and starting a new project, a bunch of their old employees from Infinity Ward left to join thier LLC, Respawn.
In June 2013, they debuted Titanfall their new and revolutionary take on first person shooters. The game was released on March 11, 2014 only for xbox. By October 5th of 2015 IGN reported that Titanfall’s sales passed 10 million globally (awesome for a game only on xbox). Recently they have been even more successful with their multi-platform sequel, Titanfall 2.
-Respawn developing team
Official site: http://www.respawn.com/
Los Angeles Times article on Respawn: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/12/entertainment/la-et-ct-callofduty12-2010apr12
IGN article on 1o million in Titanfall sales: http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/10/05/titanfall-sales-pass-10-million-globally
(STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
In 2010, an ambitious young man squeezed everything he owned into 2 suitcases and moved to New York with a camera and a dream.
New York is a people watcher’s dream. The city is busting at the seams with people from every culture; it’s a canvas smeared with every color imaginable. The fashion, the language, and energy- are electrifying. Everyone seems to be in a rush to get somewhere.
Mesmerized by the New York inhabitants, an immense wealth of interesting photographic subjects, Brandon Stanton decided that he would take 10,000 photos of 10,000 of different New Yorkers.
Stanton was a mere amateur at photography. People laughed and asked him what on earth he was doing. But for 6 months he kept his head up. Every day he walked the streets, snapped photos, and published them online. And nothing happened. There was no response from the public; No-one had interest in his photos.
Frustrated but driven, Stanton persisted. One day he decided to publish his photos to Facebook along with quotes or stories attached to his photographic subjects. He created a page and titled it Humans of New York.
Doubtless, you’ve heard some of these stories. Soon after the page was created, Stanton had 1 or 2 new followers every day. People weren’t excited about pictures. Anyone can take pictures. But pictures paired with real stories are almost irresistible. He began conducting short interviews with the people he photographed and their stories and their photo compose Humans of New York. Soon, Stanton had a massive following.
Today, Humans of New York has over 17 million followers on Facebook alone. Humans of New York started with a goal to catalogue the inhabitants of New York, and is now adored by people all over the world.
Brandon Stanton, I think, is the proverbial entrepreneur. He’s someone who didn’t give up. He pivoted his idea and didn’t allow the apathetic spirit of those around him to blind him from seeing, capturing, and celebrating peoples’ stories. Today, he continues doing what he loves most – sharing the stories of New Yorkers along with incredible photos.
Founded by Jason Jones and Alex Seropian in May 1991 in Chicago, Illinois. Bungie is an American video game developer located in Bellevue, Washington.
Jason Jones is a video game developer who began programming on Apple computers in high school. One of his early games he assembled was Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete. It was a multiplayer game he worked in partnership with Seropian to publish while attending the University of Chicago.
Eventually Marathon, Myth, Oni and Halo: Combat Evolved came along. Marathon did well but paled in comparison to the success of Halo.
Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000 to develop the Halo games for their Xbox console.
On October 5, 2007, Bungie become an independent company, Bungie LLC and Microsoft still had ownership of the Halo IP.
More recently Bungie has made a deal with the Call of Duty developer Activision. The partnership is a ten year long project called Destiny.
If you would have asked Dan Howell and Phil Lester 10 years ago if they expected to become international YouTube celebrities, they likely would have laughed and responded with a quippy sarcastic comment. These British YouTubers have been producing videos as early as 2006, when YouTube vlogging was a relatively new trend and MySpace was still in full swing. Somewhere between 2006 and now, Dan and Phil have gained millions of followers and built an audience unlike any other YouTuber. Their quirky videos span from gaming challenges and question and answers to daily vlogs and stories. They have become icons in the YouTube content world, creating new ideas for videos and challenges – even building their own app to accompany a challenge video. This year, they launched two huge projects – a book written by them and a live tour in the UK, Australia, and America. They are some of the first YouTube stars to extend their content production into the physical, non-Internet realm. Both the book and the tour have been widely successful, proving that Dan and Phil know more about content creation than just YouTube videos.
Dan and Phil are the perfect example of true Internet entrepreneurs. What started as a hobby or a way of expressing themselves has turned into their careers. They are constantly having to come up with innovative new ways to gain and keep followers. As their audience grew, they had to find new ways to connect with them beyond the boundaries of the YouTube platform. As first movers in their industry, Dan and Phil were able to carve out their own niche and set themselves apart from the millions of other YouTube videos in existance. They are truly an example of successful millennial entrepreneurs who started with nothing but a webcam won from a cereal box sweepstakes and ended up as Internet .