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Archive for Great Ideas – Page 18

A Millionaire High School Dropout

Posted by Alan Brennen

· Friday, October 30th, 2015

· 3 Comments

Some of the wealthiest business men have dropped out of school at early ages. From Richard Branson (16) to David Karp (11) to even Benjamin Franklin (10) are included on this list and we all know that they turned out to be okay in life! Taso Du Val has just added his name to this prestigious list of early dropouts to riches. Taso Du Val is a software savant who has had a passion for technology from a very early age in his life.

Taso entered the workforce and joined a startup called Fotolog (business dealing with photo-sharing) as a lead engineer. After Fotolog was bought for $100 million in 2007 he joined another business startup as a lead engineer at Mark Levchin’s company (co-founder of PayPal) called Slide, which was bought by Google in 2010 for $228 million. Du Val, without a doubt, had some early luck and success landing prestigious positions in startups with not much of an academic background that gave him some key foundations for the challenges he will set out to accomplish in the future.

Du Val is currently helping other engineers land great jobs, as well as building his very own multimillion-dollar startup he helped co-found called TopTal. TopTal is based out of San Francisco and connects freelance software developers with businesses in need of programming expertise, rigorously screening applicants and making matches based on each client’s unique project demands and related factors like workplace culture.

Du Val’s story relates a lot to our class as our professor frequently stresses the concept of identifying a problem and thinking of a solution. Du Val recognized there was a problem and heard many complaints about the other players in the game and sought out to capitalize on it. There was a need and an opportunity that had yet to be met. Entrepreneurship cant exactly be taught and is hardwired into very few people. Some people are just naturally gifted with business smarts and others have to work harder to come by it.

The most important lesson to be learned by his story, no matter what your education or background is, just getting out there and doing it is the most important thing.

3 Comments

Categories : Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Uncategorized, Youngest Entrepreneurs

Harvard Student and Entreprenuer

Posted by Erin Sixt

· Tuesday, October 27th, 2015

· 4 Comments

Olenka Polak, a daughter of polish immigrants, would frequently find herself at the movie theatre with her family. She and her brother, who had grown up in the states and knew English, understood exactly what was going on in the movie. Her parents, on the other hand, really struggled to enjoy their experience at the cinema due to the language barrier.

During Polak’s time at Harvard, she decided to pursue the solution to this problem. myLINGO allows for non-English speakers to listen and understand a movie in their own language. All you have to do is download myLINGO on a smart phone and bring a pair of headphones to the theatre. Once you’re at the cinema you select the movie you are seeing and the language you want to listen to the film in.

At age nineteen, Polak chose to take time off from Harvard to grow and develop this business. She was featured in Forbes “30 under 30” and seems to be growing into a quite the success story.

We all have something to learn from Polak. Whether it’s her recognition of a problem, or her ambition to leave Harvard and pursue her dreams, she is an inspiration to us all.

4 Comments

Categories : App, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Technology, Uncategorized

Sword & Plough – Bridging the Civil-Military Divide

Posted by Lizzie Parsons

· Sunday, October 25th, 2015

· 4 Comments

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Emily Núñez and her sister Betsy Núñez grew up in a military family, so for them, living on military bases and eating Thanksgiving dinner with hundreds of soldiers in a military mess hall was the norm. However, when Emily went to Middlebury College, she realized the huge divide between military life and civilian life. Most of her friends had never met someone in the military and had no idea what military life was like. During this time, both Emily and Betsy began to realize how difficult it was for veterans to find work as they transitioned from military to civilian life.

These two problems culminated into a business idea when Emily attended a social entrepreneurship symposium at her college, where the speaker talked about incorporating up-cycling into a business. Emily had the idea of recycling military surplus into fashionable bags and accessories. Emily quickly brought her sister, Betsy, on board and Sword & Plough was born. The name, Sword & Plough comes from the phrase “to turn swords into ploughshares” from the book of Isaiah. For Emily and Betsy, this means taking military technologies and materials and applying them to peaceful, military applications.

Every stage of their business (from design, to production, to quality control, to sales) is done in the U.S.A. and done by veterans. They even buy their supplies from companies owned and operated by veterans. Emily and Betsy want their company to empower veterans and help in their transition back to civilian life. They donate 10% of their profits to support veterans. They also want to have their bags be a conversation starting point to strengthen military-civilian understanding and to bring to light veteran issues. In fact, on their website, they have a “Wall of Heroes” to feature a different military personnel every week.

So far, Emily and Betsy’s idea has been a huge success. They’ve been featured on shows like Good Morning America and the Today Show, and on sites like Business Insider and Forbes. I encourage you to check out their website (click here!) to learn more about Sword & Plough, its products, and its mission. I think that this company is poised to make some really important impacts in the near future.

4 Comments

Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Great Ideas, Military, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Online Companies, Recycling, Social Entrepreneur, Upcycling, Websites

The Friends You Have on Facebook Really Do Matter

Posted by Erin Sixt

· Monday, October 19th, 2015

· 4 Comments

When Evita Robinson graduated from college, she identified herself as an artist, hoping to one day be an entrepreneur. As a new graduate, she started traveling. Paris, Tokyo, and Thailand were all places she had visited by the time she was 25. During her worldly adventures, Robinson, like many other millennials, shared her adventures with social media. Soon, she decided to create a group of a few friends she had on Facebook, in order to connect city people to a travel lifestyle. This small group she had created blew up and led to the formation of her business, Nomadness Travelers Tribe.

Nomadness Travelers Tribe is known as, “‘the first group to spearhead targeting diverse millennial travel,”‘ says Robinson. This group is comprised mostly of African American women, living in cities around the world. Some are in poverty, while others experience lavish lifestyles. Yet, they are connected with a love for travel.

Nomadness creates a family between its members with conferences, meetings, and trips that happen worldwide. The trips that this organization puts together are created for the rich and poor through different selling points based on your economical status. To prove just how popular these vacations are Nomadnessx, one travel experience they offer, has an average sell out time of 5 minutes.

Robinson proves how a passion for something, coupled with technology can, in fact, create a business. She says, ‘”If the Internet was a geographic location, Facebook would be the capital. It is where everyone is. If you can start someplace where everyone is and then push out from that point, you have the opportunity to do something special.”‘ Even though her enterprise came to her on accident, she is still a success story. She created a specific environment for a niche audience that has become extremely popular, all through social media.

4 Comments

Categories : Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Technology, Uncategorized

5 Under 30 African Entrepreneurs

Posted by Lindy Bowser

· Monday, October 12th, 2015

· 2 Comments

Africa?! That’s right, Africa. Forbes Magazine has announced their top 30 under 30 successful entrepreneurs thriving in Africa. Other things dwell in those deserts: innovation and creativity.

1. Mubarak Muyika, 20: Kenya

Orphaned at the age of 10, Mubarak worked hard to be a star student. Turning down an offer from Harvard, he began his journey as an entrepreneur through Hypecentury Technologies, a web hosting technology, which he later sold for a 6 digital price tag. Now, Mubarak spends his time tinkering with his new idea, Zagace. The cloud based software organizes company tasks such as payroll, accounting, and company budgets.

2. Affiong Williams, 29: Nigeria

Founder of Reelfruit, a fruit packaging company focused on packaging and branding local fruits in a safe and reliable way. Reelfruit has made a presence in over 80 supermarkets all over Nigeria and has won 2 awards in the Netherlands and in Nigeria. Affiong pushes herself to the max and hopes to expand Reelfruit internationally.

3. Arthur Zang, 27: Cameroon

Zang noticed the problem of African patients living in rural areas having to travel to urban areas to receive medical attention. Distance can be life or death in a medical emergency. In response, he invents Cardiopad, a medical tablet (like an ipad) that preforms heart examinations much like an ECG. The device then sends the information electronically to medical professionals who can interpret them and suggest treatments. Zang is also the owner and founder of Himore Medical Equipments.

4. Julie Alexander Fourie, 28: South Africa

In his dorm room at the University of Stellenbosch, Julie would repair the small devices of colleagues for fun. With encouragement from his friends, he starts iFix, an organization that fixes all Apple and Samsung smart phones. Today, the company employs 40 people and serves more than 4,000 clients a month.

5. Ludwick Marishane, 25: South Africa

Asked by a friend in High School, “why doesn’t someone invent something that you can put on your skin and then you don’t have to bathe?”, Ludwick invents DryBath, a gel that provides all the effects of a bath without the need for water. Ludwick was later voted the best student entrepreneur in the world by Entrepreneurs Organization and declared one of the most intelligent young brains in the universe by Google.

See all 30 entrepreneurs here: 30 Under 30

2 Comments

Categories : Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Youngest Entrepreneurs

Beme

Posted by Joanie Brown

· Saturday, October 3rd, 2015

· 3 Comments

Over this past summer, filmmaker and youtuber Casey Neistat and former VP of Engineering for Tumblr, Matt Hacket launched a new app called “Beme”. After working on the project for over a year, the duo was finally ready to release their new format for video sharing.

“Beme” is an app that, according to Neistat and Hackett, captures the unfiltered and genuine moments in life. “Beme” captures videos with the rear camera in four-second bursts by covering an iPhone’s proximity sensor. The screen goes black so users have no way of previewing the content. Viewing others’ content is done via a snapchat like interface where you hold down your finger to play and when the video finishes, it’s gone forever. The app lets you react to other peoples’ content with the iPhone’s front camera by sending a selfie to someone as they watch the video.

So what makes “Beme” different or better than other forms of video sharing, such as Snapchat? Being frustrated by the superficiality of social media today, Neistat feels that “Beme” allows users to consciously capture their life without altering it to make it seem like something that it’s not. With such widespread use of social media, Neistat felt that there needed to be something that could capture life in the most unaffected, candid manner. Neistat states that he loves sharing apps, such as Instagram, but it’s not the right platform to share little photos of what he sees throughout the day, rather it’s a place to share beautifully edited aspects of his life. According to Neistat, social media today is built to share with the world a version of who you are. Now, “Beme” wants you to share who you really are.

Within eight days of release, “Beme” users shared 1.1 million videos and sent 2.4 million reactions. As of now, Neistat and Hackett decided on a slower, invite-only rollout to ensure that each user had at least one friend on the app. The partners said that they hope to upgrade the app’s background soon so that they can do away with invite codes and let anyone join. In addition, while this is currently only available on Apple devices, they are working to develop it into an app for Androids as well.

3 Comments

Categories : App, Blog, Film, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Smartphone, Technology, Uncategorized, YouTube

12 Year Old Starts Tie Business

Posted by Stephen Weaver

· Thursday, October 1st, 2015

· 4 Comments

Today, people don’t dress up as much or appreciate the art of good clothing. At 12 years old, Moziah Bridges realized this problem and found a solution. Moziah loves to dress up but he could never find the right bow tie for his outfit, so he started his own company after learning how to sew from his grandmother. Today Moziah has started up his own bow tie company has sold more than $150,000 worth of bow ties.

moziah bridges

His ties are priced at about 40$ a piece and come in all kinds of different designs. Talk about a young entrepreneur right? I believe this is the kind of spirit we need to carry with us. He didn’t create this business purely for the money, he just translated a personal passion of his into some need should be fulfilled. He has been featured on the show Shark Tank and in several different magazines. I’m excited to see where he might take this company as he grows up. I love stories such as this because they are real evidence of what a passion for something might produce.

4 Comments

Categories : Fashion, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers

Double Trouble

Posted by Erin Sixt

· Wednesday, September 30th, 2015

· 5 Comments

When I was a little girl, my dad would call my twin sister and me “double trouble.” She and I both were constantly doing things together, especially bad things. I believe many other parents with twins can attest to that title being very accurate for the same reason too. I’m sure the parents of twin boys Ryan and Adam Goldston felt the same way.

I cannot attest to how well behaved they were as children, but both Ryan and Adam as young entrepreneurs seemed to cause some trouble. As mere 28 year olds, they had already created a product that had been banned from the NBA. As you can imagine, that created some interest in their company. So much interest that they sold out of nine months of inventory just 72 hours after their banning was announced.

I guess, you have to ask what an entrepreneur has to do to get his product banned from part of the sports industry. The answer to that would be to design the first pair of sneakers that allows you to jump higher and run faster. They call it “Load ‘N Launch,” and it is the first patented technology of its kind.

This duo got their idea from sports they had played all throughout high school and college. Once they graduated they started tinkering with the possibility of a shoe that could help the user. Eventually, they came up with this technology and the name of their company, Athletic Propulsion Labs or APL. These fancy shoes come in all kinds of colors, styles, and modifications for specific purposes. APL recently launched a clothing line too.

Ryan and Adam, partnered with each other to revolutionize the old industry of sneakers. They bring a new youthful fun flare to what appears to be a stagnant marketplace. It seems to me that they are a force to be reckoned with and already are becoming successful.

For more information, visit the site below

http://www.athleticpropulsionlabs.com/

5 Comments

Categories : Athletics, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Uncategorized

Tags : APL, success, Twins

Catherine Cook- Memories of Money!

Posted by Alan Brennen

· Monday, September 28th, 2015

· 2 Comments

Catherine Cook’s life is the perfect story of living the American Dream. She is a true millennial entrepreneur and has made millions in her teens! The beginning stages of her entrepreneurial spirit took place when she at a very young age, she sold books in her homemade library to her parents for a small charge. When she turned 15 years old, she started a business called myYearbook with her brother in New Jersey. She partnered up with her brother David, and they were kick started by her older brother, Geoff, who made an investment to get them up-and-running.

Her business, myYearbook, which was started in 2005 with 400 members that went to school at her local high school. She grew her business immensely through great marketing strategies and a true passion. In 2012 it grew to an astounding 32.7 million users, which is the same year she sold their family business for 150 million dollars…

The success and the money were a byproduct of love and passion. Her brilliance in social networking led her to be on of the youngest self-made millionaires in the world. MyYearbook makes most of their revenue through online advertising. High school and college graduates go on myYearbook to reunite and touch base with old classmates.

Through Catherine, lessons can be taught to all of us, especially young entrepreneurs like ourselves. It starts with a simple idea, and having the ambition and passion to get out there and act on it. At a young age of 15 years old, she saw a problem that could be solved by herself. We are the millennial age and have the strongest position ever in human history. We have so many tools and resources at our disposal. Catherine, herself, proved you are never to young to start a business. Now is our time, let’s go out and conquer the world.

2 Comments

Categories : Academia, Blog, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Social Entrepreneur, Youngest Entrepreneurs

Watsi – Radically Transparent

Posted by Lizzie Parsons

· Monday, September 28th, 2015

· 2 Comments

A few years ago, Chase Adam was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when a woman boarded the bus and began asking for donations for her child’s medical treatment. Because panhandling is so prevalent in that area of the world, Adam was shocked to see all of the natives give the women money for her child. He realized the natives believed this woman because she had the child’s information and had established a sense of trust with them. Inspired, Adam returned to the United States with the goal of starting a non-profit to provide healthcare around the world.

However, when Adam returned home, he realized that many non-profits weren’t very efficient and were underfunded. Adam decided to start a company that was built with an emphasis on impact, efficiency, and transparency. Watsi, launched in August 2012, is a “global crowdfunding platform for healthcare” – basically a Kickstarter for medical treatments. People can donate any amount of money to fund medical treatment and care around the world. Once a patient’s funding goal is met, the patient receives the treatment. Watsi then updates all of the donors with the patient’s treatment outcome.

Watsi is different from most non-profits because 100% of the money donated goes directly to people in need. All of Watsi’s operating expenses are paid for by optional tips or other philanthropists. Watsi prides itself on being “radically transparent”. In fact, all of their financial information in public knowledge and can be seen on their Transparency Document on their website (check if out here!). That way, you can see exactly where your money is going.

After a slow start, Watsi was the first nonprofit to received funding from Y Combinator, a tech company incubator program. Watsi took off and, within 2 years, raised more than $2 million, all of which went to patients in need. In 2014, Adam was listed on Forbes list of 30 Under 30: Social Entrepreneurs. Inspired by the woman on the bus, Adam was able to take an idea he was passionate about and use it to help thousands of people about the world.

2 Comments

Categories : Great Ideas, Medical, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Online Companies, Social Entrepreneur, Social Justice, Technology