Archive for Haiti – Page 3

Gladiator Lacrosse

In 2013, Rachel Zietz identified an issue identified a relatable issue to most athletes. She believed equipment was both too expensive and not durable enough. At the age of 13, Rachel sought to solve this issue. Hence, the company Gladiator Lacrosse was born. After attending the Young Entrepreneurs Academy in Boca Raton, Florida, she had an opportunity to pitch her idea to a panel of investors. She was given $2,700 to get started. She used this start up capital to create a line of lacrosse rebounders which is affordable, high quality, and durable. After just one year on the market, Rachel had made $200,000 in revenue. Two years later, her sales had increased to over $1 million dollars! Not to bad for 3 years considering her startup money began at $2,700. She continues to impress the entrepreneurial community as she was honored as a finalists for the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce’s 2015 Entrepreneur Award. Rachel is a shining example for young entrepreneurs everywhere.

Sources:

-https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/27/8-young-entrepreneurs-making-serious.html?slide=7

-http://www.gladiatorlacrosse.com/

Zollipops

In 2014, Alina Morse asked her dad a simple question to solve a prevalent issue among children: cavities. She asked, “Dad, why can’t we make a lollipop that’s good for your teeth?” This question sparked the creation of Zollipops. With help from her father and a significant amount of research, this 7 year old entrepreneur was able to make this dream a reality. But what would she call these healthy lollipops? Her little sister Lola came up with Zollipops and Alina loved it. Zollipops are a sugar free, vegan, smart, organic, and “yummy’ candy. They are made with the sweeteners xylitol, erythritol, stevia and other natural ingredients which are healthier alternatives to sugar. They also help to neutralize acidity in the mouth, which prevents bacteria that causes tooth decay to grow.

Last year, Alina made $70,000 in sales and entered the kids’ version of “Shark Tank.” Even through this remarkable success, Alina is not quite finished yet. She’s currently working on getting Zollipops into dentist offices and schools across the country!

Sources:

-https://zollipops.com/our-story/

-https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/27/8-young-entrepreneurs-making-serious.html?slide=4

Clean Eating Alice

Often, when people think of personal trainers, they think of big, bulky men who eat enormous amounts of protein and only wear sleeveless shirts. Alice Liveing, however, does not fit that stereotype. Alice Liveing, instead, is a girl who used to describe herself as a “junk food addict.” After years of unhealthy eating habits, acne-prone skin, and low confidence, she decided that it was time to make a change. She started to change her eating habits by only eating healthy or “clean” foods. She would post all of her meals onto her Instagram page in order to keep herself accountable. On top of this, she started to workout regularly and posted her progress to her Instagram account as well.

She was able to quickly shed two dress sizes, going from a 12 to an 8, by simply changing her diet and exercise routine. It was not long before people started to notice and admire her progress. Through her Instagram, they were able to track her journey and use it as encouragement to fuel their own. She quickly gained 636,000 followers on this social media platform, catapulting her entrepreneurial and fitness career.

She capitalized on her newly found fame in order to launch her own personal training and fitness business. She has also written 3 books, one of which is the famous: The Body Bible. By the age of 24, Liveing has been able to build a successful career, not only as a personal trainer, but also as a business woman and entrepreneur. She used the resources at her disposal to grow and market her business as much as she possibly could.

Alice Liveing is a terrific example of a young entrepreneur because she adapted her business model to fit the needs of other young people. She used social media to reach other millennials in order to better advertise to the market she was familiar with. This shows the importance of pivoting your ideas and adapting your businesses to align with your target market. I am inspired by Alice Liveing and would like to take a similar approach to marketing with my future business.

Tree-planting Tea Business Continues to Grow

Mark Sotomayor, a fellow Grove City entrepreneurship major, started his own business in October of 2017. Té Amo was created in response to Mark’s belief that he should start a business in college due to his major. Mark summed it up like this, “If you’re gonna major in it, why not try your hardest to start a business?” He knew that if he came up with an idea, he could also use it to enter into various competitions that Grove City pays for . Using his Peruvian grandmother’s chai recipe, Mark shares his love for tea with Pittsburgh, and gives the proceeds to Haiti. Having gone to Haiti before, Mark came up with an idea for a value proposition: for every bottle of tea bought, one tree is planted in Haiti. Trees naturally make the soil more rich in nutrients, thus causing more produce to be able to grow. With more resources, Haitians can make a living and feed their families.
 
During my interview, Mark’s face became serious as he explained that not all aspects of his business have been sunshine and rainbows. This past year, there was a mix-up with Mark’s business taxes, making him receive a hefty $800 fine from the IRS. In addition to this, Mark also received a cease and desist order from a company in Guatemala with the same name, Té Amo. With these two problems along with various others, Mark does not know for sure what the future holds. But he does know that, “People are supportive of my idea…It makes them feel something, as it should.” While Mark encountered many hardships, he still feels confident in the idea of his product and he wants to make it work. Exemplifying true grit, Mark illustrates how to persevere through seemingly impossible situations because his vision is worth more than just a paycheck.

Hubble Contacts, The Harry’s Razors of Contacts

Two young men named Ben Cogan and Jesse Horwitz have completely disrupted the contact industry with their contact delivery service, Hubble Contacts. For just $30 a month the company will send you fresh daily contacts in the mail. Think Harry’s Razors but for contacts. The contacts are produced by St. Shine and are FDA approved. The reason the company can get you fresh daily contacts for so cheap is because they have skipped the middle man and go direct to consumer.

Ben grew up in New York City and worked as a Senior Customer Insights Associate at Harry’s where he “helped to build the Customer Insights Team where I surveyed and interviewed customers, modeled new business opportunities”. Jesse also grew up in New York and invested his own money in private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, and real estate. Both met at Bridgewater in the summer of 2011. After they met Ben spent time on the Hubble idea and with input from his fellow workers at Harry’s made the move to start the company and called Jesse for help in the start up.

Hubble Contacts has had wild success because they are the first direct to consumer contact lens brand that is both affordable and high quality. They are able to achieve there affordability part of their business model by having the direct to consumer business model and they also take less than a 80% margin that most company’s in the industry are at. As of 2017 the Hubble team has acquired more than 20,000 customers.

contact lens

Article: https://ownersmag.com/hubble-contacts-ben-cogan-jesse-horwitz-interview/

 

Entrepreneurs That Will Brighten Your Day

Andrea Sreshta and Anna Stork were just two ordinary grad students pursuing their degrees at Columbia University when they had a “bright” idea. In 2010 while they were still in school, a terrible earthquake hit Haiti. One of their class assignments was to develop and design a product that would aid in the relief of this struggling nation. Thus, LuminAID was born.

Image result for LuminAIDSee the source image

These solar powered lanterns solved a massive problem which is commonly over looked in relief efforts. The under-developed state of Haiti already suffered from its lack of electric lighting. However, especially in times of crisis good lighting is a necessity and Sreshta and Stork noticed this gap and optimized its potential. Their first prototype was made after several hours of tinkering. The next three weeks of their class was spent refining the idea. Once they saw the amazing potential for the product they filed for a patent.

Image result for LuminAID Image result for LuminAID Image result for LuminAID

This brilliant duo teamed up with several relief teams in Haiti and tested out their new idea. It was an absolute success and proven to get the job done.  The LuminAID was so successful they decided to start a real for-profit company selling them for commercial and recreational use. Their market development strategy has caught a lot of traction and the LuminAID lantern has shown stunning growth. Officially back by Mark Cuban from Shark tank, The LuminAID team is well on their way to impacting the world and making people rethink lighting.

Bite Toothpaste Bits

Lindsay McCormick created a better product that you wouldn’t think needed changing. McCormick created toothpaste pills that come in glass bottles. She created toothpaste bits because 1 billion toothpaste tubes end up in landfills every year. The glass bottle is meant to be reused for refills and the pills become foamy like toothpaste right away after biting. This young woman took a problem and passion she had and ran with it. She created a product that saves people money on toothpaste, and reduces toothpaste tubes that end up in landfills yearly. Here is a link to a video to hear more on her story and the product, https://www.businessinsider.com/this-toothpaste-pill-comes-in-sustainable-packaging-bite-toothpaste-bits-2018-9?r=UK&IR=T

Man Creates Edible Water “Jelly Drops” to Help Dementia Patients Stay Hydrated

Lewis Hornby, a London student came up with a genius solution to helping patients with dementia drink water. Hornby noticed that his grandmother wasn’t drinking enough and that people with dementia, “no longer feel thirst, don’t know how to quench thirst, or don’t have the dexterity to drink”. So he created colorful “candies” which are made up of mostly water, with gelling agents and electrolytes making up just 10% of their composition. Which are presented in packaging reminiscent of a box of chocolates. He tested out how well the product would work on his grandmother and, “When first offered, grandma ate seven Jelly Drops in 10 minutes, the equivalent to a cup full of water—something that would usually take hours and require much more assistance”. Hornby created a solution to a problem by thinking outside of the box and presenting a life necessity, water, in fun and easier way for people with dementia to drink water and stay hydrated. Here is a video and the article about the “Jelly Drops”,  https://mymodernmet.com/lewis-hornby-jelly-drops/

We Are the World

We Are the World

By: Daniel Colflesh

Music. What a way to help people. In 1985, a song titled “We Are the World” was born. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie (with arrangements by John Barnes) and produced by Quincy Jones. It is one of the fewer than 30 all-time physical singles to have sold at least 10 million copies worldwide. Not to mention, a lot of famous artists (37 artists) were featured on this track, including: Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, John Oates, Daryl Hall, Tina Turner, The Jackson 5, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. They all came together to produce this masterpiece of a song that would rake in $63 million (today, $141 million) for the humanitarian aid in Africa and the United States.

The United Support of Artists for Africa is best known for its recording of “We Are the World” and the “Hands Across America” event in 1986. In these 33 years, USA for Africa has raised more than $100,000,000 to help ease the pain an poverty in Africa and the United States. The main goal of this organization is to help people in poverty and give them a chance to have a better life. They have clearly raised a lot of money for the people in Africa and the United States.

One thing that I think is really awesome is that a bunch of different artists came together (regardless of their skin color, religion, or anything biased) and made this song that would impact a lot of people. I think that is is a really amazing thing that people can come together through a common interest (music) and create something that touches so many people’s hearts, minds and emotions. Even though that USA for Africa is essentially a non-profit organization, they have created such a great way to bring revenue to help people in such a positive way. One day, I hope that I can find a way to help people through making music. That would mean so much to me and be one of the best things that I could do. It would bring so much joy and happiness to me and would be a great goal of mine. Hopefully one day, I can help people through music.

 

Websites used:

About Us

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_the_World

 

Hubble- Stop Making the Choice between Healthy Eyes and Money

Do you have eye insurance? Most of us do not, and that can make it hard to see, literally. I mean paying $600+ to see for the next 6 months can be really hard, so what do most people do? Wear their contacts past the date they should, which can damage eyes. My sister in particular wore the same pair of contacts for years, which resulted in damage to her eyes! This has been happening forever, but Ben Cogan and Jesse Horwitz are putting an end to this with Hubble. 

Hubble is a high-quality contact lenses company that can provide you with your prescription without draining your bank account. While they did have to jump through many hoops to get this product up to par with the bigger companies, they still managed to create a product that is way less expensive than name brand contacts! There are four companies that control 95% of the market, which gives them the ability to place great margins on their product, but Hubble decreases those margins and gives you daily contact lenses that cost less than a dollar a day. For those of you who do not purchase contacts, I personally have paid about $100.00 a month for my contacts since I do not have eye insurance, and of course by I, I mean my parents. I also wear monthly contacts as opposed to dailies, which Hubble sells, that are generally cheaper.

There are a few things Hubble is solving. The biggest issue is allowing people to purchase an item that they need, without having to dish out a great deal of money. I would 100% love to save $70 a month on an item that I need to function in every day life. The effect of saving money also allows people to stop damaging their eyes trying to wear their contacts for prolonged periods of time. They are saving eyes and money.

The other interesting factor here is that despite having a small gap to fit into the market in the first place, Ben and Jesse managed to disrupt the market. They provide a service that delivers to you directly, taking the middle man out aka your eye doctor. But when your prescription needs updated you can find someone through their website. This is also a well developed company that could bring other contact companies back down to an even playing level. They used a tight gap to create an even more effective opportunity for themselves, which is absolutely incredible.

I’ve learned a lot from Ben and Jesse. Breaking the market is incredible, but they also fixed a problem everyone else has just been accepting for years. Every venture has hoops, being self aware of what they needed and how to get to that goal is part of their success, even in a market that was dominated. This is a problem I have, but I just assumed because contacts are a medical product that the price could not be dropped. They really looked at this problem, researched, and developed a foundation for a company that has so much potential.