Archive for Millennial Entrepreneurs – Page 16

Barley & Birch

Posted by Maddie Williams 
· Monday, December 15th, 2014 
· 1 Comment

Entrepreneurship can mean a lot of work and Kyle Smitley’s business journey is a symbol of this. She is a law student in her second year in San Francisco while also the founder of a popular organic kids clothing line, Barley & Birch. The model for her business operates on the idea of giving back. She has donated over half of her profits to the charity organizations that she feels connected with personally. Not only does her story show how successful a venture can be with the passion and drive required has been put into it, it also shows that you do not necessarily have to be well known or even as experienced as others in the field you decide to direct your drive towards. After an internship in Washington, D.C. doing research on companies that claimed to have organic products, she decided that she was going to create a brand that really stood for what it believed in, and Barley & Birch was born.

Smitley’s business has grown a lot since it started, and has gained recognition in the world of fashion. Through it all, however, she has maintained the original mission of the company: to stay 100% organic, and to help others through the company’s nonprofit work.

1 Comment
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Fashion, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Social Entrepreneur

Hype Machine

Posted by Maddie Williams 
· Monday, December 15th, 2014 
· 1 Comment

Many entrepreneurs get their start from solving an everyday problem that can benefit vast numbers of people. Anthony Volodkin is one of those entrepreneurs. The idea of Hype Machine originated in Volodkin’s desire for a better way of finding cool new music.

Volodkin was really solving his own problem with the music industry. He would constantly travel to Philadelphia or Boston attempting to find new music. There wasn’t a reliable print source available due to marketing bias, and it just meet his standards. Hype Machine was born in this distress. In between classes at college, Volodkin started building a website that showed recent posts from a selection of music blogs. He would sample songs and let people know what was popular and what was good. The result was a way to find new music by crowd-sourcing. In its most basic form, Hype Machine shows music to users that they might like but may not have ever found.

Hype Machine took off after getting attention from industry leaders, but Volodkin learned from the mistakes of Napster.  He made sure that his site was not competing with artists by linking to iTunes or other sites to purchase the songs. This well thought out business plan is what made Hype Machine well known in the internet community and its start up story can inspire young entrepreneurs today. Anthony Volodkin’s entrepreneurial journey shows us that it is never too early to start making our ideas reality.

1 Comment
Categories : Millennial Entrepreneurs, Online Companies, Websites

Michael Nardy: The Business Man

Posted by Maddie Williams 
· Monday, December 15th, 2014 
· No Comments

Michael Nardy has always been the businessman. From a young age he was always wanting to work, and was one of the first adopters of computer technology. He showed his entrepreneurial spirit as young as 12, when he channeled his passion for tennis into a profit by stinging racquets. His interests shifted towards medicine but then quickly shifted away after a few months of experience in the field. He attended Boston College in the 90’s and graduated with a double major in English and History. He says now, looking back, that his education was fare from the merchant services industry, but that he always “felt that you should do what you want that the pieces of your career will fall into place as they may.”

Nardy started EPI, an IT company doing Web programming and database development, in his dorm room that gained quite a few international clients. When he closed deals, clients would often think it was a huge business and no idea that Nardy was still in college. After Nardy graduated, EPI moved into his own house then into a sublet office then into an office building down the road from that.

Nardy is quick to act and admits that it is both his greatest strength and greatest weakness. Because of this he is always trying to keep EPI ahead of his competition. He strives to keep the small company atmosphere in the office and works alongside his employees. “The more accessible to your staff, the more cohesive the vision for your company can remain,” he says. “So being accessible is integral to the operation of my company.”

He is always looking for ways to grow the company. Nardy wants the company to earn more, sign more deals, and build a better business. It is this drive that always keeps EPI ahead of the game.

Looking at all that Nardy has accomplished should be proof to all entrepreneurs that you don’t have to be a veteran of an industry to be an industry leader.

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Categories : Millennial Entrepreneurs, Online Companies, Technology, Websites

16 year old worth $300,000

Posted by Nick Schafhauser 
· Thursday, December 11th, 2014 
· 3 Comments

Connor Bruggemann is a high school student who turned $10,000 into $300,000 by trading penny stocks. It all started when Connor put all of his savings into a stock called American Community Development Group Inc, which was valued at $.003 a share. Not long after, ACYD soared to 6 cents a share and Connor was now worth around $200,000. With his new found wealth, Connor bought himself a BMW and each of his parents Macbooks.

Connor now has his own investment website where he talks about what stocks he is currently invested in and also talks to people in his chatroom, this website costs $147 a month or $1200 for a year.

Connor plans to study Finance, Economics, and entrepreneurship in college. Connor is a great entrepreneur because he found a way to monopolize on the fact that he was previously successful in the stock market by making his investment website.

3 Comments
Categories : Millennial Entrepreneurs

#SophiaAmoruso

Posted by Travis Yohey 
· Monday, December 8th, 2014 
· 2 Comments

Success stories come in all shapes and sizes. For Sophia Amoruso it came in the form of vintage women’s clothing. This one time dumpster diver has managed to transform herself into a very successful, yet very down to earth, entrepreneur through sheer guts, tenacity, and innovation.

This brilliant story starts with a very common occurrence in the lives of many entrepreneurs, a side project. Sophia Amoruso managed an Ebay page named Nasty Gal that sold vintage clothing that were salvation army rejects. Eventually she dropped her day job scanning ID cards at the local community college and started to focus on Nasty Gal. Her business toke off. When the time came to move to her own site, www.shopnastygal.com, she had her Ebay page suspended for promoting the new site. Regardless of this minor hick-up she sold out of merchandise on the first day.

How did Sophia create such a demand so early in her career? She found a fabulous niche market for what she had, vintage. During her Ebay days she also discovered an interesting phenomenon in humans: they prefer to see an article of clothing on a human being rather than lying on the ground. It may sound simple to us now, however, in the day she was working it was very common for no model to be used to sell a piece of clothing. With this competitive advantage and a thoroughly fantastic niche market she was able to drive the demand that she saw on the opening day of her new site.

What has Sophia done since that first day? Simple, she has grown her company into a multimillion dollar company, one that reaped 100 million dollars in last year- profitable, and has had one of the single most explosive growth rates in the last decade. She has published #GIRLBOSS a hybrid memoir and business text. The vast majority of this text is devoted to her adolescence with common sense business lessons sown in like stitching on a sweater. Sophia Amoruso is certainly a #GIRLBOSS.#girlboss

2 Comments
Categories : eCommerce, Fashion, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Uncategorized

The Brilliant Bradlee

Posted by Travis Yohey 
· Sunday, December 7th, 2014 
· 2 Comments

What if the history of music we know is wrong? What if all of the hits we knew and loved growing up sounded just slightly different? This is the alternative history of pop music that Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox plays.

When Scott Bradlee was young he was thoroughly inspired when he listened to Gerswin’s Rhapsody in Blue. He taught himself how it to play this on the piano, however, he was unsatisfied stopping there. He quickly picked up the steps of 1920’s ragtime music; fast, reckless, and fantastically loud. It captivated him. His comprehension of what made pop music from all ages truly great enabled him to slur together various styles of music, yet, he was still able to contain the core meaning of each song he recomposed. This is the brilliance of the man.

What can an artist do to make a name for himself? Bradlee made the traditional move aspiring artists make. He moved to New York City. Sadly for Bradlee, Jazz pianists, which he was marketing himself as at the time, were everywhere in the Big Apple. Refusing to break from his dream Bradlee made the sensible move and went to Astoria, a far less populated area with cheaper rent. While he was there he started making videos for YouTube. His first hit was a hit was a ragtime themed medley of 1980’s pop music that scored over a million views, and thus began his true career.

With the assembling of Post Modern Jukebox Bradlee finally had a crew of all shapes and kinds to help him achieve that truly spectacular sound he had always dreamed of. Since their forming, they have taken hits from the 1970’s to this very day and rewritten them in the full spirit of Postmodernism. At this moment Scott Bradlee has a following of 844,00 subscribers and approaching 150,000,000 views on his YouTube videos. Starting this year they are scheduled to tour North America and Europe. Thankfully, for those completely hooked on his videos, he shall still be making them while on tour.

Postmodern Jukebox

 

2 Comments
Categories : Millennial Entrepreneurs, Music, Online Companies, Orchestra, Uncategorized, YouTube

Isabella Rose Taylor

Posted by Olivia Ebert 
· Friday, December 5th, 2014 
· 3 Comments

Shopping at Nordstrom’s, a fashion line designed by a 13-year-old is not something you would expect to see, yet there it is, Isabella Rose Taylor.  In 2010 Isabella Rose Taylor the designer of the clothing line bearing her name became inspired to learn to sew and try fashion design.  As her love for fashion has grown she has released several collections in her clothing line beginning in fall of 2013. 

In addition to fashion, Isabella has a love of painting.  While I personally do not care for her style of art, I can definitely appreciate her talent as some of her paintings are quite impressive, especially considering she is only 13 years old.

She has won several awards for her work in art, fashion, and poetry and has been featured in magazines and television including the Today show.

Using social media Isabella has been able to get the word out about her clothing line.  She keeps Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts believing that social media is important tool for the entrepreneur.

Isabella demonstrates right brained thinking with her different creative interests.  This right brained thinking will be quite helpful as her entrepreneurial spirit grows as she expands her work, continuing on in her successful fashion design career.

3 Comments
Categories : Art, Fashion, Millennial Entrepreneurs

A Real Estate Investor Who Isn’t Old Enough to Drive

Posted by Abigail Schiela 
· Tuesday, October 28th, 2014 
· 1 Comment

Willow Tufano is a now fifteen year old girl who lives in Florida, but she was only fourteen years old when she bought her first house with the help of her mother, and began renting it out for $700 a month.  The two now own an additional house which they also rent out.  They bought the first for $12,000 and the second for $17,500, incredibly low prices in the housing market.  Willow’s plan is to buy her mother’s half of the houses when she turns eighteen and is legally allowed to own a house, she also hopes to own ten of these homes by that point.

Willow’s mother worked in real estate even before Willow asked for help to buy a house, and Willow helped gut and renovate houses for her mother, as she does still, now, for the houses that the two buy together and rent out.  Willow has put so much time into these houses and this business that she has left her full time school for the gifted to be homeschooled through Florida’s Virtual School.

I am personally inspired by Willow because I know adults who are in a similar business, with buying and renting out houses, who are much later in life than she is.  I didn’t think it was possible for a girl her age to be handling such big projects and to be putting so much energy into something that is generally something that adults who are older than her do.  She’s also inspirational because she is able to balance school and her business, and she was able to recognize that she wouldn’t be able to do that while still enrolled in traditional schooling, and made the decision to switch to homeschooling.  Willow renovating a home

 

1 Comment
Categories : Bootstrap Business, Education, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Real Estate

Twitter

Posted by Nick Schafhauser 
· Tuesday, October 14th, 2014 
· No Comments

Jack Dorsey was 29 years old when he created twitter, a company now evaluated at 10 billion. Jack joined the computer programing scene when he was 14 years old creating open source software for dispatch services, still used by some taxi services today. Jack attended Missouri university of science and technology for a short time, he then transferred to New York University and soon dropped out. After dropping out he moved to California to start a dispatch website which dispatched taxis and emergency services.

Jack thought of the idea of Twitter after using a social media service called LiveJournal, Jack thought there were many ways to improve it. One day when Jack was sitting in a coffee shop, Evan Williams, the chief executive of Odeo walked in. After talking with Evan, Jack was interested in working at Odeo which was a podcasting company. Jack was hired and pitched his idea of twitter, originally called Obvious. Jack, Evan, and Odeo executive Biz Stone had a simple website made in just two weeks. Jack was named CEO but ran into trouble with keeping the website running, so he was replaced by Evan Williams. Jack was still a company chairman at Twitter, and during that time he developed another product called Square, a way for smartphones to take credit card payments. Square quickly gained popularity and is now evaluated at 3.2 billion dollars, with Jack as the CEO. In 2011 Jack rejoined Twitter to lead product development as Executive Chairman.

Just like Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey was also kicked out of the company that he founded. Jack didn’t let that hurdle stop him as he went on and created another hit product. Jack is a great entrepreneur because he wasn’t just a one-hit wonder, he created more than one amazing product. Jack started out with humble beginnings and is now a very accomplished man, with a net worth of 2.2 billion

www.twitter.com www.squareup.com

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Categories : Millennial Entrepreneurs

Thinking Outside the Box

Posted by Maddie Williams 
· Tuesday, October 7th, 2014 
· 1 Comment

Dropbox is a program that we are all familiar with in one way or another. The birth story of this company, however, is not as common knowledge.

 DB

Drew Huston, founder and CEO of Dropbox, has been given the title of Internet entrepreneur for his achievements in his field. The creation story of the company, Huston claims, was based upon an idea that came to him after having had to deal with constantly forgetting his USB flash drive during his studies at MIT. While he was a student he found an abundance of problems with already existing storage services and set out to solve this problem for himself before realizing that his solution could benefit others as well. In 2007, he and his co-founder Arash Ferdowsi were able to secure funding to begin the development of the program, and by 2008 they were ready to launch. Dropbox had an enormous success rate, and, after officially being introduced at TechCrunch50, broke records gaining 50 million users in just under three years. By the end of 2013 Dropbox had gained over 200 million users.

Huston’s success did not go unnoticed, however, especially by some of the executives in extremely high positions at the time including none other than Steve Jobs. In 2009, Huston was personally invited to a meeting in the Apple office in California to discuss this new startup, Dropbox, with the CEO himself. Job’s did his best to persuade Huston to partner Dropbox as a new Apple program, but Huston was determined to build this online storage system into a big company. He adamantly refused Job’s offer, disregarding the huge sum being offered for program. Not long after, Apple released its latest addition, the iCloud in a successful attempt at connecting all devices for better file sharing.

With this attack from such a major player Huston was shaken with the fear that Dropbox would fall alongside other names such as MySpace, Netscape, or Palm. This is the fear that drove him and quite possibly the deciding factor between his success instead of his failure. The company grew, reaching an even larger user basis while still remaining reliable and keeping its staff relatively small (fewer than 200 employees for its millions of customers). Huston is to this day still incredibly invested in his company personally, his share making up 15% of the company as $600 million on paper, and believes whole heartedly in its growth and success.

1 Comment
Categories : Millennial Entrepreneurs, Online Companies, Technology
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