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4Ocean – Andrew Cooper & Alex Schulze

Posted by Laura Mosley

· Sunday, September 15th, 2019

· 1 Comment

(L to R) Alex Schulze and Andrew Cooper owners of 4Ocean, a company that actively removes trash from the ocean. Photo by Tim Stepien.

I’m sure we’ve all seen ads from time to time about 4Ocean – the company that sells bracelets and puts money towards cleaning up our oceans. In the last few months, I’ve seen an increase in these ads before Youtube videos and I’ve wondered who it is that’s behind this endeavor.

As it turns out, there are two people: Andrew Cooper and Alex Schulze. Recently, these two made it to the 2019 edition of the Forbes 30 Under 30 for their efforts. So how did it all start?

In 2015, Cooper and Schulze went on a surfing trip to Bali and were appalled by the amount of plastic they found in the ocean. As we are learning in class, they found trouble and sought to fix it. By 2017, they were selling the bracelets we all know of today as a way to fund the cleanup effort. According to the organization, the bracelets are made of recycled materials and each represents a pound of trash that will be removed. 4Ocean has since created more products to help fund the effort, but the bracelets remain the most widely known. According to an article in PR Newswire, “By creating jobs, utilizing the latest technology and raising awareness about the impact of trash in the ocean, the company is building the first economy for ocean plastic and creating a cleaner, more sustainable future for the ocean.”

Cooper and Schulze are excellent examples of entrepreneurs who used their passion to change how the world sees a problem. They are both surfers, fishermen, and divers. They spend much of their time around the water and were perfectly suited to see and frame the problem of plastic in the ocean in a way that many people around the world have not known. They did not just say that there was a problem, but they showed pictures and gave people a simple way that they could help – all with the easy purchase of a recycled bracelet. Every time a customer would look at the bracelet, they would be reminded of the ongoing problem and the fight to clean the world’s oceans. By presenting the problem in a way that gave people something easy to do and inspiring them with the need, they made the daunting task of cleaning up the oceans seem very possible and even exciting.

Sources:

https://4ocean.com/about/

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/4ocean-co-founders-andrew-cooper-and-alex-schulze-named-forbes-30-under-30-social-entrepreneurs-300750165.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/4oceans-cleaned-up-1-million-pounds-of-ocean-garbage.html

1 Comment

Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Business, Clean water, Enviornmental, Great Ideas, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Ocean, Outdoors, Recycling

Benjamin Stern and Nohbo

Posted by SpicherJM18

· Saturday, November 24th, 2018

· 2 Comments

Benjamin Stern was only 17 years old when he secured an investment from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank for his company Nohbo. Benjamin started his entrepreneurship journey all the way back in middle school, where he started his first venture. Stern would buy his own coffee beans at a wholesale price, from a roaster in Seattle, and would go around his neighborhood selling his own coffee. Part of the sales would go to the Wounded Warriors Project. After this he wanted to create an idea that would go beyond his own neighborhood.

Image result for Benjamin Stern and Nohbo

Using his company Nohbo, Benjamin Stern is trying to eliminate the need for plastic bottles in personal car products. Such as shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and shaving cream. His product is a single use, water-soluble, apparatus that dissolves 100 percent. It is either a ball of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, or shaving cream that you just rub on your hands under water and lather up. Moving forward Benjamin is trying to work with top hotel distributors to create a custom line for them. With an increasing consumer demand on the emphasis of cleaner, greener, and healthier products, I have no doubt that this product is bound to really change up the health and body care industry.

Article Link: https://www.newhope.com/business-resources/walk-you-run-interview-benjamin-stern-17-year-old-founder-nohbo

2 Comments

Categories : Beauty, Creating, Engineering, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Recycling, Shark Tank

Plastic Clothing?

Posted by GoseNP18

· Monday, October 22nd, 2018

· 5 Comments

Turning plastic into clothing came from a brother-sister duo at Colgate University. Growing up right by the beach, the brother and sister noticed a waste problem. They realized they wanted to do something about the problem and came up with a solution. The duo pitched an idea to turn plastic bottles into swimwear, earning them $20,000 at a mock Shark Tank. After winning, they raised nearly $25,000 more, and ended up launching the company, Fair Harbor Clothing. The concept is very neat and is quite simple, bottles are broken down into polyfibers which are then spun into yarn and sewn into clothing. The duo started selling by going to over 200 Trunk Shows. Today, the business has grown greatly, Fair Harbor worked with the Brooklyn Fashion and Design Accelerator to create board shorts and woman’s swimsuits using 11 plastic bottles and a little bit of cotton and spandex for shaping.

The plastic to clothing design is very innovative and is a great idea. I think this idea is a great way to help with global cleanliness and waste reduction, a large problem in the world today. They take and use 11 bottles for clothing and the company is continuing to grow their inventory and options which helps to use even more recycling. I think it would be cool if they took bottles and other plastics straight from the ocean and helped to clean the earth by recycling and actually cleaning the ocean. However, the company is a great idea and is great for the planet and society.

5 Comments

Categories : Business, Clean water, Creating, Engineering, Great Ideas, Manufacturing, Recycling, Shark Tank, Sustainable, Technology, Uncategorized, Upcycling

Package Free

Posted by kocurcm1

· Tuesday, October 9th, 2018

· 1 Comment

In 2012, businesswoman and environmental enthusiast, Lauren Singer, began “Trash is for Tossers”, a blog in which she documents her Zero Waste lifestyle. Her passion for sustainability and reducing waste has dominated and driven this blog, which holds numerous videos and information regarding the significance of her movement. Taking this passion to greater heights, Lauren Singer decided to create a company that shares this lifestyle with the world and educates those who are unaware of this movement. In her blog, Singer writes, “I created Package Free Shop because I believe that as consumers we all should have convenient access to products that help us reduce our environmental impact. I also started Package Free Shop to empower amazing mission driven entrepreneurs who are dedicating their lives to tackling plastic pollution and waste and help their businesses to grow in a way that was sustainable”. Ultimately, she identified the problem of finding waste-free products conveniently in one place and decided to solve it with a new business.

Singer’s company, Package Free Shop, was founded in 2018 and maintains a store location in New York City as well as an extensive online shop. The products that she sells promote a waste-free lifestyle and include beauty products, cleaning products, pet products, and office products. Thus far, Lauren Singer’s venture has been measured extremely successful. The Package Free Shop website writes, “Since opening, we’ve kept an estimated 4,025,600 plastic straws, 3,061,240 plastic bags, and 1,419,260 non-recyclable bottles and cups out of landfill”. It is incredibly inspiring to learn this story of Lauren Singer, how she was able to use her passion to identify a problem that she created a successful solution for. Singer was willing to take a risk in this industry and spread her passion in a way that impacts others. Hopefully, this company will continue to find success in a market that has strong potential.

1 Comment

Categories : Business, Great Ideas, Recycling, Sustainable, Women Entrepreneurs

Trash to Cash – Wonky Drinks by Karina Sudentye and Maciek Kacprzyk

Posted by crowleyjp18

· Sunday, September 16th, 2018

· 4 Comments

Karina Sudenyte, a 22 year-old BA studying for a BA in business management, and Maciek Kacprzyk, a 25 year-old with two masters degrees in law co-own an extremely environmentally conscious fresh juice business, Get Wonky. Their aim is to cut down on the astronomical number of fruit thrown away into the garbage. The fruit and vegetables used are not viable for the produce markets because they are “defective”. Get Wonky takes produce from the growers that would otherwise be unusable due to being misshapen or discolored and makes them into a desirable product. They do this by juicing and bottling the “defective” produce using Grandma’s recipe in 100% recyclable glass bottles and sustainable catering pack to reduce plastic waste.

Related image

I really appreciate this young company because they center their business practice around environmental sustainability, which the marketplace is in desperate need of. Their mission is to “Give wonky fruit a chance”. More specifically, they aim to produce delicious drinks, support growers that can’t shift wonky produce, reinvest all profits into saving more fruit, and reduce food and packaging waste.

https://youtu.be/2qBRATOAib0

4 Comments

Categories : Food, Recycling, Sustainable, Uncategorized, Youngest Entrepreneurs

How Saving the Fishies Saved Sand Cloud

Posted by nakhlacn17

· Saturday, September 15th, 2018

· 2 Comments

An Instagram search of the hashtag #savethefishies results in nearly 126,000 public posts, most featuring azure oceans, sea creatures, and people enjoying the beach. The road to this level of success was much less leisurely for Bruno Aschidamini, Steven Ford, and Brandon Liebel, but their love for the ocean and the atmosphere of a self-made entrepreneurial career eventually brought them there.

“The blind faith that we had to pursue freedom and become an entrepreneur—we never questioned it once,” says Aschidamini of Sand Cloud, the environmental-friendly beach towel brand now grossing over $7 million in annual revenue. Back when the business began in 2013 there was no way the three young Californian entrepreneurs could have known the challenges and alterations they’d have to face before their entrepreneurial endeavor, then known as “Cloud Nine,” would finally become the widespread popular business is today.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmPCYASA-Do/?hl=en&taken-by=sand_cloud

Their initial product concept was a towel with an attached pillow, designed for taking naps on the beach; however, they weren’t selling nearly enough at the time to account for all the other expenses attached to a startup—a warehouse, trademarks, and the irreconcilable cost of buying the towels in bulk. The three compartmentalized their lives into a tiny apartment on a strict budget with the intention of investing everything into the business. At a surf expo in 2015, they were attempting unsuccessfully to market the pillow towel, when they discovered that the public was much more interested in a mandala-design towel without an attached pillow. Accepting that their original idea was not catching on and that for the sake of business they’d have to substitute it with something they saw as less innovative was a struggle.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BleDdlgBLwK/?hl=en&taken-by=sand_cloud

However, adjustment of their original idea turned out to be a game changer. Sales soared on the new product, a lightweight, sand-free towel crafted from Turkish cotton and sold in a variety of designs, and Sand Cloud has since added accessories, T-shirts, water bottles, and jewelry to their market. In 2016, Ford, Liebel, and Aschidamini appeared on Shark Tank, which generated even more publicity and gained them an investment. Furthermore, their newly revamped business is now focused around a mission, which they fulfill by donating a percentage of their profits to various marine conservation organizations. I myself, along with others, have had the opportunity to promote them as a social media ambassador. Choosing to invest their resources in a cause important to them has bred immense loyalty with Sand Cloud’s customers, and their willingness to adapt to their market has been instrumental in granting them success.

Shop their website: https://www.sandcloud.com/

Learn More: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/how-sand-cloud-got-on-shark-tank-and-made-millions.html

2 Comments

Categories : Clean water, Recycling, Shark Tank

Tags : beach, environmental, sandcloud, sharktank, towels

Maya’s Ideas

Posted by Katheryn Frazier

· Saturday, November 11th, 2017

· 3 Comments

Maya Penn is an entrepreneur, coder, philanthropist, designer, animator, writer, and illustrator. She was just 8 years old when she started her first company. Penn got interested in eco-friendly alternatives when her dad taught her about solar energy. She then discovered how harmful chemical dyes were to the environment and sought to combine that into a business idea. Penn out started by making ribbon headbands out of unused fabric around her house. The businesses started out with a $200 budget and grew from the profits received from there on out. Penn was taught how to sew from her mother. Her father was an entrepreneur and taught Penn about business and computers. At an early age Penn learned how to take apart a computer and even coded basic HTML at age 10. She now codes her own website. Her current online store is called Maya’s Ideas where she sells handcrafted clothes and accessories that are eco-friendly. The fabrics are organic or recycled. In 2013, Penn brought in $55,000 in sales and gave 10% to local charities. Penn always gives back to charities because her parents taught her to share with the less fortunate. Maya’s Ideas 4 the Planet is her nonprofit and Penn volunteers locally to this day. In addition, Penn creates also creates videos that she animates, writes, and produces about the environment. She has also created two children’s books and has a novel on advice to young entrepreneurs. Penn advises to start an idea journal. She also said to “….believe in yourself and what you’re doing. Don’t get discouraged if things are going slower than you expected. And don’t give up too quickly.”

3 Comments

Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Fashion, Recycling, Upcycling

Gabe Blanchet and Jamie Byron—Grove Ecosystem

Posted by raabeej1

· Friday, October 6th, 2017

· 1 Comment

the grove ecosystem launches a kickstarter for its indoor garden a27a4805

Gabe Blanchet and Jamie Byron were roommates and seniors at MIT. Both were concerned about one of the most threatening problems that we as humans face on this earth today; global food unsustainability. As this was frequently on his mind, Jamie decided to build a DIY aquaponics prototype in the room he shared with Gabe, capturing the attention of many visitors of their room. This prototype would eventually become the idea for a brand called Grove Labs. Grove Labs is a company that produces nearly self-sustaining indoor aquaponics gardens in your home. One such product is the Grove Ecosystem, capable of growing substantial yields of vegetables and herbs, frequently up to a salad per day. The entire fertilization, filtration, hydration, and feeding system is contained within the area of a single bookshelf, utilizing an aquarium of fish and LED lights to allow the plants to grow. Since its inception, Grove Ecosystem has raised nearly half a million on Kickstarter.

Gabe and Jamie’s story is interesting, because it shows how something unique can be created out of passion for a particular subject. In this case, they felt strongly about food sustainability, and brainstormed a product that can answer many of the problems in this subject by creating a self-sustaining home ecosystem. In addition, I appreciate their innovation with this product, as they have taken two concepts (the home and the garden) which are inherently separate and distinct, and merged them into something greater that they are passionate about.

References:

https://inhabitat.com/amazing-grove-aquaponic-ecosystem-can-grow-you-a-salad-every-day/

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/the-grove-ecosystem-launches-a-kickstarter-for-its-indoor-garden/

1 Comment

Categories : Food, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Recycling, Sustainable

Ashton Cofer’s Styrofoam Filter

Posted by Katheryn Frazier

· Friday, October 6th, 2017

· 3 Comments

Styrofoam is a commonly used material. It’s useful in so many ways, but often styrofoam ends up in landfills too often. 25% of landfills comprise of styrofoam and takes up to 500 years to decompose. Ashton Cofer and three other students from Gahanna Middle School East developed foam trash into carbon to purify water. The students were in eighth grade when the project started and are in currently ninth now. The students got the idea from a trip to Central America, where they found that styrofoam littered the area excessively. They began to think of ways to recycle foam because the solutions for recycling styrofoam was very limited and expensive. Cofer and his friends went through many failures to receive their final solution. The group got together a couple days a week to work on the project and divided up the work. Finally, the group found the solution with the correct temperatures, time, and chemicals. The final name for the idea was called Styro-Filter. The idea received a grant from eCYBERMISSION, First Global Innovation Awards, and from the Lego League. The money will be used to get a patent and further develop research. Ashton was even given the honor to explain his story on TedTalks. The project is a great humanitarian and chemical engineering victory. Cofer and his group turned a wasteful material into a useful material with some hard work and brainpower.

3 Comments

Categories : Recycling, Uncategorized

Solar Schoolbags

Posted by Hannah Hastings

· Friday, October 7th, 2016

· 1 Comment

When Thato Kgatlhanye was 18 and fresh out of high school, she knew she wanted to do something for the underprivileged communities in South Africa where she grew up. She and her friend Rea Ngwane immediately founded the social enterprise ‘Rethaka’ without a single clue what they were going to do. 2 years later, they found the idea that would impact thousands of children across South Africa.

At age 21 in 2014, Thato Kgatlhanye founded the social enterprise Repurpose Schoolbags which takes plastic bags, upcycles them into durable schoolbags, and installs solar-powered lighting on the outside. The bag charges in the sun during the day, and turns into a portable light for the children to study with at night. It is also made with reflective material so the children are easily visible to traffic on their way to and from school.

The idea was inspired by Thato’s mother and the local impoverished communities of South Africa. Thato’s mother studied by candlelight when she was a child, and usually the candle would only last until Wednesday of the school week, meaning she couldn’t study on Thursday or Friday. Currently, many children in South Africa use plastic bags as schoolbags, and don’t have adequate lighting to study after school. Thato wanted to provide a sustainable solution, and so Repurpose Schoolbags was born.

Thato plans to light up 24 African nations, and has won over $40,000 in business competitions to sustain the enterprise. Her business’s impact is growing, and she was featured on the front of Forbes in February 2016. In the future she plans to expand the concept of solar lighting to raincoats for children, but for now her organization’s focus is on getting the solar schoolbags to as many children as possible. Her work has inspired many others, and I hope to see her company featured more as her influence expands across Africa.